Ukraine-Born American Artist Boris Artzybasheff’s Anti-Nazi Illustrations
Boris Artzybasheff (25 May 1899 – 16 July 1965) created many of these abstract anti-Axis illustrations for America’s Wickwire Spencer Steel Company (1901 – 1963) in World War II. Continue reading »
Life Before World War II: Fascinating Color Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Budapest, Hungary in 1939
Though the history of color photography dates back more than a hundred years, the production and publication of color enlargements (photopositives) has only been widespread since the 1940s, when color film first entered mass use. These fascinating color photographs were taken by an unknown photographer using Agfacolor, they show everyday life in Budapest in 1939, just before the Second World War. Continue reading »
Amazing Vintage Photos of Postwar New York From 1945 to 1948
3rd Avenue from 42nd Street El Station, 1945
These stunning pictures of postwar New York were taken by Todd Webb, an American photographer notable for documenting everyday life and architecture in large cities as well as from the American west. He did various jobs before the war and began taking a serious interest in photography after attending a ten-day workshop with Ansel Adams as his teacher in 1940. During World War II, Webb was a photographer for the United States Navy and was deployed to the South Pacific theater of operations. Continue reading »
London During the Blitz Through Powerful Color Photos
A bus is laying inside a huge bomb crater in a London street after heavy German air raid bombing attacks during the Battle of Britain, October 15, 1940
Born 1912 in Evanston, Illinois, American photographer William Vandivert work for the Chicago Herald Examiner from 1935. He joined the Life magazine team in London in 1938 and was one of the few photographers who were working in color photography before the Second World War. Vandivert made color photo report in Paris in the summer of 1939. He was using Kodachrome. The following year he photographed in color the Blitz in London. Continue reading »
These Colourised Photographs Show How People Took Shelter in The London Underground in The 1940s
According to Lottie Cutcher, a photo retouch magician: “My name is Lottie, and I love looking through old photos. For my day job I work in costume, so I’m passionate about social history and getting the colour accurately matched. I recently started colourising black and white photographs to bring out how the scene would have actually looked at the time the picture was taken. I think black and white photographs have a beautiful style of their own, but colourising them helps the pictures feel relevant and relatable today, and gives them more context in the real world. Continue reading »
Rare Photographs Reveal British Soldiers Manning Anti-Aircraft Guns in Full Drag in World War II
This set of photographs, taken by John Topham while working in RAF intelligence, was censored by the British Ministry of Information when they were taken during the Second World War. The images were captured during a visit to the base of the Royal Artillery Coastal Defence Battery at Shornemead Fort, near Gravesend, in Kent. Continue reading »
Photographs of Excited Dutch Boys Hanging on a Moving Train After the Liberation, 1945
In 1945, photographer Menno Huizinga took these photos of excited Dutch boys hanging on the door of a moving train after the Liberation from German occupation. Their faces are contorted into a mad sort of joy. The photographs could have been taken on the Liberation Day on May 5 1945. Continue reading »
The Mysterious Woman Who Ticking Military Men Under Their Chins While Taking Pictures in the Photo Booth in the 1940s
These were part of a huge lot of 1940s era photo booth photos that has since been dispersed into many different collections. No one knows who is this woman and why is she ticking these soldiers under their chins while taking pictures? Continue reading »
Vintage Photos Capture Farewell Scenes At Penn Station In World War II
At the height of the Second World War, in April 1943, LIFE photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt came to Penn Station, NYC and captured the sorrowful farewell scenes between young soldiers and their families. These forlorn figures, who were bidding goodbyes, seemed to anxiously fear that they might never have any chance to reunite with their loved ones after this departure. Continue reading »
German Soldiers Called These Soviet WW2 Tanks “Mickey Mouse”
It’s hard to find anything funny about World War II. However, sometimes soldiers had to (to keep spirits up).
