Unser Bataillon in Frankreich — "Soldaten berichten" (Gauverlag Bayerische Ostmark, Bayreuth, c. 1941)

A soldiers' own account of the 1940 campaign in France — a Wehrmacht battalion's commemorative history, assembled from the diaries and firsthand reports of men across its units. Compiled by Unteroffizier Walter Stark, with original drawings, initials, and vignettes by Gefreiter Edmund Saalfrank and photographs by Unteroffizier Ludwig Höning, and issued through the NSDAP regional press at Bayreuth.

Unlike the mass-market propaganda titles of the period, unit books like this were printed in small numbers for the soldiers themselves and their families, which makes surviving copies comparatively scarce. The text moves at ground level — the campaign as recorded by the men who fought it, illustrated throughout with black-and-white plates, text drawings, and a color plate ("Triaucour").

This copy carries its own wartime history: it entered the student library of the Gymnasium Amberg in Bavaria, accessioned in 1942, with the school's stamp and shelf number to the title page — a tangible trace of how such accounts reached young readers on the home front.

Grey linen hardcover with stamped steel-helmet-and-oak-leaf to the front board, Fraktur title.

Condition: Good — water-staining to lower front cover, wear and light fraying to spine ends and corners; interior clean and sound. 

42 Pages.

Offered as a historical artifact for research, education, and collecting.