Author: Charles Woolley
Publisher: Schiffer Books

It is generally accepted that Austria-Hungary was where the postcard as we know it today was first mass produced and was seen as a way of increasing post office business by reducing the time and postage of letter-writing, and their popularity quickly spread throughout Europe. The first commercially published postcards were made available for use by French and German troops in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War. They were welcomed by soldiers due to the expense and scaricity of writing paper and envelopes necessary for letters. By the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, the majority of the world’s postcards were printed in Germany due to their high technical skill in the printing process.

In the early evolution of postcards, the artwork depicted was created by artists but with the advent of commercial photography, the artwork was gradually overtaken by photography as it advanced in both popularity and quality. At the same time, photographers in Germany were beginning to produce photographic postcards of the Kaiser, his family and his more famous generals in their full dress uniforms. Due to the attractive nature of the subjects and vast variety, people began collecting and mounting them in specially designed albums. This trend in the market caused the distributors to turn to additional subjects, naval ships, the Kaiser’s military maneuvers, parades and the newly developing craze – flight.

In 1913 Willi Sanke began marketing cards of the various early pilots along with cards of their aircraft and zeppelins with the cards being assigned numbers. By WW1, the cards were numbered in the low 300’s and with the issuance of card # 340 Max Immelmann and 363 Oswald Boelcke, a new and vey popular market was born – Germany’s Knights of the air. These cards were Germany’s version of Americas rising interest in collecting baseball cards. Many of these cards were sent by the youth of Germany to the pilots themselves requesting their autographs with many pilots keeping a supply of cards to fulfill the many autograph requests by their admirers. These cards depicted a wide range of uniforms as the pilots came from various branches of the German Army and brought along their service uniforms into the newly formed Imperial German Flying Corps. And, with the advent of World War I, military subjects came to the forefront of the postcard business. As the war progressed, more and more pilots along with other military figures were added to the Sanke line til they made up the bulk of their production.

When a famous pilot would be killed in action, memorial editions of existing cards were issued with black borders to honor the fallen oftentimes with some heroic prose added. Richtoffen had no less than 11 cards issued of him with 3 being memorial editions.

The book contains all know personality cards issued by Sanke and are highly sought after by collectors. In the case of certain aviators, Baron von Richtoffen, Max Immelmann (Germany’s first ace) and Oswald Boelcke among others whose pictures are autographed, can command hundreds of dollars. In addition to both the famous and not so famous pilots, also included were gunners and observers and their various uniforms. The book is not intended as an in depth biography of these aviators but rather a showcase of their cards shown in their wide array of uniforms.

This is the first time in eighty-five years that the famous Sanke postcards of World War I Imperial German Aviators have been reproduced in one volume. Reproductions of all known and highly collectible Sanke personality photo postcards produced during World War I are included here. Over 270 different cards of 132 individual aviators are included in this ground-breaking edition. Oswald Boelcke, Max Immelmann, the Richthofen brothers, Ernst Udet, and Hermann Goering are just a few of the famed aces along with Pour le Merite flyers photographed by Postkarten-Vertrieb Willi Sanke. Each postcard is given full page coverage, accompanied by a brief history of each man, together with his victories and highest attained award. A bibliography is included for the reader desiring to further research the lives of Germanys unusual, heralded, and greatest heroes of the First War. This book is a must for those interested in the amazing variety of uniforms along with the multitude of awards and decorations presented to Germany’s aviators worn by the flyers of the Deutsche Luftstreitkrafte, 1914-1918. Both private and museum collections around the world contributed to this collection without whom this book would not have been possible.

I have this book and it is a great reference of which the stills were used to help sculpt some of the aviators in it.
Andy