German docs in TSAMO

[Larry deZeng]

Hi Paul -

I have just completed a second run through all 3 of these record groups - OKW, OKH and H.Gr. Mitte - and found Luftwaffe material of value and interest in just 5 folders:

Record Group 12454
Akte 334, Akte 375, Akte 385, Akte 405 and Akte 409.

The 5 Akten are specifically marked "Luftwaffe". This should save resarchers some time.

So far, this collection is pretty much of a disappointment, but that's not a surprise once I scanned through it a couple of times and saw what the files were: nearly all Heeresgruppe Mitte Ia, Ic and Ic/AO Morgen-, Zwischen-, Tages- und Abendberichten. Many have a small 2 or 3 sentence summary of Lw.-Kdo. Ost (later Luftflotte 6) operations for the day, but these are shorn of all details - units are not identified and specific locations are usually not given. These thousands and thousands of pages are German Army ground-pounder reports and only occasionally mention the Luftwaffe in passing. What little of interest there is on the Luftwaffe is confined to the 5 Koluft files listed above.

You have mentioned the need for English translations several times and I am not sure why. Wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that most researchers interested in German documents would already have a working knowledge of written German? In those few cases where this might not be true, the researcher can certainly cut and paste the file's descriptive title into Google Translate and get a reasonable translation into their own language. Many researchers who have no German may be French, Finnish, Greek, Turkish, etc., and have little English either. Are my assumptions on this wrong?

L.