ColinRF

Here is my 99% finished 120mm Warriors’ portrait of Colonel (later General) John B. Gordon as he may have appeared as Colonel of the 8th Alabama at the Battle of Sharpsburg (or as the Union called it – Antietam) on September 17, 1862. Gordon stands thinking of the day to come at the commencement of battle, an engagement in which he would suffer five gunshot wounds (two to his leg, one to his arm, one to the shoulder, and one to his face). The sculpture is clearly inspired by a limited edition print by noted (or perhaps notorious) civil war artist Don Troiani. The Warriors figure was withdrawn from circulation when Troiani threatened legal action for breach of copyright – he objected to the conversion of his 2D idea into a 3D model for someone else’s financial benefit. I can see his point but I think he was wrong. I will add some green to the base next week and I just realized that I missed his sword grip. I need to check hm over for other missed stuff but he is basically done. The model is painted in various acrylics, combined with significant use of water based inks. Photos are in natural light and the contrast is a little harsh. Colin

I think the Weider theory was that the Bourbons had Boney murdered by hiring Montholon to do the deed. I am not as contemptuous of the theory as you are. But I recall that the more popular of the 2 books done by the proponents of the theory was rather full of holes - classic case of presenting only evidence that supports your case. Colin

Thanks Frank! Colin

Intereesting thing is that he did attempt suicide late in the 1812 campaign but his poison was old and only made him ill. Read Caulaincourt. Its an intersting what if in history I think. Colin

The war memorial here in Stratford Ontario - beautiful site next to the river used as the frontispiece to rhe "For King and Empire" WWI series about the CEF. BTW its a very good series and it is available on youtube.com, along with a lot of other fine Great War docs. The "right vs might" statues are by W.S. Allward who is famous for the sculpting and design of Canada's famous Vimy Memorial in France. His "Canada Weeps" is a favourite work of mine. The Stratford memorial carries 346 WWI names from the town and surrounding Perth County. See http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~onperth/classified.html I attended last Remembrance Day here and the was surprised to see my favourite Celtic singer, Loreena McKennit, in uniform as an honourary Colonel of the RCAF's 435 Transport & Rescue Squadron. She sang the national anthem. http://www.rcaf-arc.forces.gc.ca/or-re/hc-ch/nr-sp/index-eng.asp?id=7995 Also potentially of interest is this site which is an inventory of Cdn war memorials, inspired by the UK site http://www.cmp-cpm.forces.gc.ca/dhh-dhp/nic-inm/index-eng.asp Colin

SWARM also have a really good forum that assists with unit and family research, as well as memorials. Good facebook page too. These activists for the memory of those who died in WWI and II have it right. Colin

Here is my painted 90mm Tercio figure of the commandant of the Brescia Company ot the Guards of Honour of Napoleon's Royal Italian Guard 1812. Metal casting painted in acrylics. Colin

So many of these small street memorials have now been lost. Too bad there are not more groups like the Salford War Memorials Project that agressively research and try to preserve war memorials in the Salford area. http://www.salfordwarmemorials.co.uk/ Colin

Makes sense....if you see two, keep me in mind. :-) Colin

Chris: Never seen one and know of no collector who has one. I expect it would be one of the harder Widerstand signatures to get given his position as 2ic in the Abwehr. Most of the paper he would have signed likely would have been confidential and I can't see him signing many award documents. I think the only option would be an early one before his Abwehr career or a personal item, perhaps from within the family. Schmolt had one on offer a few years ago but it was a different Oster who they had misattributed - they withdrew the item. His Ausweiss was on WAF a year or so ago. I attach a photo of it that may or may not show his signature. Colin

Just found this citation in Fortress Publications' complete Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works - Ecumenical, Academic, and Pastoral Work, 1931-1932 Volume 11, released last year. I had previously provided a copy of my Bonhoeffer postcard (see the first page of this string) to the International Bonhoeffer Society, where it was included on the front page of their newsletter a few years ago. The footnote here provides more info the provenance and provides me with the source for the original transcription. I also include the original scans of the postcard for context. Colin

The subjects aren't Italian - you have left to right (IMO) an Empress Dragoon of the Guard, a Guard Grenadier, a young guard or line Voltiguer, and a Chasseur a Cheval of the Guard. Cheers Colin

