Description
Illustrierter Beobachter
Donnerstag, 4. Januar 1945 • 20. Jahrgang • Folge 1
Zentralverlag der NSDAP, Franz Eher Nachf. GmbH, München 22
12 pages scanned
Cover Page
Caption: „Ich will ein Flieger werden!“ (“I want to become a pilot!”)
Subject: Fine mechanic Heinz H., photographed smiling at his workbench amid aircraft instrument panels and gauges, holding a screwdriver. Caption notes his familiarity with switch and measuring instruments, tying in to the issue’s photo feature on the 1928 age cohort.
Photo credit: Reinhold Leßmann.
Major Headlines & Content
Die Nacht des Entschlusses (The Night of Decision) — A twelve-photo report by war correspondent Pincornelly following a regiment commander and a battalion commander through the night-long preparation of a front-line raid: briefing the assault troop leader, plotting routes with a map measurer, weighing a feint attack to deceive the enemy, issuing written orders, and a final hour of sleep before the operation begins. No place names or ranks beyond „Regimentskommandeur“ and „Bataillonskommandeur“ are given. Photo credit: PK-Kriegsberichter Pincornelly.
Die vom Jahrgang 1928 (Those Born in 1928) — Photo feature by Reinhold Lessmann profiling boys of the 1928 age class now serving in the Hitlerjugend, Volkssturm, and armed forces. Named: Werner W., a shoemaker’s apprentice and Luftwaffe auxiliary who jokes about wanting to be a U-boat man; HJ leader Ferdinand B., who hopes to join the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler; Peter G., a business-school pupil who has volunteered for the Gebirgsjäger; and Adolf K., a Gymnasium pupil who wants to fight as a paratrooper to reclaim his destroyed home city. Photo credit: Reinhold Lessmann.
Flitterwochen im Urlauberheim (Honeymoon at the Soldiers’ Leave Home) — Photo feature on newlywed couples — one partner arriving from the western front, the other from the east — spending their honeymoon at a leave home built by their division, showing the welcome, the room, and a group portrait of several couples together. Photo credit: Hamann, To-Ep.
Other Content
Fiction serial — Staatsanwalt Dr. Konrad Horn by H. G. Hansen (16th instalment). A crime novel following state prosecutor Dr. Konrad Horn as he investigates the financial affairs and death of a man named Stern, uncovering possible blackmail and concealed savings linked to Stern’s fiancées, his landlady Frau Hering, his housekeeper Magda, and Konrad’s own mother, Frau Horn. Other characters include Kriminalkommissar Schwed, accountant Britting, Rechtsanwalt Blank, and Magda’s sister-in-law Wilhelmine von Bork. Continues across four pages.
Household advice feature — „Wir beraten …“ (We Advise …) — Kleine Rezepte und praktische Winke. Wartime rationing recipes and tips from the Deutsches Frauenwerk’s household economics division, including Hefezwieback, dried marmalade, vinegar biscuits, a vegetable stew, Roggengrütze cakes, and a quark dessert, plus instructions for sewing an air-raid bag from a towel and a tip for building an insulated cooking box. Bildbericht by Inge Mantler.
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