147 Images Emerging from 1939

This lot contains 147 original Agfacolor colour slides, documenting events in Bielefeld on 14 June 1939, during the major ceremonies surrounding the Horst Wessel Memorial and the Westfalenfahrt der Alten Garde.

The 147 slides are each mounted in an individual slide frame. (No printed or hard-copy photographs are included in this lot). The slides remain in the frames in which they were mounted decades ago.

In 1939, colour photography was still a relatively new and specialised medium. Agfacolor, introduced commercially only a few years earlier, was an advanced photographic process for its time and was certainly not an everyday choice for the average photographer. The use of colour film makes this series particularly interesting.

The complete group was acquired by me in Germany in the 1960s. At that time, someone mounted the original slides into the individual frames in which they have remained ever since. They have subsequently been stored carefully, and the colours have survived remarkably well.

Only a selection of the 147 slides has so far been digitised and studied in detail (which I uploaded in the picture gallery). The vast majority of the series has not been digitally published or fully investigated.

What makes this group especially interesting is the continuity of the photographic record. The photographer did not simply record one official ceremony. He appears to have photographed the city, the preparations, the arrival of participants, decorated streets and buildings, the Horst Wessel Memorial, processions, officials and other details throughout the day, continuing into the evening.

The photographer himself remains unidentified. He does not appear to have been an official press photographer, yet some of the photographs show remarkably good access to the events and participants. His use of Agfacolor and the fact that he followed the events for an entire day raise interesting questions about who he was, how he obtained his access and why he chose to document the day in such detail.

Included with the lot is a PDF research document containing our findings so far. It includes background information on the events of 14 June 1939, a reconstruction of the route, research into the locations visible in the photographs, observations about the photographer and suggestions for further research.

The research is deliberately presented as a working reconstruction rather than a definitive conclusion. Several locations, people and exact details remain unidentified. The extensive number of original slides offers the next collector the opportunity to continue this work and potentially uncover further information.

This is therefore not simply a collection of 147 colour photographs. It is a largely unexplored photographic record of one day in Bielefeld in 1939, preserved in its original form.

147 original Agfacolor slides
Bielefeld, 14 June 1939
Original colour photography from 1939
Acquired in Germany in the 1960s
PDF research document included
A selection of slides digitally reproduced

One day. One photographer. 147 frames. The story is still waiting to be completed.

MORE INFORMATION IN THE PDF 👇