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Heinz Denckler booklets - first insights

Published on 21. Nov. 2018
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Most of you probably noticed these interesting booklets during your reenactment carrier. Whether someone offer it on sale or somebody use it as information source or as manual for new weapon - usually you are attracted by unconventional design of this series. Indeed Heinz Denckler booklets differs from official military manuals by their typical impressive design.

 

Each of Heinz Denckler manual was focused on specific topic, e.g. given weapon, compass, gas-mask, unit command and many others. As stated on another collector's website [3]: we can divide these booklets into two big categories ("The different topics covering armaments. Disciplines related to the organization of military and paramilitary groups, whether singing, sport, order or orientation."). We agree, however, Heinz Denckler Verlag produced also another books with different topics, and interesting point is that we found even booklet in this design and not related to military (Handbuch für den Vertrauensmann). This bring us to opinion, that we should try to recategorize his production. What more, each booklet is written easy to understand and contains many useful illustrations. As practical small handbooks are often reproduced by different individuals or even by bigger companies with military manuals. That's why you've probably already seen them somewhere.

I am used to call them "Heinz Denckler booklets", but we should mention another facts. Many other individuals and companies participated on making these interesting booklets:

Indeed Heinz Denckler Verlag from Berlin was publishing house. After the Second World War he moved his publishing house from Berlin to Bad Kissingen [1]. However, their production was banned after war in Soviet occupation zone. Here you can find list (http://www.polunbi.de/bibliothek/1946-nslit-d.html) of prohibited literature. Denckler Verlag is there often misspelled as "Deuckler, Denekler", nevertheless it is obvious, that it was banned.

For preserving historical information it is also important to mention that their booklets were printed by many other printing companies in Germany and even in Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren. The list of these companies will follow in the next article.

As I mentioned participation of individuals before, we should say about Oberleutnant Dembowski, whose authorship is written on many booklets. Heinz Dembowski was a German military officer, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant in 1941 and wrote as such several military writings [2], Oberleutnant Dürrenfeldt was responsible for drawings. Around five booklets were also written by Eberhard Kitzing, former doctor and HJ official. 

Still, very few informations are available about this interesting part of history and I believe there are only few collectors in the world that have passion and time to search all corners for original Heinz Denckler booklets. Even I started with first booklet few years ago, in that time I though it is a separate book. It took me several months to realize there are other booklets in this series. Today my collection contains more than 30 different booklets from this series, many of which we use during our trainings.

Nowadays I can recommend to see another collectors page (http://leuchtpistole.free.fr) full of rare booklets.

 

Thanks for your time! Next article will contain booklets description. 

 

[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_Denckler

[2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_Dembowski

[3] http://leuchtpistole.free.fr/Denckler/En_Manuels%2520produits%2520par%2520Heinz%2520Denckler.html

 

 




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