Photos 12-2-05

[Andreas Brekken]

Hi.

That's what I meant (markings on the aircraft are genuine). And please guys - it seems that this 'that seller is providing a fake and that seller is providing a fake' stuff has taken over.

We really have to be entirely sure that this is the case! Have any of You guys bought and examined photos from this guy?

The reason I am saying this is that a lot of these photos existed as copies in LARGE numbers. They were sent to the remotest of places (including Norway) and often belonged to local archives to use for public relations work (like the magazine Luftflotte Nord I have some issues of)

There was a large photo archive (partly destroyed and looted shortly afer the war) in Norway used for this purpose. A lot of the photos in the BA Fotoarchiv in Koblenz are also there (PK photographs).

Are these fakes? No! Are they originals? Yes! Are they copies? Yes!

During my work with the Battleship Tirpitz I have come across the same photograph in several photo albums. These are all wartime, but they are of course not originals! They were copied in large numbers and the crew could get them for their own album. The same thing happened also in the Luftwaffe.

In addition: A large number of photoarchives also existed at the larger news agencies. During the war most of the photographers, also in the PK units, seemed to serve a double role: They were privately employed by a company, like for example Atlantik, but also enrolled in a certain PK unit. The photographs they took seems to have been a part of the companies archive also. And these companies would be able to sell copies (probably censured) to other agencies, very like it is today!

Unless this is a complete fraud, it is possible that the photographs comes from such an archive, a press archive.

I am not trying to defend anyone, but I have to state that the fact that a photograph has previously been published DOES NOT IMPLY that a copy offered for sale is not a wartime copy.

Regards,
Andreas