Pics 93 & 94. Are they Bf or Me designation? Or is this one of those where it doesn’t really matter. I seem to recall that Bf 109 was the official designation, since the design was from the Bayerische Flugzeugwerke (spelling?) company. But because the company was renamed to Messerschmitt, did some of the later aircraft actually carry the Me 109 designation?
Indeed the “Bayerische Flugzeugwerke AG” were renamed “Messerschmitt AG” in September 1938. The early versions of the 109 and 110 had the prefix “Bf”, the later ones “Me”. However it was / is common practice to call the early ones “Me”, too.
About the 109: The “Dora” (Bf 109 D) was the last “Bf”-version, followed by the Me 109 E.
Pic 102. As I mention, I can only go by the inscriptions that are in the album below the photo or on the back of the photos themselves. In this case it simply reads ‘Russian Tanks’. However, Starfire identifies the tanks as German Panzer I A or B. Could this be the case, as they certainly look like Russian soldiers? Would they have commandeered the tanks after the German surrender / defeat.
The tanks are German built Panzer I tanks, which were already obsolete in 1939. Im mid 1941 about 150 were still in use, mainly for instructional purposes.
You might think the crews are Russian because of their strange looking caps. However, these were standard issue for German tank crews from the early days of the Wehrmacht.
I think this picture is actually a copy of a (propaganda-?)photo taken during a maneuver before the outbreak of WWII. Don´t know, how this one got into the collection, but like the Graf-Spee-photo, this one somehow does not fit into the context, too …
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