Karl Pawlas Archive

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Paidoskixos
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Karl Pawlas Archive

#1

Post by Paidoskixos » 14 Jul 2013, 16:32

Hi,

does anyone know what happened to the massiv archive that Karl Pawlas amassed for so many years? It contained tons of interesting original documents.

EPOCH3
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Re: Karl Pawlas Archive

#2

Post by EPOCH3 » 25 Jul 2013, 18:55

Hello - great author and researcher - he broke up the collection into parts
and sold off his material and library (in the 2004-2007 time frame as I recall.
I purchased a large portion of manuals, photos and manuscripts including most
of his artillery data.
Regards


Jan-Hendrik
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Re: Karl Pawlas Archive

#3

Post by Jan-Hendrik » 11 Nov 2017, 16:44

*push*

Jan-Hendrik

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Re: Karl Pawlas Archive

#4

Post by EPOCH3 » 15 Nov 2017, 21:52

Hi - sorry but what does *push* mean ?

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jpz4
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Re: Karl Pawlas Archive

#5

Post by jpz4 » 18 Nov 2017, 14:43

"push" means that Jan-Hendrik want to bring this topic back to people's attention. I assume he want to know what happened to the rest of the archive.

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Re: Karl Pawlas Archive

#6

Post by EPOCH3 » 18 Nov 2017, 16:39

Ahhhh - thx...

By the way, Karl passed away in April 29 2014. I wish he had written some sort of an autobiography as there were many aspects of his life that he indicated he'd never talk about. I am sure he had some very interesting stories to tell. He was born in 1926 which would have made him only 19 as the war concluded. He told me that he went to prison for years at the end of the war which probably meant he was taken prisoner by the Russians and held captive for 10 years.

I believe he worked in the Ordnance field where he picked up the intimate knowledge he had of weapons. He was one of only a few people that was authorized by several Archives to take weapons apart and allowed to photograph them. Those were the photos he used for his Waffen Revue style publications.

He had cancer several times and I believe he then decided to liquidate his archives. Originally he wanted 300,000 Euros for the whole lot. Apparently no one had that type of money so he broke up the archives. When I got to know him in the 1990s, he had just decided to sell things off by individual folders and started to put an inventory together for me. He only sent these lists out to a few people. I was lucky enough to buy up much of the artillery data.

I bought most of his artillery related collection which was maybe 25 large moving boxes worth. There were thousands of orginal Luftwaffe/aircraft photos air glass negatives which sold primarily to one collector. I bought one collection of 7000 Luftwaffe photos but many were in poor condition. Original manuals went early (and prior to my correspondences with him - he had lots of very nice manuals but he had cut many of them up). Armor stuff went primarily to collectors in Japan as I understand it. The machine gun, rifle and pistol data which amounted to many large wooden crates worth of information also went to only 1 or 2 collectors. I was only interested in artillery but do have several of the inventory lists he assembled and sent me while in the process of seeking buyers. When I get some time. I will dig these up and put them on-line as reference info etc.

Kind Regards
Greg

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Re: Karl Pawlas Archive

#7

Post by EPOCH3 » 18 Nov 2017, 18:03

Hi - I have an original newpaper article somewhere with this photo but to my knowledge
it is one of but a few photos taken of Karl.
Regards

http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-jul-07 ... 54012.html

EPOCH3
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Re: Karl Pawlas Archive

#8

Post by EPOCH3 » 18 Nov 2017, 19:03

Hi had this handy - just one page from one of Karl's lists but
you can see how the collections were organized.
Regards
Attachments
list 2 aa.jpg

Mori
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Re: Karl Pawlas Archive

#9

Post by Mori » 19 Nov 2017, 11:36

Interesting story about these archives. The connections and the effort it took to collect them all. Eventually realizing they cannot sell for much (even at a time before a whole bunch would be available as free for download). And how little added value it brought to history - a few militaria-like reviews with almost no analytical insight.

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Re: Karl Pawlas Archive

#10

Post by EPOCH3 » 19 Nov 2017, 20:55

Hi - I would respectfully disagree....
Karl did not try and sell his archives to make money - for the most part he wanted others to have the material to pursue their hobbies and passions as he had done with the material over 50-60 years as an author. Karl wrote several hundred publications which were apolitical (not political and not editorial in nature) - they simply focused on technical and developmental history in most cases. Much of what we know in bulk about the German military and weapons of WWII is in no small part due to his exhaustive research, documentation and publication of this material. Most of the data he simply charged $5 per photo when he decided to part with it to make it simple to sell off his vast amount of information (much of it was worth much more). I can assure you much of it had great value and some has already ended up in German Museums. I bought many special manuals/hand books from him for $200 to $300 which I in turn sold for $2000 to $3500 when I finished with them. While much of his data is available on the web, it's only in very low resolution - most of the original technical material he had was exceptional, high resolution and almost art-like (there is no substitution for the real thing).

Kind regards

EPOCH3
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Re: Karl Pawlas Archive

#11

Post by EPOCH3 » 20 Nov 2017, 17:01

Hi - Here is a typical work product from Karl - it shows the type of exhaustive work that
he undertook regarding the research of technical aspects of German military arms production.
Lots of work to save little pieces of history and saved form the trash heap due to his efforts...

While only a list, this list of German naval guns is very useful in several ways. It represents
but one of many.

Regards
Greg
Attachments
5.jpg
4.jpg
3.jpg
2.jpg
1.jpg

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Re: Karl Pawlas Archive

#12

Post by EPOCH3 » 20 Nov 2017, 17:02

Page 6 through 10
Attachments
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EPOCH3
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Re: Karl Pawlas Archive

#13

Post by EPOCH3 » 20 Nov 2017, 17:03

Page 11-15
Attachments
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11.jpg

EPOCH3
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Re: Karl Pawlas Archive

#14

Post by EPOCH3 » 20 Nov 2017, 17:03

page 16-20
Attachments
17.jpg
16.jpg

EPOCH3
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Re: Karl Pawlas Archive

#15

Post by EPOCH3 » 20 Nov 2017, 17:04

Page 21-25
Attachments
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