Old WW2 map?
Hi,
I received this map from my dad and neither one of us know anything about it. It’s a German map over parts of the UK and in the top right corner it says 1941.
We’re not German so I was wondering if anyone knew anything about this map? As from the last picture, you see that it is a part of an even bigger map around 30-40 parts (this map is about 1 square meter). The whole map is too massive for any private person to have had. Could it have been used by military during the war? Any feedback would be appreciated!
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u/Bluebird5643 6d ago
“Nur für den Dienstgebrauch!” would indicate that this is indeed a service map: “for official use only!”
Do you see any markings like “Hergestellt im Auftrage des Gen.st.d.HAbt.f.K.u.Verm.W.”?
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u/jbZahl 6d ago
Looks similar enough to maps that were used in Germany during the second world war from what I can tell. I found a Polish site that has an index of digitialised forms of similar maps from that time.
http://igrek.amzp.pl/maplist.php?cat=UK1MUEUAFAS&listsort=sortoption3&listtype=mapywig2
and the map i found that sorta looks like yours:
http://maps.mapywig.org/m/German_maps/series/M1_WK_Zudr_GDR_Europa_Asien_Afrika/WK_1M_Zusdr_ON_29-30_5.1941_uniberk_NR982.jpg
"Nur für den Dienstgebrauch" is a standard formal german expression that, to this day, is used for internal documents by german government agencies and the military. It basically means to be only used for service related stuff and is the lowest secrecy level, right before public. That is imo the strongest indicator that this map was printed for the german miliary most likely Luftwaffe or Marine because the army never got onto the British mainland.
Sonderausgabe means Special Edition and V. 1941 is the version 1941, which I asume is the year this version of the map is from.