You won but I don't have to like it: This German "Putzfrau" (cleaning woman) worked in our American airbase at Fürstenfeldbbruck, Bavaria. She was quiet, worked efficiently, did...

RichardQ Loc: Colorado

This German "Putzfrau" (cleaning woman) worked in our American airbase at Fürstenfeldbbruck, Bavaria. She was quiet, worked efficiently, did laundry on the side -- if you provided the soap -- for cigarettes as pay, and accepted her job because it included a free daily meal during a period when Germans were starving. The Nazi government surrendered only a year earlier. I suspect she worked on that same airbase when it was operated by the Nazi Luftwaffe.

A German "Putzfrau" (cleaning woman) a year after the Nazi surrender

RichardTaylor Loc: Sydney, Australia

Good portrait and thanks for the background info.

Nightski

Richard, I hope I am not being rude, but she looks like a man. Her jaw, her nose, her neck, and her forehead look very masculine. I see her hair is in a french braid. It's a very odd image. It has the feel of a mugshot. Those are my observations.

RichardQ Loc: Colorado

Nightski wrote:

Richard, I hope I am not being rude, but she looks like a man. Her jaw, her nose, her neck, and her forehead look very masculine. I see her hair is in a french braid. It's a very odd image. It has the feel of a mugshot. Those are my observations.

Thank you for your interest and comments, Sandra! I didn't give her a physical inspection, but I'm sure she was thoroughly vetted by the responsible security people. Not many of the cleaning staff were physically attractive, in part because they had a hard life. More than a few German working women had masculine features. I think she was about 30 years old. She could well have lost a husband and/or son in the last year or so of the war (the Nazis drafted children into the army when Hitler declared it was the duty of every German to die for the nation). I wasn't looking for a pleasant expression -- I wanted to capture the sullen, suspicious look, without any dramatic, hokey lighting. I doubt that she gave much attention to her hairdo.

RichardQ Loc: Colorado

Sandra, here's proof that not every German woman employed in a U.S. Army office during the Military Occupation was as dour as that other portrait. I'd guess this young woman was in her early 20s. Unlike the cleaning woman, she spoke English pretty well.

German woman employed in U.S. Army office - 1947

Nightski

Thanks Richard. I just noticed the hair, because I used to have hair all the way down my back and the quickest way to tame it was to throw it in a french braid. I think you did a great job capturing the woman and her personality. I was commenting on the impact it had on me. This second woman looks so sweet and happy. She's got a cute hairdo and looks well dressed .. not fancy .. but professional. It kills me that she's got a cigarette in her hand as she works. Quite a different thing than you would see today in an office.

le boecere

Nightski wrote:

Thanks Richard. I just noticed the hair, because I... (show quote)

Sandra, were you on this earth in 1947?

Nightski

le boecere wrote:

Sandra, were you on this earth in 1947?

No, I appeared in 1961. :D

Nightski

We had ashtrays in the house back then ... when I was little .. and so did everyone I knew.

le boecere

Nightski wrote:

We had ashtrays in the house back then ... when I was little .. and so did everyone I knew.

Exactly. Richard might correct my memory; non-smokers were actually the minority in 1947. In fact, I believe that (for the ladies) smoking could have been an early "feminist" statement to the world.

Not strange to see women smoking, back then; though "nice girls" might not smoke in public.

Today's cultural ethics and health-consciousness would have been a bit strange to women of the mid-40's.

No?

_Van

RichardQ Loc: Colorado

le boecere wrote:

Exactly. Richard might correct my memory; non-smokers were actually the minority in 1947. In fact, I believe that (for the ladies) smoking could have been an early "feminist" statement to the world.

Not strange to see women smoking, back then; though "nice girls" might not smoke in public.

Today's cultural ethics and health-consciousness would have been a bit strange to women of the mid-40's.

No?

_Van

Hi, Van! Hollywood films did a lot to promote smoking among women during the 1930s and '40s. Bette Davis, especially, was prone to light up in her roles. Smoking was pitched as a sign of elegance. See the attached photo I shot in France in December, 1946.

Tragically, Bette developed lung cancer and looked less than elegant in her last apppearances.

The cigarette companies hooked a lot of young men during the war by supplying free cigarettes, five to a pack, in the field rations for a meal. During the military occupation of Germany -- 1945 to 1949 -- cigarettes replaced worthless German marks as the medium of exchange before the Deutche Mark was introduced.

The federal government felt that the tobacco industry was so vital to the war effort that tobacco farmers were excused from the military draft during WW II.

Swanky on the French Riviera - 1946

Nightski

le boecere wrote:

Exactly. Richard might correct my memory; non-smokers were actually the minority in 1947. In fact, I believe that (for the ladies) smoking could have been an early "feminist" statement to the world.

Not strange to see women smoking, back then; though "nice girls" might not smoke in public.

Today's cultural ethics and health-consciousness would have been a bit strange to women of the mid-40's.

No?

_Van

You are absolutley correct, Van. My mother smoked and when I popped in on her at work, she would always have a cigarette going at her desk. It's just that it's been so long since that has been acceptable that it does seem strange to see it again. I think my mother wishes she had grown up in the health-consciousness era. She suffers from COPD now even though she quit over 30 years ago. I remember. I asked her to quit when I was pregnant with my firstborn .. he's 32 now.

le boecere

RichardQ wrote:

Hi, Van! Hollywood films did a lot to promote smok... (show quote)

Richard, your generation truly is "The Greatest". Mom was born in 1913 and just passed away at a little over 101. Lost Uncle Jim about a year ago ~ and I still have some mementos from his battle tour through the Pacific Theatre (carrying a B.A.R.). Like you, they both had vivid memories and a sense of history, their entire lives ~ and I wish they were still here so I could ask them more questions.

Your narratives and photos so very much remind me of them.

Richard, if we could only understand that the few of you (with your excellent memory) who we still have with us are walking history books.

P.S.: Uncle Jim did not smoke, and used to tell me about using his rations of cigarettes to trade for other things.