Our latest trip to the archives (Patreon)

So, Chris (Military Aviation History) and I went to the German Military Archives in Freiburg from Monday to Friday to take photos of the various files we want to look into for our next major project and also a few misc ones for videos etc.

We took more than 6000 photos with our scanners and phones, the latter mostly for huge maps, blueprints or diagrams that didn't really fit.

We found a lot of interesting things, among them was a mention of the "Hetzer", whereas most files note Jagdpanzer 38, leichter Panzerjäger 38 t, etc. I still need to check if it was actually referring to the Jagdpanzer 38. I think this was my first time reading "Hetzer" in an original war-time document. I have seen it before in a document 1-2 years after the war.

I also stumbled upon a series of books that had a different "nazi eagle" on the back for each issue, with one exception where it was the Kriegsmarine ensign. The interesting aspect here is that there were 2-3 eagles I did not recognize and for one I asked a far more experienced historian and he did not knew either!

Another interesting find was an order from General Model noting that Pioneers should not be used for combat duty, which is quite interesting considering that Model had a reputation for throwing basically cooks at the front line.

Thanks for making such trips possible!

Cheers,
Bernhard