AMG passport
Issued to a war-time correspondent.
The document in this article is significant for 2 reasons mainly. The first, that of being an important WW2 related travel document, issued after the war by the occupying allied forces in liberated Germany, second, the holder of the passport and his history when it comes, again, to the war for which the document here was issued for.
I will start with the document itself and with some background & history.
Towards the end of World War Two the allied forces liberated areas that were originally under Axis rule, starting with northern Africa, moving on to Sicily, Italy France and ending with Germany (on the European continent).
The Allies governed Germany, Austria, France, Italy & Trieste. Each one of those areas had special papers and documents, currency and stamps. They administrated a military type of rule and the governing body of this military administration was called the Allied Control Council.
Germany was divided into 4 separate zones, the Western zones run by the Americans, British and French and the eastern zone run by the Soviet Union. Each zone had its own movement permits and an “Inter-zonal Travel Permit” and a “Zonal Travel Permit” for German nationals.
The occupiers in Germany issued travel documents for those under their control, for German nationals and for those now displaced or stateless and wanted to either return to their original homes or find a new beginning elsewhere abroad. They began to issue them in 1946-1947, printed several times, and another second version that appeared in 1948, this time a green clothed cover for German nationals and a red clothed cover for the stateless or DP’s.
“Military Government for Germany” was the title on the first travel documents issued, and later issues had the issuing body printed as “Allied High Commission for Germany”.
The passport here falls under the 2nd version being printed in December of 1948 and being issued to Hilmar Pabel, aged 39, who’s profession is indicated as being a reporter. The document SN 0104027 was issued on November 30th, 1949 at Stuttgart. I must say that there was no hiding of his past or that his present occupation coincides, largely with that of his war-time activities: during the war he was a military correspondent & photographer, and as being in the capacity to cover war-related activities and being sent, with a camera to occupied territory as well, and this is where it starts to get interesting.
Pabel was born in 1910 at the city of Rawicz, Rawitch in German, which today is part of Poland. He studied photography at Agfa school in 1929 and the following year continued his studies at the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin, learning the German language & culture with newspaper journalism. Part of his occupation in them early years was being a freelancer for various publications including the well-known German Illustrirte Zeitung (1843-1944). It is during the war that he was active in the propaganda industry for the regime, becoming a war-correspondent and eventually having an article published in December 1940 with disturbing photographs he took inside the Lublin Ghetto. Very ugly & antisemitic photographs were published on 2 large pages inside the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung (1892-1945) on the 5th of that month. After the war he became very active in the Bavarian Red Cross, making a very important contribution to the awareness that destruction and conflict can bring, photographing close to 2,000 children in the effort to locate their parents & relatives (we will never know what pushed him into this child search program in 1945, maybe him being exposed to the horrors of the Nazi regime or his guilt for his war time journalism, to date his reasons are unknown). Still, we must not forget the humanity he displayed. Later on he worked for various newspapers and magazine that took him to the Far East, covering events in Indonesia, Japan, Nepal, China, Taiwan, France, US and also covering the Vietnam War. In the 1960’s & 1970’s he was awarded with several awards for contribution to photography, such as the culture award of the German Society for Photography (1961).
Have added images of this war-related travel document and f the article published as well.
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