Old German stuff i found

If anyone wants to take a whack at transcribing that'd be nice. I can't make heads or tails of that messy script except "Johann Kaptiza" on the signature, but it looks like it's spelled differently on the other side of the card.

can you post a version that isn't flipped sideways?

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thank you

it seems to me to be a German work pass or passport of some kind
can we get a look at the cover?

It's not messy, it looks like a combination of Suetterlin and earlier German script.

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it has a lot of dates from 1940 to 1942 in the back

Awesome, your grandfather was a corpse desecrator and thief!

Name: Johann Kaptiza
Born: 28. May 1902
Place of Birth: (Medar, Aledar? no idea, there isnt any place there named like that), District Cosel, Administrative District Oppeln
Nationality: no idea
Religion: Catholic
family status: married
occupation: worker

>The Wehrpass was a very comprehensive documentation book issued to all conscripts at the time of registration for the military draft, and kept by the potential draftee until his induction into the military. When the citizen became a soldier, he turned in his Wehrpass and received a Soldbuch in exchange, with the Werhpass being turned over and kept at the unit where the owner was serving.

>The Wehrpass was returned to the owner only upon his discharge from the military (after his records were transported to the Wehrstammbuch). He was required to keep it until age 60. In case of a service related death, or if the individual became MIA, the Wehrpass was sent to the next of kin as a keepsake via the soldiers’ original recruiting office.

>The 54 pages between the gray covers of the Wehrpass yield the military career of the owner in chorological order. The extensive and detailed data recorded includes, among other information, units served with, battles, awards, injuries/wounds/illnesses, promotions, and miscellaneous notes. On the inside jacket of the document there was a space to conserve documents, and a picture of the owner is located on the first page. In this photograph, the individual is usually in civilian clothing, unless he was already in the military at the time of his draft call.

Ok that's basically a military ID
>
The soldier got the Wehrpass after his "Musterung" (as soon as registered for future military service) with all relevant medical and biographical data. That is why most photos in the Wehrpass are still in civilian clothes.
After the soldier is then drafted into military service he received the Soldbuch while the Wehrpass went to the unit acting as personal datafile held at unit level while the Soldbuch was always at the man.

Its his ID

Worker? hmm it has some ww1 medals and a ww2 medal so maybe the medals didn't belong to him

Labour pass of the Catholic German Labourer Johann Hermann Kapitza, born 28th May 1902 in the county of Cosel, district of Oppeln. His parents were Paul and Anna, born Kozilek. Google and find that family and return their stuff.

Sorry, not Labour pass, it is a Military ID

thats what i was planning on doing my friend :)

Ok so we have an ID card for some poor fuck who served in WW2 and got likely shot by OP's relatives
Any more stuff?

Nationality says "deutsches Reich"

No, a Wehrpass was a military identification. It's just listing his occupation prior to the war.

Obviously before he was drafted, as people had pointed out, its his military ID

yeah we do a photo some medals and a smokes tin

How is that "Deutsches"? There is clearly an 'i' in that word for example.
But in context its the right answer, as Cosel was part of german Upper Silesia.

it clearly says deutsches Reich there. The lower case e looks a little like an n after that comes a u which is marked with a bow above to make it distinct from the n which otherwise looks the same.

It's not in modern script, it's a hybrid Suetterlin. This is what it would be in picture perfect Suetterlin, then take handwriting and the fact that he was born in 1902 (so his handwriting would be a combination of older script and Suetterlin in later years). Same loops and all.

Invest 2,50€ in this and you're good to go three weeks late, no sweat: amazon.de/Schreibschule-deutschen-Schrift-selbst%C3%A4ndigen-Schreibschrift/dp/3930540231

>looking up stuff to help OP
>there's basically entire markets where they sell Wehrpasses from soldiers and things like being in certain groups (ss, etc) or fighting in famous battles, dying, the pass coming withpersonal photos and mementos, make them more expensive and popular

Well this is an odd thing to find out. Is there a market for non-Axis stuff? I guess I already knew that there are people who are super into military memorabilia but I always thought about it more along the lines of uniforms or medals rather than personal documents.

