Welcome

Welcome to the website of the “Private archive of historical-military photos”. The goal of our project is to show moments of the World War II and pre-war time like they were seen by a simple man with a photo camera. The collecting of photos gives a unique possibility to see historical events that impressed authors of photos with your own eyes. To collect and to save scenes of life on- and behind front lines, to take a look into faces of soldiers and their commanders, to see the pain and horror of civilians, ruined cities that became targets for air raids and shelling. With our project you will be able to lift the veil of time and take a look at dramatically events captured by their direct eyewitnesses on photographic paper and films..

Vast majority of photos from our archives have never been published before, there are only scans taken from original World War II photos that were stored in private collections and family archives of site authors and our partners. If you have such photos in your collection or in a family archive and would like to take part in our project – please let us know! To learn more about participation please visit 'about' sub-section of this site or leave a message through 'feedback’ form.

We welcome you to visit a discussion forum and hope that this will be a point of contacts for people united by hobby of collecting and studying of military-historical photos.

Disclaimer. There are photos from both sides of front line published in our archive: Allies and Axis, including photos taken by soldiers and officers of Third Reich. All photos are published here as historical materials only for study and research purposed by collectors, re-enactors and military history enthusiasts. This web-site “Private archive of historical-military photos” has no connection with any political organizations and does not support any political beliefs.

Project news

This site has been updated!

2012-02-11

There is a new sub-section for aviation related photos in a Germany section. There are five photos were added. The photo of puppy poses on a tail assembly of Fw190 plane, the photo of Luftwaffe NCO with armourer’s trade patch in front of a Fw190A-6. There are photos of two crashed planes: the first one is a He111 landed in a snow field near Rzhew and another one is a Bf109E-1 ‘Yellow 11’ of 3./Jagdgeschwader 53 ‘Pik As’ flown by Heinrich Leschert emergency landed on a beach in Boulogne. There is a photo of two Bf110Ñ-1 fighter planes with "sharks mouth" nose paint of 5./Zerstörergeschwader 76.

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Feldpostnummer database

Feldpostnummer (FPN or Fp Nr) is an identification number for a German military unit during World War II used for military mail service (Feldpost). This is complete database of Field post numbers for all branches of the Wehrmacht, Krigsmarine, Luftwaffe, Waffen-SS and auxiliary forces. To search through the database enter five digit Feldpostnummer code without letter prefix or suffix, search result opens in a new window.

Feldpostnummer :

Random album

Luftwaffe paratrooper Joseph Krissel photo album, it contains photos taken from 1939 to 1944. There are pre-war photos of young Joseph in civil cloth, then photos from service time in RAD and NSKK: portrait photo in a crash helmet, photos with Zundapp motorcycle and Mercedes Benz 290 Cabriolet car. There are photos taken during Krissel’s service in the Luftwaffe as ground personnel. Album continues with photos taken furing paratroopers training in France in 1943: jumps, shooting exercises with MG-34 machine gun, Joseph dressed as a ‘Green Devil’ in jump smock, M38 helmet, knee pads and RZ-20 parachute harness. There are several shots from service time in Italy: Krissel wears tropical uniform with a rare combination of driver’s and Fallschirmjäger badges, photo with his comrade-in-arm Walter Kluge etc. There is a post card in album with brief information about post-war fate of Krissel and Kluge and their meeting in Berlin in 1958.

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