ARCHIVE OF FOUR ITEMS BY WWI GERMAN PILOT ERNST UDET FROM COLLECTION OF AMERICAM FILM DIRECTOR TAY GARNETT
Berlin: Im Verlah Ullstein, 1937. Hardcover. Udet, Ernst (1896-1941). (Garnett, Tay). Mein Fliegerleben (My Life as a Pilot). Berlin: Im Verlag Ullstein, 1937. Inscribed copy to American film director (and fellow pilot) Tay Garnett (1894 - 1977). Spanning nearly 60 years, Garnett's scriptwriting and directing career moved from the silents to the heyday of the Hollywood motion picture studio to television; of the hundreds of projects he either wrote or directed, he is best known for directing the American noir classic The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946). As a young man he served as Naval Air pilot in WWI and worked as a cartoonist before finding work as a title writer for Mack Sennett Studios. By the time sound came along, he was directing feature theatricals. Garnett and Udet met while Garnett was directing SOS Iceberg (1933). The two had much in common: both were accomplished cartoonists but most importantly both served, albeit in enemy forces, as air pilots in WWI, Udet being a star pilot of Manfred von Richthofen's Flying Circus and the highest scoring German ace to survive the war (at the age of 22). In the 1920s, Udet was working as a stunt pilot in German movies, and had a playing part in SOS Iceberg, a US-German co-production that Garnett shot in Hollywood and Berlin. The first item, is Udets autobiography, Mein Fliegerleben , inscribed by him to Garnett, in German, that conveys Udet's warm friendship and is dated by him 23/4/38 in Berlin, a year following the book's publication. The second item is a b&w snapshot of the two men with Garnett's notes in ink on the verso: "Udet + Me Berlin" presumably from 1938. The third item is Udet's privately-published 1938 pocket datebook illustrated with cartoons by him and inscribed by him to Garnett with an original self-caricature. The date book, measuring 2.5"x 4" in leather covers issued in blue leather folder, has 13 full page illustrations (title page plus 12 cartoons), printed in two-tone light green ink, telling the story, rather satirically, Udet's experience as a Luftwaffe to rebuild military air capacity under the Nazi leadership. Specifically, with the datebook, Udet tells his personal story of his frustrated efforts to develop the dive bomber as a principle aircraft for the German military. The story told in the cartoons is borne out by the historical record. Udet, like most German WWI veterans, conformingly joined the Nazi Party, and was instrumental in the early development of the Luftwaffe, in measureable part due to his friendship with Hermann Goring, who was his squadron leader in the Red Baron's Flying Circus in WWI. In the Luftwaffe, Udet was the leading proponent of the development of dive-bombing aircraft. Eventually overruled by military leadership and as Germany expanded and WWII finally erupted his influenced waned. The title page of the datebook pictures an airplane soaring above the clouds with rays of sunlight emanating from the swastika in the sky above, with "Weiter Voram" (sardonically translated "more progress"). Several of the cartoons include a self-caricature of Udet, one set in 1937 with Goring smiling in self congratulations at airplanes aloft over Switzerland, clearly an expression of their mutual aspirations for the Luftwaffe. Later in the series of cartoons, however, Udet mocks his disappointment with the Luftwaffe in a cartoon with him crying like a baby over a downed dive-bomber. (This cartoon depicts an actual incident: the restored aircraft is in the collection of the Polish Aviation Museum.) Other cartoons satirize, with caricatures of both German and French leaders, military and diplomatic foibles of German leadership. It is the self-caricature that Udet uses in the cartoons that accompanies the warm inscription, with best wishes for 1938, signed and dated 22/04/38 on the datebook cover verso. dustjacket, the unused datebook. The fourth item is a framed sketch by Udet of Garnett with a self-caricature of him in German airforce uniform with angel wings dated Berlin 1938. Very Good / VG+. Item #010387
Price: $4,500.00