Nachrichtenblatt reports question

[EdStevens]

Over the Front published a series of translations of some of the Nachrichtenblatt two to three years ago. These are the weekly German Army summary reports of aerial activity, and began in March 1917, going to the end of the war. I believe that complete sets of these reports do exist, either original and/or transcriptions. Has the full set been published as a translation?

The Over the Front series that I have (I had to let my subscription lapse for financial reasons last year) cover March, April and May of 1917. This is, of course, the period surrounding and including Bloody April, so it does not surprise me that the summaries are universally positive in their reports. Every week is a good week for the Germans, and that was correct at the time. I am curious, however, if that trend continues; that is, is there an element of propaganda in them? If someone has the full set, how often do they report weeks in which the Germans suffered more losses than victories? Do they correspond well to the recent statistical evidence, or are they tinted as a report that may have had political as well as reporting functions?

[Soderbaum]

Hi Ed

The NB contains lots of information...!

Regarding the Daily reports of activities it contains sometimes some "holes" as the equivalent RFC/RAF Com. and French Operation Aeriennes do...

The most common reason for these holes are late/evenings activities which occured to late for being reported...
These holes could be both victories and losses.. 8)
As these reports was "daily" the lost information normally was NOT reported for the next days activities...

Another reason for missing parts are that the communication system(telephone) had technical problems which meant that a report from an certain Army or Army Group could be missing...

But the highest discrepance in the Daily reports comparing to what really happened was in so called Battle Days when the situation demanded fighting rather than reporting....
...For an example one Day in August 1918 less than 50 % of the German victories(and also possible losses) where reported...

For the Daily reports nearly all information can be doublechecked against a lot of other German reports like Kogenluft,Stofl, Kofl,Grufl,AOK etc...


Just some short comments on the "Daily reports" in the NB..

8)
Gunnar

[wings]

Are there any German reports that show how many German aircraft were destroyed, damaged, etc. for each Armee on a daily basis? For example, 4 Armee, July 15, 1917.

[EdStevens]

A question still stands: has anyone read/have the full set, and if so, of the total, how many record more German losses than victories?