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A separate part of the archive is the so-called German collection: materials produced by German propaganda companies (Propagandakompanien). After the surrender of the Third Reich in 1945, these materials were secured by the US Army and later divided among the Allies. The companies included experienced professional photographers and camera operators among their members.
Under an agreement between the Propaganda Ministry and the Wehrmacht, the companies were incorporated into the German armed forces and accompanied the troops in campaign after campaign. ECPAD’s German collection contains more than 353,000 photographs and 1,128 film titles, including 171 editions of the newsreel Die Deutsche Wochenschau and some 946 documentary films and so-called Kulturfilme produced between 1927 and 1945.
The battle for the capital and wartime destruction
At a studio presentation, the Warsaw Rising Museum showed unique visual materials depicting the Wehrmacht’s operational preparations and the scale of destruction in Warsaw in September 1939. They included images of German soldiers writing inscriptions on bombs before air raids, as well as the immediate aftermath of the bombing, including the ruins of the Warsaw University of Technology’s Chemistry Building at 3 Noakowskiego Street.
Completing the picture of wartime destruction are photographs from right-bank Warsaw showing soldiers posing on the dismantled parts of a carousel against
a backdrop of damaged tenement buildings on Grochowska, Kordeckiego and Komorska Streets.
Particularly prominent in the selection presented are visual records of the plight of civilians during the final days of the capital’s defense. The photographs show residents fleeing the fighting in Ochota under the watch of German guard posts at the brickworks near the Szczęśliwice clay pits, as well as Wehrmacht units present in the area.
The presentation closes with images from the end of September 1939 showing Warsaw residents amid the ruins of buildings near the Strzelec sound cinema in Okęcie, opposite the main entrance to the PZL (State Aviation Works) plant.
Stages of processing and terms of access
All the archival material acquired will be incorporated into the digital repositories of the Pilecki Institute and the Warsaw Rising Museum.
Digitization and metadata entry will proceed in stages:
• Online access: thumbnails of the photographs, with a scholarly critical apparatus and metadata, will gradually be made available in the Pilecki Institute’s digital catalog and the Warsaw Rising Museum’s Fototeka (photo library).
• On-site access: full high-resolution digital copies will be available to researchers for scholarly and educational purposes in the Pilecki Institute’s reading rooms in Warsaw and Berlin and in the Warsaw Rising Museum’s archive.
Both institutions will provide access to the same collection within a consistent metadata system.
Photo: Michał Zajączkowski
Warsaw Uprsing Museum