>cursive has evolved over time

holy fuck my inability to read historical documents suddenly makes way more sense

Of course there is, just ask /k/

Upper silesia makes alot of sense considering mothers name Kozilek - it seems of slavic origin

Koziolek - little male goat

someone figure out this birthplace

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The gold medal on the second to the right is the Civil Service Faithful Service Medal (Treudienst-Ehrenzeichen für Beamte Angestellte und Arbeiter im öffentlichen Dienst) which was awarded to civilians who had been working in German public service for a specific period of time. There were two classes, silver (25 years); and gold (40 years). They started issuing them in January 1938.

isn't war fun?

your Gran Paps probably shot some poor (polish) dude that was most likely fighting in the end of the war as one of those reserve men.
If you want to find his decedents you'll most likely find them in modern day Poland. Or you could give the stuff to some Museum/keep it/ or sell it for some horrendous sum to some /pol/-tard or Stormfag.

Medar. The writing is not standard Kurrentschrift though. But since there's a town with that name in the Landkreis Cosel it makes sense.

By the way I flipped the image so its rightside up, so when I say on the right I mean on the right when it's been flipped.

The 'Koenig' medal on the end right was a centenary medal released in commeomration for the 100th birthday of Kaiser Wilhem I. It was awarded to all military who were in active service on March 22nd 1897, as well as veterans of the wars of 1864, 1866, or 1870.

The bronze cross with the wreath is an Honor Cross of World War 1914-1918, issued by Paul von Hindenburg in 1934 as a service medal to soldiers who had taken part in the war as well as non-combat veterans of the war and if the soldier was dead, next of kin. The medal has swords, so that indicates it was issued to a veteran who fought in the war rather than next of kin or a non-combat veteran. Does that ribbon have swords embroidered on it?

The black cross medal is a WWI Iron Cross, 2nd class. 2nd class Iron Crosses were given for a specific act of bravery. It's a bit hard to tell from the photo, but it looks like it was issued later in the war by the cast.

Not sure about the crown medal. What's on the other side?

Either Johann joined WWI at 14-16 or the WWI military medals were his father's medals.

German WWI soldier on his first kill:

>For a moment I felt the fear of death and in a fraction of a second I realised that he was after my life exactly as I was after his. I was quicker than he was. I tossed his rifle away and I ran my bayonet through his chest He fell, put his hand on the place were I had hit him and then I thrust again. Blood came out of his mouth and he died.

>I felt physically ill. I nearly vomited. My knees were shaking and I was quite frankly ashamed of myself. My comrades, I was a corporal there then, were absolutely undisturbed by what had happened. One of them boasted that he had killed a poilu with the butt of his rifle, another one had strangled a captain, a French captain.

>A third one had hit somebody over the head with his spade and they were ordinary men like me. One of them was a tram conductor, another one a commercial traveller, two were students, the rest were farm workers, ordinary people who never would have thought to do any harm to anyone.

>How did it come about that they were so cruel? I remembered then that we were told that the good soldier kills without thinking of his adversary as a human being. The very moment he sees in him a fellow man, he is not a good soldier anymore. But I had in front of me the dead man, the dead French soldier and how would I liked him to have raised his hand.

>I would have shaken his hand and we would have been the best of friends. Because he was nothing like me but a poor boy who had to fight, who had to go in with the most cruel weapons against a man who had nothing against him personally, who only wore the uniform of another nation, who spoke another language, but a man who had a father and mother and a family perhaps and so I felt.

Anything on the reverses of the medals?

user, I think your grandfather might've been Nazi.

Depends. If OP can take pictures of the inside, we might be able to see if his guy was called up on reserve or if he actually fought in the war early on.

I think the medals are almost certainly Johann's fathers, except perhaps the Civil medal for 40 years of German public work service.

Sort of related but my old boss had a ww1 dog tag which had been taken by his grandfather from a sniper he had stalked (he was also a sniper)

My boss told me the story, I might remember some details wrong, but he was hiding in a tree, they got him to reveal his position with the old glove on a stick and hit the tree with machine gun. He was wearing a makeshift camp suit and his face and hands were painted completely green.

His name was Adam Nolden he was 19 years old, from Holstein or a Holstein unit, I don't read German.