The tank which caused a good mood among Wehrmacht soldiers was actually one of the most successful Soviet tanks of the 1930s – the BT-7. This light maneuverable tank was fast (up to 50 mph on road and 30 mph offroad) and armed with a 45 mm gun and two 7.62 mm machine guns – good enough to effectively fight against enemy infantry and light military equipment. Continue reading »
Wonderful Photos Of Everyday Life In Postwar Leningrad, The City That Refused To Starve In WWII
It was Leningrad, not Stalingrad that was the Eastern Front’s real World War II humanitarian disaster. Nazi Germany sent hundreds of thousands of civilians to their deaths through starvation and hypothermia. Continue reading »
The ‘World’s Biggest’ War Diorama, A State-Funded Exhibition Recreates The Battlefields Of WWII In Brutal Detail
Anatoly Maltsev/EPA/EFE
A scene showing one of the first trench battles is prepared by a scenery worker for the opening of the 3D Panorama exhibition “Memory talks. The road through war” in the former Sevcabel port in St. Petersburg, Russia, 16 September 2019. Various 3D dioramas – containing genuine wartime items such as aircraft, tanks and artillery in original size – allow visitors to walk through scenes from the beginning to the end of WWII without any museum barriers. Continue reading »
This Heartbreaking Sculpture Depicts The 82 Kids That Were Handed Over To The Nazis In The Town Of Lidice Back In 1942
World War II is known to be the deadliest conflict in human history. Somewhere between 50 to 85 million people lost their lives due to the pointless, mindless war that was based on two Utopian ideologies. Needless to say, the combat only served the upper men instead of those who fought them. Unbelievably cruel massacres and atrocities were carried out both by Soviets and Nazis – the Holodomor, Holocaust, strategic bombing, etc. Yet, the memory of those wasted lives remains. One of the most atrocious acts done by Nazis was the wiping out of the Lidice village located in former Czechoslovakia (now in the territory of Czech Republic). Continue reading »
Defenders Of The Soviet Arctic During The Great Patriotic War – The Giant Monument On The Edge Of Russia
The monument ‘Defenders of the Soviet Arctic during the Great Patriotic War’ – better known as ‘Alyosha’ celebrates the defense of Murmansk during WWII. As a result of the long and exhausting clashes in 1941-1942, Soviet troops thwarted joint German-Finnish armies to capture this important Soviet northern port-city.
The square with this 115 feet-high monument is beloved by locals and visitors to the city alike, since here they can enjoy remarkable views over Murmansk. Continue reading »
Trümmerfrauen: The Women Who Helped Rebuild Germany After World War 2
After the end of World War 2, one of the main tasks was to clear the urban areas of ruin and start rebuilding Europe—Germany in particular, where the damage was extensive. Allied bombing had laid to waste nearly every German city, town and village, destroying millions of homes, public buildings, schools, factories, as well as centuries-old cathedrals, mediaeval houses and other historic structures. Continue reading »
“Sweetheart Grips”: WWII Soldiers Would Make Clear Grips For Their Pistols To Display Their Sweethearts
Soldiers throughout history have always personalised their equipment. By using something as artistic as nose art on a 16 ton bomber, or as simple as scratching their initials into their canteen or into the butt of their rifles. Since WWI, we have been used to battlefield art known as ‘trench art’. Continue reading »
This Brutal Tank Monument Located In Russian Wilderness, Reminds Abandoned Alien Spaceship
The monument-memorial is considered the hallmark of the Tatsinsky district, Rostov Region, Russia. Dedicated to the 2nd Guards Tatsinsky tank corps, which defeated the air base in the village Tatsinskaya in December 1942, the memorial was opened in May 1983. Designed by artist-architect P. Ibalakov. The memorial represents the remains of German aircraft and tanks of the 24th tank corps aspiring forward. Continue reading »
Jenny On The Job: 8 Posters Of An Ideal Woman Emancipated By World War 2
In 1943, Jenny was on ‘The Job’. A role model to American women, Jenny on The Job was the lithesome blonde doing her bit for the war effort. In a series of eight posters issued by the United States Public Health Services, artist Kula Robbins showed us Jenny at work, at home, lifting things the correct way (i.e. whilst smiling), skating, loving her “low heels” and in the shower. Continue reading »