Thanks Paul - nice to hear from you . I am not picking up many new signatures these days but couldn't pass this up for the price. Colin

Dr. Hans Bernd Gisevius (July 14, 1904 - February 23, 1974) Yesterday I received a parcel containing a first 1947 edition of a memoir titled "To the Bitter End," being the first English translation of the post-war memoir of Hans Bernd Gisevius, a central figure in the German Resistance and one of its very few survivors. The memoir suffers from serious flaws well-known to historians in the field, not the least of which is his consistently jaundiced view of Stauffenberg, likely the result of Gisevius own resentments and jealousy. Gisevius' memoir is considered to be one of three key insiders’ accounts of the various plots and machinations of the various factions that plotted against the Nazis from 1933 to 1944, the others being "The von Hassell Diaries" by Ulrich von Hassell and the "Secret War against Hitler" by Fabian von Schlabrendorff. Gisevius’ book has the advantage of covering the history of the resistance from the Nazi seizure of power to July 20, 1944 and the period following. I have owned a copy of Gisevius' work for years. But this one is special - it’s actually signed by him. To the front flyleaf of the book is pasted a dedication to a couple named Lois and Jim Perryman from 1955. When I saw it for sale on the net, I hesitated for about 3 seconds before buying it given it had a very reasonable asking price. I have been looking for a Gisevius signature for my collection for years now and to find one affixed to a first edition of his excellent book is an extra treat. Gisevius’ post-war reputation was significantly tainted by several factors including: his unfavourable depiction of resistance icon Claus von Stauffenberg; his friendship and vigorous defense of the reputation of senior police officer and Einsatz Group B head Arthur Nebe; his general views on the guilt of the German people expressed in the witness box at Nuremburg (where he testified against Göring and for Schacht) and finally, his personal contacts with Allied intelligence which resulted in his survival while so many others died. As a result, Gisevius spent many years after WWII residing in Switzerland and the US, rather than in Germany. After graduating law school, Gisevius began his civil service career in the Prussian political police shortly after the Nazis’ seizure of power but before the force’s late 1933 transition into the tool of suppression that would come to be known as the Gestapo. He was an early resister, souring on the Gestapo after suffering some career blocks when he disagreed frequently with Gestapo chief Rudolf Diels and after suspecting Nazi crimes in the commission of the 1933 Reichstag Fire and the 1934 “Night of the Long Knives.” After being discharged from the new secret police force, Gisevius moved the Interior Ministry where he continued to perform more or less official police functions until Himmler was put in charge of all policing. He kept up close relations with his friend Arthur Nebe, chief of the Kripo (criminal police or German CID-equivalent) and through Nebe he was kept up to date with Himmler and Heydrich’s plotting to remove generals Blomberg and Fritsch in 1938. Later in 1938, Gisevius became actively involved in Hans Oster’s 1938 conspiracy to arrest and kill Hitler during the Czech crisis in the interest of avoiding a world war. As a fully committed member of the German covert opposition, Gisevius began gathering evidence of Nazi crimes for use in a potential prosecution of Hitler. This material found its way into the comprehensive secret archive known as the “Zossen archive” and maintained by Hans von Dohnanyi and Werner Schrader. Gisevius’ background as a Gestapo official with an antipathy to the Nazis made him a natural candidate for recruitment into Admiral Wilhelm Canaris’ military counter intelligence organization, the Abwehr. He established close relationships with Canaris’ second in command, Hans Oster, and he worked to position the Abwehr as a restraint on the increasing power of Heinrich Himmler and the SS. Gisevius was involved in the 1939 and 1943 plots against Hitler and he was assigned to the consulate in Zurich for intelligence duty. Canaris arranged for Gisevius to be appointed Vice Consul in Switzerland, where he met with and established a close relationship with Office of Strategic Services (OSS, later CIA) head Allen Dulles in 1943. IN this role Gisevius served as the primary liaison between the western allies and the German opposition to Hitler. He had close ties to Generaloberst Ludwig Beck, Admiral Canaris, and ex- Leipzig Mayor Carl Goerdeler. He was heavily involved in secret talks with the Vatican. On one of his return trips to Germany he was detained by the Gestapo and subsequently released. In 1944, he bravely returned secretly to Germany to be take part in the July bomb plot and coup attempt. Gisevius was on the conspirators’ cabinet list to serve as State Secretary in the event of a successful coup. Present at the Bendlerstrasse on July 20, he watched with frustration as the coup started to lose traction and as the professionals of the General Staff showed that they were amateurs at conspiracy. Observing the failing momentum as the afternoon wore on, he commented to Stauffenberg “don’t you see what kind of duds you have around you here?” He argued to Stauffenberg that the coup needed a “some corpses now” to get it back on track and he recommended that an assault group of lower officers and troops be sent to the Prinzalbrechtstrasse and the Propaganda Ministry to shoot Heinrich Mueller and Goebbels. Stauffenberg agreed but by the time Colonel Jaeger could be sent the tables had turned with the defection of the Guard Battalion. When the coup had clearly failed, Gisevius managed to exit the Bendlerstrasse and go underground in Berlin. He first hid at the home of his future wife, Swiss national Gerda Woog, and he eventually managed to flee to Switzerland in early 1945, with the assistance of a passport that had originally belonged to Carl Deichmann, the brother-in-law of Helmuth James Graf von Moltke. The passport was doctored by US intelligence in Switzerland and Gisevius was able to make the hair-raising trip across the border, just as the Gestapo was closing in. As a result, he was one of the few conspirators to survive the war and he probably knew the most of all of them about the conspiracy’s inner workings. Gisevius served as a key witness for the prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials in the case against Hermann Göring, his former boss in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior. He also testified against Keitel and Kaltenbrunner. In the cases against Hjalmar Schacht and Wilhelm Frick, he served for the defence. In his memoir Bis zum bitteren Ende, ("To the Bitter End"), published in German in 1946, he provided an effective condemnation of the Nazi revolution and leadership and he commented on the failings of the German people as a whole, claiming that they only pretended not to know about the atrocities being committed. In 1946, Gisevius was charged by the Swiss authorities but acquitted in a trial for espionage. Post-war he wrote a defense of his friend Arthur Nebe but he did not wholly succeed in revising Nebe’s soiled reputation. Gisevius died in Müllheim in Baden-Württemberg in 1974.

