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The U.S. National Archives (NARA) has aerial photographs of Germany taken in 1945. If you would like to see what your ancestral village or city looked like from the sky 60 years ago here's how to obtain a photo: 1. Write to the National Archives at the address below, telling them you would like to obtain an aerial photo of a particular German town. Give them as much information as you know: where the town is located today, what Kreis (county), what province (state). You should also mention the nearest large town or city. Use this webpage if you don't know this information already. State that what you are looking for is part of Record Group 373 (Records of the Defense Intelligence Agency [DIA]).
Aerial Photographs Team Cartographic and Architectural Reference (NWCS-Cartographic) National Archives and Records Administration 8601 Adelphi Road College Park, MD 20740-6001 you may now also email this information to NARA: carto@nara.gov you must include your regular (snail) mail address with your email request 2. You will get a form back from NARA (it can take several weeks) with index numbers and information on it related to your village. They will also include a few flyers for photography vendors near the Archives who do this kind of work--NARA does not do photo reproductions--you must choose a vendor from their list. 3. Mail or fax the form to the vendor of your choice, along with payment. I have used a company called Bara-King who did excellent work, but feel free to chose anyone else who appeals to you--they all have different services and prices. You can request a print or a copy negative, or both. The more you pay, the better quality you will get. If you really want better detail get a 10" x 10" negative rather than the smaller 5" x 5". Also, keep in mind you can't just take these kinds of negatives to a one hour photo lab where you live--you'll need to find a professional lab to make prints from these odd size negatives. Or you can just have the vendor you choose make prints for you. 4. What you will get: a black and white photo of a small portion of Germany that includes your village and possibly two or three other nearby villages. The scale on a 10" x 10" print is approx. 1:40,000. You can easily make out roads, hills, farming fields, clumps of houses. You can almost make out churches. You will probably invest in a magnifying glass and say, what's that blurry thing there? You will have a nice, unusual addition to your genealogy collection. To see an example of one of these photos click here: Aerial Photograph of Germany. |