Sorry guys......

[Eric Queen]

.......I have been quite busy lately and have not had time to do much with the forum. I will try to post some interesting paper items over the next few weeks which I hope will stimulate some conversation. I really need your help in terms of making contributions to the threads I will be starting.

Here is something you don't see every day. A set of documents to a war correspondent "Kriegsberichter" who was a paratrooper assigned to 2.Fsch.Jg.Div. I also have is jump license and a photo of him wearing the "Kriegsberichter der Luftwaffe" sleeveband.

Looking forward to seeing other items or comments about these people from you guys.

Thanks,

Eric

[Willi Z.]

Eric,

That grouping is fascinating!!! Would love to see the photo of him wearing the cufftitle. The topic of Kriegsberichtern in FJ formations is something that was always unclear. Some thought they were not FJs..........some thought they were not assigned to the FJDs. These documents prove that there was a Truppe assigned at the divisional level, and that the Kriegsberichter was in fact a fully qualified FJ. That fact that he earned his jump badge in Oct of '42 and his other documents are while he was in the 2nd FJD, show that he was trained just as the 2nd FJD was being formed.

Willi

[Prosper Keating]

Eric,

You've done it again! You've made me break out in a muck sweat! What a wonderful group.

It is quite logical that war correspondents attached to parachute units would be para-trained in order to be able to accompany the units on airborne missions. Of course, not all war correspondents attached to a para unit would be para-trained if, for instance, the unit were in the ground rôle or on garrison duties. But in an airborne rôle, it makes sense.

On the Allied side, most of the war correspondents who went, for example, with the Allied airborne forces to Nijmegen and Arnhem on Operation Market Garden were para-trained although some of them went in by glider as it was easier to bring their recording equipment. Walter Kronkite, a household name in the USA, jumped near Nijmegen with the 101st.

A couple of SS airborne veterans told me that Adolf Kunzmann and other SS-Kriegsberichter attached to SS-Fallschirmjäger Btl 500 underwent para-training at Kraljevo. Kunzmann jumped at Drvar at 7am on May 25th1944 with the 1st wave of SS-FJ whose first task was the securing of LZs for the glider phase. His 'assistants', other SS-Kriegsberichter, arrived by glider as it was more practical in terms of bringing the camera equipment.

PK

[Prosper Keating]

An original photo by Kunzmann of the second wave of SS-Fallschirmjäger Btl 500 jumping at noon on May 25th 1944 near Drvar.

At 7am on May 25th 1944, which was Tito’s birthday, 313 men of SS-FJ Btl 500, commanded since April by SS-Hauptsturmführer Kurt Rybka, jumped on Drvar in three waves to secure landing zones for the gliderborne phase. There was no resistance but that changed, however, once the gliders carrying a further 320 men of the battalion, accompanied by Luftwaffe and Brandenburger signals team and interpreters, started landing.

The assault group tasked with the capture of Tito landed on target in their gliders but came under heavy fire and suffered high losses. Not knowing that Tito had already escaped, the SS-Fallschirmjäger launched several unsuccessful attacks. With reinforcements steadily arriving, the partisans counterattacked, pushing the paras back. At midday, the second wave jumped as planned and were cut to ribbons by partisan machinegun fire.

Kunzmann was standing beside a glider on one of the LZs secured that morning by the 1st wave of SS paratroopers. Many of the men you see jumping from the JU52s died before they even reached the ground. To say that it was a 'hot DZ' is something of an understatement. And when Kunzmann took this photograph, he wasn't exactly in a safe place himself.

After that slaughter, Rybka ordered the survivors to fall back into the town itself where they established a defensive perimeter in the cemetary and some of the surrounding buildings and waited to be relieved.

Adolf Kunzmann survived but it was a close thing: some of his photographs from Drvar and from Yugoslavia in general in 1943/44 indicate a war photographer every bit as daring as Robert Kapa or, more recently, Don McCullin. An ex-Chief Editor of the Magnum agency - to which most of the great war photographers have belonged - opined to me that Kunzmann was as good as Capa.

PK

[Stijn David]

very nice

Hello,


Very nice and interesting material you guys have, thats the least one can say => Prosper is especially like the picture from the para drop and some of the forum guys wil know that i love that one the most because of the DFS 230 in the foreground .


Cordial Greetings,

[Prosper Keating]

Your glider ID is absolutely right, Stijn. I knew you'd like that shot!

And now, compare Kunzmann's shot of the second wave coming in with this other shot of SS paras jumping near Drvar. This is also an original print. What do you notice?

Kunzmann was almost in the same position. Check out the hills in the background with the road cut into the slope. But the planes are flying in the other direction. And there no gliders on the LZ. And look at the quality of this shot compared to the first one I showed. And note the light. It is quite different to the light in the other photograph so...it is obviously a different time of day.

This is the first wave coming in at 7am to secure the glider LZs. Kunzmann is already on the DZ, having jumped a few moments before, and this is clearly a snapshot taken with the small Leica that he, like most of the other frontline PK photographers, used, with the standard. integral, short lens, for ease of transportation in a tunic or smock pocket.

It is a good image but lacks the clarity of detail of the other shot, which would have been taken with a bigger lens, possibly on a larger camera, perhaps even a Rolleiflex, which Kunzmann probably didn't have with him before the gliders arrived.

But, for me, it represents a lot of things, this hurried snapshot on a DZ in the middle of bandit country, his breath only just under control, his hands all fingers and thumbs, all effects of the adrenaline roaring through his arteries. That lull before all Hell, and it was Hell in and around Drvar, broke loose.

Pictures do, indeed, tell a story.

Prosper Keating

[JYN]

Very nice and unusual group of documents, Eric. Now, you will have to look more carefully pictures' captions in WW2 german magazines such as "Der Adler" or Illustratrierter Beobachter".
For myself, I get a nice grouping of certificates of the 14./FJR 7. Karl Jamy ended up in Brest by 1944.
The last document is a EKII certificate dated 5 Sept. 1944 signed by Obstlt. PIETZONKA (RK + Eichenlaub).
The III./FJR 7 was in Saint-Malo until the liberation of this place by August 1944. I guess, Oberjaeger Jamy escaped from there and fought in Brest until 19th September 44.



Jean-Yves

[IVAN]

Hi Eric,

here is my urkunde from a Fallsch.

LOOK THE DATE : 5 days minus of your! Of course from another Regiment.

Prosper,

sorry I haven't show you before, I forget the winner was a para.

[IVAN]

in the reverse side there is this following written,

It's written directly from the winner and speak about his Commander ( DK in gold winner)

Ivan