Jump to content
News Ticker
  • I am now accepting the following payment methods: Card Payments, Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal
  • Latest News

    German Military History ? Research Resources ? State Handbooks and Rank Lists


    Recommended Posts

    This is part of a series of links to books digitized and available on Google Books which I have collected. I hope the books will be useful or interesting to you (and ideally both :beer: ).

    Many of the books here are downloadable, but many can only be read online. All of the books I have identified here, however, are fully available (there are many more books which appear to have been digitized but are not available for either reading or downloading).

    This series of books are military rank and seniority lists and their civilian equivalents, the state handbook.

    There are quite a few other ranklists that Google appears to have digitized, but are not available online or to be downloaded, but this is quite a bonanza of free books so I'm not complaining too much.

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    Dave,

    Thanks for sharing these links. This is wonderful information, but I am so surprised that Google has had these obscure books digitized. These types of reference books have been locked away in secure parts of old libraries for many years with no access to them and little understanding of what they were and where they were. This type of disemination will secure the future of these works and make the possibility of them being destroyed by fire or natural disaster that much less.

    Finally, this effort helps our hobby in that the rare and valuable tomes are available to the masses and thus the dependence of the collecting community on a few experts is lessened. This is important, I think, as it helps us to avoid some of the great losses the community takes when one of our reseachers is suddenly no longer with us. I think of our medal collecting friends and all the information that was almost lost when our esteemed mentor passed on.

    Thanks to Google and you!

    Chip

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    Apparently the ability to download or not is based on your IP-address. If you can 'imitate' a US IP-address it will work.

    /Mike

    Hi Mike

    :unsure: How would I do that? If someone could help me out by downloading it and mailing to my gmail account.....that would be veeeeeery helpfull :unsure:

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    Depending on copyright and the conditions set by the source, the terms and limits of access vary greatly.

    When useful, Google Books is very useful, but you may find more frustration that joy. More an example of what may someday be possible than anything else?

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    Hi Mike

    :unsure: How would I do that? If someone could help me out by downloading it and mailing to my gmail account.....that would be veeeeeery helpfull :unsure:

    Use one of those 'anonymous surfing' apps out there...

    I needed an anonymizer when I bought the HD version of the Terminator 2 DVD. Each time you wanted to see it, it had to contact a license server and if you were not a US or Canadian resident (it checked your IP address) - bad luck and your money was wasted...

    /Mike

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    Depending on copyright and the conditions set by the source, the terms and limits of access vary greatly.

    When useful, Google Books is very useful, but you may find more frustration that joy. More an example of what may someday be possible than anything else?

    Google Books, being U.S.-based, appears to default to U.S. copyright laws. Under U.S. laws, all of these works are in the public domain because their copyright expired or they never were copyrightable.

    The ranklists, seniority lists, state handbooks, and the like, for what it's worth, are also not under copyright in Germany, their country of origin. Under ? 5 of the Gesetz ?ber Urheberrecht und verwandte Schutzrechte (Law of Copyright and Related Protections), they are official works and not protected by copyright.

    Not that this helps get around Google's defaults.

    Edited by Dave Danner
    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    Carol I, remember that - like Dave mentions - not all the sources are downloadable but some are only viewable online (no matter if you are in the US or not)...

    Thanks Dave, but what I meant to say is that although the "Download PDF" option does appear on the page, when clicking on it only a blank page appears. I suspect that the "Download PDF" button is not linked directly to the PDF file and thus it might get out of proxify's settings.

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    Thanks Dave, but what I meant to say is that although the "Download PDF" option does appear on the page, when clicking on it only a blank page appears. I suspect that the "Download PDF" button is not linked directly to the PDF file and thus it might get out of proxify's settings.

    The button is directly linked to the file. If I right click the button and choose "Save target as...", I get the pdf file. Did you try that?

    Could be you are experiencing the old MS IE 6.0 + Adobe PDF bug: "Opening a PDF file within Internet Explorer 6.0 sometimes shows only a blank page"...

    If it still doesn't work, Ulsterman's offer seems like the way to go...

    /Mike

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    I can't believe this! I did some quick searching the the number and types of books that available in PDF format is incredible! I am going to be downloading forever! Thanks Dave.

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    Create an account or sign in to comment

    You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

    Create an account

    Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

    Register a new account

    Sign in

    Already have an account? Sign in here.

    Sign In Now
    ×
    ×
    • Create New...

    Important Information

    We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.