Historic Bookends

[Ralph A]

August 1st, 1914:

[Ralph A]

...

[Guest Rick Research]

GOOD ones Ralph!!!!!

Street corner flyers aren't likely to survive, and this particular Before And After is really neat!

I have a bunch bound (so I couldn't copy them if I dared--they'd fall to pieces being cheap paper) in what became the Bund der Asienk?mpfer magazines that were handed out on Berlin street corners at the end of 1918 and 1919 pleading for information from anyone who had heard from any of the "lost" units cut off in the East, and reporting on stray radio contacts from the Ukraine or random phone calls that miraculously got through from Turkey.

A photographic version--

August 1914, Reservists in pre-war blue turn up at Lockstedter Lager, rifles brought from home with strings for slings, surrounded by bags of "stuff" and parcels from home:

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November 1918, the citizens of Trier turn out en masse in front of the Opera House to welcome the returning troops back home. The war is over! We are alive!

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[Guest Rick Research]

Or alternatives--

August 1914: privilege and poverty meet on the street. Joy! War! Glory! What splendor!

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November 1918: cannon in the streets of Berlin prepare to mow down fellow citizens AFTER the "war to end all wars" has ended-- or has it, really?:

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[Daniel Murphy]

Great pieces of history. I have seen very few flyers like that that have survived. Most people looked at them, a few actually read them and then just about all would have thrown them away. I still don't see how they hold up the books though Rick, excellent photos to demonstrate the periods. Those 1914 reservists don't look very happy to be yanked from their peaceful lives and thrust into a war. If they only knew what was to come.

Dan Murphy