Photos of Minenschiffe Tannenberg, Hansestadt-Danzig and Preussen sinking

[Stefan Siverud]

I hope English works for everyone - I can read German, but I doubt anyone else could if I tried to write it.

First of all, an introduction. My name is Stefan Siverud and I live in Kalmar, Sweden. My largest interest is history, especially WW2, and I work at Kalmar County Museum (layout/print etc). We are about to open an exhibition on how the war affected the county, in spite of being neutrality.

The sinking of the three Minenschiffe near Össbygrund is planned to take up a rather large section of a wall, provided we get a striking image of the event. As the photo would be printed in a very large size it would need to be rescanned in very high resolution. The exhibition is scheduled to open in late January, so needless to say I'm getting a bit anxious.

I know photos of the sinkings exist, I've found several. For instance, here:
http://www.kringla.nu/kringla/objekt?referens=raa/fmi/18000000068631
http://www.kringla.nu/kringla/objekt?referens=raa/fmi/18000000068619
http://www.kringla.nu/kringla/objekt?referens=raa/fmi/18000000068626

Tannenberg listing would be ideal to catch the eye of visitors, of course: http://www.fmis.raa.se/fmis/bilder/08/0840/0/foto/12000000544163_F.jpg

The problem is, I can't find any current holder of the photos. The source given on that site is the Swedish Maritime Museum, but they can't find it in their collections. Presumably the photos were taken by someone aboard one of the Räumboote, so I've contacted several German maritime museums as well as Bundesarchiv Koblenz and BaMa Freiburg, but of those that have replied, none know where I can find it.

If anyone can help me get in contact with a holder of these photos I would be most grateful.

[chattius]

G'Moie

I am far from being a navy expert, but the german wikipedia page about the Danzig has an external link added. The link shows the same photos.

http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/4107-bilder/tannenberg/tannenberg.htm

The copyright on this page reads: (c) Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte, Stuttgart

The english homepage of the copyright holder would be:
http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/en/collections/library-of-contemporary-history/


I was once interested into the Danzig because she took part in the occupation of denmark. She was mentioned by a diseased neighbour. His unit was later moved to Norway. While researching about his unit i noticed that it seemed Sweden was giving 1000 railway waggons to the german army for faster troop movement in norway? At army vacations he was moved from Finmark/Norway to germany via railway through Sweden and then a ferry from a swedish harbour.

Free photos of the Danzig while the occupation of Denmark are at:
http://samlinger.natmus.dk
for example;
http://samlinger.natmus.dk/FHM/22936


Greetings Chattius

[Stefan Siverud]

Thanks for your reply!

I've found that site and sent a mail to the authors, but I haven't received any reply so far. Perhaps someone here knows if there's a better way to contact them?

The photos in the Natmus database are very interesting to me personally, so thanks for the tip, but we already have photos of the ships before they were camouflaged.

[Teddy Suhren]

Hai

There are people of the WLB as writing Members in this Forum. If you don't get any reply on your Mail maybe they will answer you directly in this Thread or via PN.

[Karsten]

Stefan,

To get in touch with the Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte and its Naval Archive ("Marine Archiv") please contact forum member TW by PM - he (= Thomas) works at the BfZ.

[Stefan Siverud]

Thank you both! I was hoping they would be members here.
I will try PM'ing TW.

[Stefan Siverud]

Problem solved, thanks to all, especially TW!

[Karsten]

Please recommend us ...

[Stefan Siverud]

I certainly will, and I'll stick around as well. There's plenty more German and Soviet naval activity in the region I have questions about for my own research.

[t-geronimo]

No problem! Feel free to ask and to participate in discussions.