Congrats Chris. As you know I missed the documents in the same sale you alerted me to which went to the Dresden Military Museum. Thanks anyway. I just picked up asigned a first edition "To the Bitter End" by Hans Bernd Gisevius for $80 so I will call that my consolation prize. I will update my July 20 string when it arrives. I have a great interest in the Canaris group so thanks for posting these. Oster is indeed a controversial figure, betraying his country in an act of conscience in favour of a wider duty to western civilization. In my books a hero but if his act of defiance had cost tens of thouands of German casualties, I would sympatise with those who thought differently. Colin

End of an era -Ewald Heinrich von Kleist, last survivor of the Stauffenberg bomb plot, passed last Friday March 8.. RIP Herr von Kleist! http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-03-12/von-kleist-last-survivor-from-plot-to-kill-hitler-dies-at-90 His was the only signature in my collection that was signed for me personally and for that reason it will always gave a special place. Colin

Sure - if you get them to sell Graf vom Moltke's, Axel von Trott's, or Hans Bernd von Haeften's passport cheap let me know! Thanks Colin

Tom - a wonderful resistance-related piece to have in your collection. I have always had a special interest in the Canaris group. The members murdered by the SS in the Lehrterstrasse a few days before the end of the war almost survived but Hitler was determined to take all is enemies down with him. Too sad. A real treasure to have! Thanks Colin

Thanks Larry Colin

Merci Francois! Colin

This is my latest work - a slighty converted 1/9 scale bust by Young Miniatures. Young's bust was of a regular of the 1st Bn Lancs Fusiliers at Beaumont Hamel. I changed him through some subtle surgery to a younger Kitchener Army soldier of the 3rd Salford Pals - later to become 19th Service Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers. I adjusted his mouth, changed his shoulder flashes and sculpted in brass shoulder titles. This was my Great Unce George Ingham's unit. I don't yet have a photo of George so this generic tribute will have to do. Colin

Nice armour. Colin

I am wondering now if its perhaps brass as the corrosion has not led to the usual green patina found on bronze. I will likely leave it as is to a large degree - perhaps some cleaning and wax. Colin

Thanks Chris - its on hold for a bit as I concentrate on my new obsession - Great War. I am sure I will be back to Stauffenberg and company soon enough. Cheers Colin

The details on the 5 casualties. Colin