ORIGINAL THIRD REICH BOOK - ARTWORK OF THEO MATEJKO

Theo Matejko was a Viennese illustrator born in 1893. During World War I he developed his skills with almost photographic renderings of combat, battlefield scenes, uniforms, airplanes, U-boats and ships at sea. The tiniest detail did not escape Matejko and drawings of German submarines are for example, filled with sea creatures, shipwrecks and the like. After the war he did many drawings of Zeppelins, occupation troops and others that focussed on sports such as boxing, ice hockey, football, bicycle and auto racing.

The book offered here is a very nice example of the big 10-1/2 x 10-1/2 inch, 228 page very, very heavily illustrated half-velour hard cover book Das Theo Matejko Buch (The Theo Matejko Book), undated but probably published in 1940 by Kommodore-Verlag in Berlin, Germany. Hardcover, with the very rare original dustjacket!

With the coming of the Nazis in Germany, many of Matejko’s drawings were commissioned by firms and magazines like Die Wehrmacht that wanted illustrations of the combat activities of the Wehrmacht, with tanks, fully loaded soldiers, motorcycles, flags and standards, field guns, airplanes, prisoners of war, etc.

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