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GRITTY 1940 NAZI PHOTO BOOK ABOUT THE INVASION OF POLAND

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Wir zogen gegen Polen (Our Trek against Poland) is a very interesting, heavily illustrated hardcover commemorative book of the VII. Armeekorps or 7th German Army Corps and their participation in the Wehrmacht invasion of Poland in September and October 1939.

The 244 page hardcover book starts with a picture of Adolf Hitler addressing Parliament in Berlin and below it, part of his speech in which he announced the start of the German invasion of Poland.

Hauptmann Dr. Gehring was responsible for assembling the content which consists of interesting Truppenberichten or reports from men fighting at the front. The lively text is accompanied by fine sketches by Albert Reich who traveled with the Wehrmacht. They perfectly illustrate the text and show soldiers in battle and eating from a mess kit, the local population, butchering pigs for the field kitchen, battle damage, local architecture, Polish vehicles, weapons and equipment, Polish soldiers surrendering, and even a Galician Jew.

Above, Commanding General of the VII Army Corps Eugen Ritter von Schobert

Wir zogen gegen Polen has 148 pages of text, plus an additional 96 pages of period photos printed on high-quality glossy paper sections in the text. The gritty photos show great variety -
commanding generals and their staff (including Commanding General Schobert of the VII Army Corps), Wehrmacht motorcycle troops, tanks, Nazi artillery, hungry Polish POWs, destroyed Polish military equipment, Wehrmacht troops advancing in rubber boats and on horseback, General von Schobert in the cockpit of a Fieseler Storch (he later died in one during Operation Barbarossa), Luftwaffe planes above the battlefield, ethnic Germans welcoming Wehrmacht soldiers, field kitchens, Polish mass graves and German soldier graves, a small group of displaced Polish Jews on the side of a road, soldiers receiving decorations in the field, soldiers writing Feldpost letters to loved ones, Pioniere rebuilding bridges, Polish capitulation, soldiers interacting with local women, etc., etc.

Inside the back cover is a fine 21 inch fold-out map showing the advance of several divisions all the way to Lemberg (now Lviv in Ukraine) and Zamosc in southeastern Poland (shown at the bottom of this USMBOOKS web page).

Above, Wehrmacht soldiers on a captured Polish tank

This 85+ year old example of Wir zogen gegen Polen comes with its original dust jacket that features a striking illustration by well-known Munich artist Blasius Spreng. The colors of the dust jacket are bright and it shows only light wear for its age. The hard covers of the book are in excellent condition as are the picture pages and the text.

The heavily illustrated 7-3/8 x 9-3/8 inch hardcover book was published by the Central Publishing House of the Nazi Party, Franz Eher Nachfolger in Munich in 1940, and this example of Wir zogen gegen Polen is from the Third Edition (31-50,000). Tight spine, no odor.

There is a small label glued on the page opposite the front fly leaf and some previous owner neatly typed “In Memory of Easter 1940” on it (in German).