[Below: 'Festzeitung der Dienststelle
der Feldpostnummer L 51523 A'
(Commemorative Newspaper of the Office
Field Post Number L 51523 A)
Since 'L' is before the Feldpost number we know it is Luftwaffe.
This Feldpost number is from:
Luftnachrichten
Ausb.Regiment 302
I. Abteilung
51523
Luftnachrichten is a German term that refers to a department that evaluates the contents of coded and encrypted messages.]
This appears to be a humor newsletter. At the bottom it says:
'Verantwortliche Redaktion ist nicht verhanden
Verlegt in einer alten Negerkaserne in Chaumont
Preis viel, sehr viel Gemütlichkeit'
(Responsible editorial team is not available
Laid in an old Negro barracks in Chaumont
Price a lot, a lot of cosiness)
HAHA!
[Below: Close-up.]
[Below: Page two. It says:
'Luna - Verordnung
Est ist verboten
§1 Weniger zu trinken, als man vertraegt.'
(Moon Regulation
It is forbidden
§1 To drink less than you can tolerate.)
HA! I am going to have to get someone to translate more of this. And they say Germans don't have a sense of humor.
***UPDATE: Here is the translation!
'This is a humorous newsletter for a group of recruits and their instructors. The recruits celebrated the
end of the three-month basic military training.
The humorous newsletter contains three parts:
"Luna-Verordnung" is difficult to understand. After reading the newsletter my point of view is this:
In "Luna-Verordnung" there are five things that are "verboten".
Highly difficult to understand is:
I suggest this translation of "Luna-Verordnung":
Some other examples of the humor in the newsletter:
A huge thanks to our friend M. for making some sense of this newsletter. You're the best, comrade!]
[Below: Page three.]
[Below: Page four.]
[Below: Page five.]
[Below: Page six.]
[Below: Page seven.]
[Below: Page eight.]
[Below: Also worth mentioning, I researched 'Luna Park' and found it to be synonomous with 'amusement park'. There were MANY parks named 'Luna Park' spread all around the world, some still in operation today. Kind of like how we Americans call tissues 'Kleenex' or various colas 'Coke'. Below is the entrance to one such Luna Park, in Sydney, Australia.]
[Below: A 'Luna Park' in Berlin, 1935.]
[Below: A 'Luna Park' in Paris, France, 1923.]
[Below: The one that started it all. The entrance of Luna Park on Coney Island in 1924. It opened in 1903.]
*It's is also interesting to note that the place that these men trained at was located two miles southwest of the city of Chaumont, beginning in the mid-1930s, a grass airstrip was used by the French Air Force for training. After France's defeat in WWII, the German Luftwaffe used the facility as a training station. I hope fortune smiled on our boys and they survived the war, which so many Germans did not.
Ausb.Regiment means Ausbildungs.Regiment (training regiment).
These German recruits of the Luftwaffe were stationed in Chaumont (France). Because they were
recruits they had the lowest rank "Funker". Some of them came from Augsburg (Germany).
Luna-Verordnung
Wettervorhersage
Ausbilder ABC
"Luna-Verordnung" seems to be a kind of inside joke. I assume they named their exercise area
"Luna-Park" (where they had to do things like crawling through the dirt) after a pleasure ground
with the name "Luna-Park". I came to this conclusion because "Luna-Park" is mentioned in the
text.
Therefore I suggest this translation of the three parts of the newsletter:
Luna-Verordnung = Luna Regulation
Wettervorhersage = Weather Forecast
Ausbilder ABC = Instructor ABC
"§5 Wer gegen diese Luna-Verordnung verstoesst wird zu einem Liter Zuchthaus bestraft."
Zuchthaus means jail. In the newsletter we can read when a recruit did something wrong a penalty
was to be arrested. I assume "ein Liter Zuchthaus" [one liter of prison, literally] is a joke and means "a liter of beer". Therefore I suggest to not translate the sentence word by word.
I can fully understand that it's difficult for you to translate parts of this newsletter. By the way, the
newsletter is full of typos and there are some words in dialect.
Luna-Regulation
It is forbidden
§1 To drink less than you can tolerate.
§2 To spoil the mood, this should be constantly increased.
§3 To obey noncommissioned officers, today the former recruits have the word.
§4 To argue, quarrel and command, because today we are going from the bitter world to the realm
of cheerfulness.
§5 Anyone who violates this regulation will be punished to drink a liter of beer.
1. From the beginning of the part "weather forecast":
The initially frosty mood will soon give way to general cheerfulness.
2. An example for a penalty:
When you go outside to pee at night and you are only in your underwear or nightwear as a penalty
you have to keep watch at night.
3. Some jokes about an instructor:
Corporal Leader Beer
has a hard time with his men.
One recruit demolished his boots
and a particularly big fool
broke his beautiful rifle,
as if it was made of cardboard.
4. The newsletter ends with:
We all just want to laugh
and not to be angry.'
