German WWI Aviation Album

A remarkable and comprehensive album featuring 183 images, primarily documenting German aviation from WWI through the mid-1930s. The album begins with pilots posed in their single-wing monoplanes, flying helmets in hand, and includes Sanke cards of Otto Stiefvater and Jeannin-Stahltaub from the Johannisthal Flying School, pen-signed and dated ‘1913’.

Images include Feldflieger Abteilung 47 personnel with vehicles, mechanics alongside aircraft, aviators in cockpits, and striking scenes of crashed aircraft in snow. Observation balloons with Iron Cross markings, air-to-ground shots, and uniformed personnel displaying flying distinction badges are also featured. A standout image shows an Imperial German aviator in a full-length crossover flying suit with visor cap and classic flying helmet.

The album continues into the late 1920s and early 1930s, showing Deutscher Luft-Lloyd operations with aircraft bearing company logos, engine repair shots, and post being loaded. De Havilland biplanes, lined-up aircraft on flying days, and further crashed bi-plane imagery are included. Early 1930s aviation is represented with forest-crashed monoplanes, Danish and Latvian Air Force aircraft in camouflage, Aero Lloyd passenger operations, Japanese aviators, seaplanes, and a visiting Russian bi-plane.

Military life is also captured, including Reichswehr personnel wearing M.16 trench helmets, officers and men at formal and informal gatherings, and ballooning activities with police-style uniforms and armbands marked ‘Luftfahrt Uberwachung’. The album concludes with highly detailed images of wicker baskets loaded with men for balloon flights.

This album offers an extraordinary visual record of German aviation, military, and civil flight development across two decades, making it a highly valuable resource for collectors and historians.

Ref; 90561