Hello, as a new member on this site I appreciate the friendly and civil overall tone of the conversations I read so far. I grew up in a tiny village near Wesel/Germany - so I am familiar with the former battlefield of operations Plunder and Varsity and consider myself a bit of an expert on the battle fought to cross the Rhine north of the Ruhr. Looking forward to constructive exchanges!
Hallo Alberk - Welcome to the forum. I very much liked your superb account of the Rhinecrossing Operation 1945, "Krieg vor den eigenen Haustür" ... it is much appreciated among Dutch readers and would become (even more of) a bestseller when translated into English ...
Hello Lindele/Stefan and stolpi - many thanks for the friendly welcome. As to stolpi's suggestion: I'd love to publish the book in English - however, the translation would take a lot of time, which I do not have at the moment. The far greater obstacle would be the cost of licensing the pictures from the Imperial War Museum and some other archives that charge money for the permission to publish their images. I would need a UK publisher who'd shoulder that burden, advance that money and take the entrepreneurial risk... ... oh, and thanks to Owen, too!
Welcome to the forum Alberk. I share your pain with regard to the costs of IWM photograph licences. For my forthcoming book I was only able to afford about 4. A huge shame and history is the poorer as a result. I wrote to the IWM’s Chairman of Trustees to raise my concerns but unsurprisingly got nowhere. Unless you are a famous author who is going to make a pile of money, the costs are beyond the reach of ‘ordinary’ authors and regrettably you are unlikely to get a publisher prepared to cover the costs. It would seem that everyone is a loser, including the IWM. Tschuss John
... you're quite right, John. The US National Archives as well as the Canadian National Archives display a much more sensible approach by declaring all their material public domain. To start with, material created by of for the army was financed by the tax paying public anyway...
Welcome to the Forum. Lots of threads on the forum describing the actions in the Wesel area - several recent posts referring to the 3RTR actions around Brunen etc.
Moin alberk welcome to the forum, too same interest, same era, different location: Elbe region in NW Germany
Not exactly these operations - but they are the prelude to the very final phase. My "Schwerpunkt" is more in April and the Weser - Elbe region But most units are the same as there EDIT OP Forrard on, OP Kaput, OP Enterprise
