The Norman historian Valentin Schneider launches a search notice to find photos of Caen taken in 1941 and 1942 by Alois Raab, a soldier of the Luftwaffe. Rare color photos which showed the monuments of the city before the bombings.

In 1988, a small bilingual 85-page book titled “Norman impressions”.

It was signed byAloïs Raab, a former soldier of the Luftwaffe, enlisted during WWII in a communications unit. He stationed in Normandy in 1941 and 1942, in the region of Flers, then Caen.

The German-born Norman historian Valentin Schneider, whose thesis focused on the German presence in Normandy from 1940 to 1948, was intrigued by a mention of the book.

Aloïs Raab mentions that he gave a large number of color photos to the city of Caen through a group of puppeteers from Strasbourg to entrust them to the Archaeological Syndicate of Caen.

Valentin schneider

“The problem, is that there is no archaeological union in Caen and that there is no trace of these photos, neither to the municipal archives, nor to the Cadomus association, nor to the Caen Memorial, regrets the Doctor of History. So I’m looking for other leads. Perhaps they never reached Caen and perhaps they are still in the hands of the puppeteers in Alsace?”

Born July 9, 1911 in Bavaria, Aloïs Raab was an artist. Aquarellist, he went on a bicycle, easel under his arm, to paint Normandy. “He was very interested in Normandy, he wrote a Norman History to instruct other soldiers and he painted many monuments of Caen, such as the Saint-Pierre church, the abbaye-aux-hommes, the Saint-Jean church, with details, sketches “, explains Valentin Schneider. “He also drew a beautiful postcard of Normandy with the places of interest, and made landscape watercolors, as in Saint-Germain le Vasson, Falaise, Lisieux or Mortain.”

Back to civilian life, Aloïs Raab, a puppeteer in Bavaria. He even created a museum dedicated to puppets. It is therefore to Alsatian puppeteers that he would have administered, towards the end of his life, his collection of color photographs of Caen.

Valentin Schneider was able to meet this Thursday, December 30 Annick and Jacques, a couple who knew Aloïs Raab. Born in 1938 and 1939, they were very young children during the German Occupation. But after the war, Annick’s family having kept links with Aloïs Raab, they went to Bavaria to visit the puppet museum. “They remember him as a warm, very kind, very cultured and believing man.“, Relates Valentin Schneider who emphasizes that”This story of links between the French and the Germans in the private sphere under the Occupation is passed over in silence.“Annick and Jacques still have the original watercolor of the cloister of the Abbaye-aux-hommes painted by Aloïs Raab, and reproduced in the book.

“Many soldiers were taking pictures, especially at the start of the war, explains Valentin Schneider. They were encouraged by German propaganda to create a link between the front and the homeland, auto personal photos had more credibility with family and friends than official propaganda.”

But Alois Raab’s photos are of particular interest. “First of all because he is an artist who did not make portraits but photos of historical monuments, that would therefore give a precise image of these monuments before their destruction. And then, they are in color, which was quite rare at the time. ”

If you have any information on Alois Raab’s photos, do not hesitate to contact Valentin Schneider: [email protected]