ortraude-blog

[ortraude-blog]

Painting of a downed German Ace, Russia 1943

[ortraude-blog]

Siegfried Seidel-Dittmarsch, a very early and shortlived chief of staff in the SS. He earned his ribbon bar in WW1. According to Wolff he attempted to siphon the SS institution away from Himmler during the time when Himmler was very occupied with his new post in the German police, the author of Wolff's biography does not believe this was the case. Seidel-Dittmarsch died in February 1934 after serious illness

[ortraude-blog]

Willy Liebel, the mayor of Nürnberg, hands over a copy of the Reichsschwert to AH who is flanked by Hess and Streicher (Gauleiter for the Gau containing Nürnberg), 1935. The original Reichsschwert is still in possession of Austria at this time, The Nürnberg Rally of 1935, but Liebel has his mind firmly fixed on the Regalia of which the sword is a part and to make AH interested in their existence, he had this copy made as part of a symbolic ceremony which links AH up with all …former rulers of the First [and the maybe also Second) Reich. The sword is given with the words: The German Reichsschwert to the Führer of all Germans. There was no coronation of any king in the republic but the party or Liebel alone managed to set up a ceremony which connected AH with the traditional coronation of a king/emperor and the legitimacy which came with it. Liebel wanted the regalia to return to Nürnberg. After the Anschluss Liebel claimed the regalia and at the Nürnberg rally in 1938 Seyss-Inquart unwillingly had to turn them over to Nürnberg.

[ortraude-blog]

Map over the damage done to Nürnberg caused by the later bombings of the city in 1945

[ortraude-blog]

This is a beautiful even if tragic piece:  George Matthews Harding. Boche Plane Falling in No Man’s Land of the Verdun Offensive

[ortraude-blog]

Ernst Fuchs, 1930-2015The Victor - What did the artist have in mind?

[ortraude-blog]

Jakop Epstein with his sculpture of Satan