ss officers uniform

[sitges1990]

Well, here's to adept minds, and many thanks for your contributions F.B.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Well, here's to adept minds, and many thanks for your contributions F.B.

Dear Sir, thanks, and I am sure that your daughter will improve culture, civilization and knowledge in ways that might be alien to you and me, but which might have far greater benefit than we know. I am far too nostalgic about the early years of my own education, by dint of fading hormones and the lengthening shadows of old age.
I spend a lot of time with young people, to be sure, and my book was just translated into Chinese, so this fact gives me hope that even if one part of the world the dark ages is on the march, somewhere else enlightenment will unfold as it has in the past. with best wishes, FB

[Troy Tempest]

Hi again FB, one thing constantly mystifies me, the lack of English language translated German reference material. I see on the internet masses of excellent, (or what appears to be excellent ) German language books. Yet it appears to me that very few, if any, are translated into English. Now I would imagine that the English language versions of these books would sell as well, if not far better than the original German version. Is this an unrealistic appraisal of these books' worth? I have bought the occasional expensive German text book, mainly for the photos and some statistics which I can understand, eg, date of origin of an award, numbers awarded etc, but there are so many more I would buy if they were in English! I realise that printing books is an expensive business these days, I just can't accept that there is not enough English speaking people who would buy these to make them worthwhile to the publisher.

Even the Tieste books (which I have all of), and I have no statistics to back this up, but I can't believe that at least as many non-German speaking people collect tinnies and WHW items as Germans. Again, I'm not an authority on printing costs, but I can't see that having a dual language version would be too hard. The English speaking market for German militaria is huge, even just the US alone, never mind throwing in Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, even Asia, and Europe, where English seems to be the number one second language. For instance, I would really like one big weighty book on German Imperial Awards, there are some great (looking) German text books for sale, surely one English version would sell well enough to make a profit? Yes, I could (re-learn) German, but that is not a realistic option for most people, I suggest. Please explain!

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Thanks for this. Publishing in Germany has a very different dynamics than in the English speaking world, though Bertelsmann is a world, globalized publisher. I think in some cases the presses that do military themes focus just on a Gerran speaking market, but there are noteworthy examples of books in German and English. The works from Rest in Vienna with Militaria Verlag come to mind, for instance, but they are limited. A lot of English language militaria books about Germany are imported there at huge mark up. All my books are actually published in Germany, truth be told, since I find them more serious than in my native country, actually. Translation is hugely expensive, and the market for these books is in chaos, I think, with the depression in the west. My chums in Berlin publish via their Zeughaus Verlag, and I am sure they are open to English language works. But others confine themselves just to Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
I want to publish a work on black SS uniforms with them, which they are open to, in fact.
Yours is a good question and mine is not the best answer. Also, militaria in Germany is a niche market, and collides with a general abhorrence of war and military institutions, to say nothing of suspicion that interest in this junk masks a neo Nazi agenda, which works, also, against its receiving a wider readership. This is contrast to the commonwealth countries, where war, memory and material culture bulk far larger than they do in Germany. I buy most of my books in Germany in Berlin, where they have superb book stores of great value.
thanks and happy reading.

[aussielad]

well said

[Friedrich-Berthold]

I think there remains an ample quantity of authentic NS regalia to be had, if one's expectations are fairly sober. I do think that these fora have so hyper charged the whole thing, and added an element of paranoia and uncertainty to an already time of fear that the results are difficult for many.
However, I can understand the anxieties of people in the face of all of this confusion. I will always make mistakes, but the means to avert them is greater today and I have acquired many comrades in the struggle whom I esteem and respect, who help me. But, again, my goal is to deepen an appreciation of the real regalia in its detail and fullness versus the freak show with fakes and frauds that also has ulterior and less honorable motives than merely helping the beginner. Further, I was witness to an acquaintance in the late 1960s who sort of invented the genre of enfant terrible and nemesis of dealers, at this time ones located in Munich and Vienna, and maybe West Berlin. In this day, he was a curiosity. But in fact, he was the avante garde of what has exploded in the internet as the faker and fraud marauder, who has the evil dealer as his first target, but the confused collector is reduced to a drug addict state of dependence on the oracle's pronouncements, without the capacity building that comes with real education.

In any case, my best years at this game are behind me, and though I thank you for the kind comments, I think the mob will win in all of this, and the digital Scheiternhaufen awaits many of us, done in, in part by persons who profess to be of like mind, but who are not at all.

Happy reading and good luck with all your historical endeavors.

PS these comments are not directed at Ben VK, but at others...

[aussielad]

gee if i won lotto ..

[greimers]

Who would give a three year old a knife !!???!!