Bad news, for a change: as of approx. Saturday,
17th June, ALL map files (with exception of German 1:25,000
Messtischblatt series) will become - temporarily - unavailable. Therefore,
if anyone wants to download any maps, this coming week is best time to
do so, as re-establishing
full access to maps is going to take at least a few, and more likely
several weeks.
As our hosting provider is not happy with our custom they want us to
remove all files within 7 days (including site_backup). Naturally, we
hold backup of all those files locally, on hard drives, so there is no
danger that anything would be lost forever. Unfortunately, uploading
approx. 50,000 maps (over 1 Tb of data) to a new server will take at
least a few weeks.
Both sites involved in
this project, i.e. mapywig.org and igrek.amzp.pl (mapster) will
continue to run, as we have no plans to close them down, but to
confirm, the maps and books will be - for some time - gone.
In the next several weeks we will transfer all map files to a public
ftp server, i.e. one available without password, and we will provide
information here as soon as it happens. In the longer run of 2 - 3
months, we will re-instate full functionality, that is search and
downloading of maps and documents via mapywig.org and igrek.amzp.pl.
The work to make available other maps and materials scanned at the
Library of Congress continues although, due to the current problem, it
has to take 2nd priority. Therefore, new material can be expected to be
available, realistically, no sooner than July - August.
From the map collection of the Library of Congress dodaliśmy:
- approx. 530 sheets of the WIG 1:25,000 map
of the new type (provisional, normal and tourist editions). This means
that the collection holds around 95% of all new-style editions of this
map published prior to the outbreak of WW2 (index sheet).
- approx. 140 of the German editions of the
same map. They are re-printed variants of pre-WW2 Polish
maps by WIG, new sheets based on unpublished Polish materials and those
produced and updated from German air photography.
- Lemberg (approx. II.1944) -
printed on the reverse of the no-longer useful Osteuropa 1:300,000
sheet, X53 Starodub
- Stanisławw
- scan of the same plan available from the collection of the Library of
Congress, this one however in higher resolution (600 dpi) and
undamaged.
over 30 sheets of a very appealing, Austro-Hungarian map called
"Krakau - plan of the stronghold surroundings", (Festungs-umgebungs-plan von Krakau),
scale 1:10,000, dated 1899 - 1904.
several sheets of a Deutsche Karte 1:50,000, mainly
from the west of Poland, and a few sheets covering Germany. They are
both sheets we already have had, but now scanned in the Library of
Congress with much better scanner, or sheets which have been missing
altogether.
In the German Uebersichtskarte von Mitteleuropa 1:300,000 series,
we scanned three manuscript sheets - Leutschau,Warschau i Allenstein from a new, never
produced variant, a "Baustoffskarte Polen" . Unfortunately, they're not
originals, but post-WW2 copies, lacking in sharpness, interesting
nevertheless from the historical point of view.
A book in Polish, dated 1939, "Szlachta zagrodowa we wschodnich powiatach
Wołynia i Polesia" (Polish gentry in Volhynia & Polesie (Polesye)
- text in Polish (pdf, 71 Mb!)
- this is the first one of about 50 publications, mostly related to
cartography, which we managed to scan courtesy of the Library of
Congress.
Last but not least,
information on still inactive Messtischblatt / Topographische Karte
maps: the work is still in progress and we will update you as soon as
the maps are available again.
1. Befestigungskarte Polen 1939 (Maps of the
fortifications of Poland)
2. Befestigungskarte U.d.S.S.R. 1941 (Maps of the
fortifications of the USSR). Additionally, under the list of maps
linked above, there are 5 attachments, sheets with updated
fortifications, which can be put overlayed against relevant maps.
Please note that some of the attachments sheets are split and relate to
two map sheets, e.g. Nr 30b and 45a. Also, as a part of the series,
around 10 sheets from the Rumnien 1:100,000 are available via a separate index sheet.
Unfortunately the maps of the Russland 1:100,000 type were too large to
fit on the large-format scanner.
3. Befestigungskarte Mitte Dezember 1944. The
sheets showing fortifications and, in general, the East Front as of
mid-December 1944. The sheets run from the Baltic coast, across central
Poland down to the Carpathians (Polish-Slovakian border).
4. Mil.-Geo.-Karte (Gebietsteil Generalgouvernement)
- military-geographic edition, dated early - late 1944, covers central,
south and south-eastern Poland. The reverse side of some sheets
contains Mil-Geo town plans (Petrikau, Tomaszow, Radom, Kielce, Lublin,
Reichshof and Lemberg).
We would like to thank Mike
Busher and his teamfrom
the Geography & Map Reading Room of the Library of Congress
for their fantastic support and great amount of patience as they let us
scan, over approx. 2.5 weeks, some 4,000 rare, and often unique maps.
Given that the map collection of the Library stands at around 5.5 mln
sheets, and that - realistically - no more than perhaps two sessions of this
type per year could be organized, to scan the other 5 496 000 maps should
take us no more than another 687 years. Stay tuned.
In the meantime, the first batch, approx. 150
sheets of Polish 1:25,000 maps, early editions from 1920s.
At the bottom of the map list, and below the relevant index sheet, you will
find a 1928
brochure (pdf) with key to map symbols, the publication
also scanned courtesy of the Library of Congress.
We will try to make new maps available as fast as possible, the next update
should appear within 1 - 2 weeks.
Information on German 1:25,000 Topographische Karte (Messtischblatt),
which have been unavailable for the last couple of weeks: nearly all
the sheets have been already copied onto our server and they should be
re-linked and accessible within the next 1 - 2 weeks, hopefully
sooner.
A set of German
WW2 maps - Russland 1:100 000, has received an update with
some 180 new sheets which come from our
own collection. The map series was produced in 1940 - 1942 and covers the
area of of pre-WW2 Poland. The source material used by the Germans for this
map series was rather... wide (from 1:50,000 maps right up to maps in
1:400,000 scale), so accuracy might be questionable. The full range of
sources can be observed on this German index
sheet.
Please note, some maps are very large, consequently some jpg
files can be up to 90 Mb each!
A new item from the literature section: courtesy of Mr
Ryszard Hubisz we scanned a German publication dated late 1939: "Statistiches
Gemeindeverzeichnis bisherigen polnischen Staates..." (pdf,
approx. 170 MB!).
Its full title: "Statistical catalogue of ethnic communities in the former
Polish state, as per the demarkation line between German-Soviet state
interests established on 28th September 1939"
A fairly substantial publication, approx. 240 pages long (with three maps).
The bulk contains detailed tables on ethnic groups living across Poland. The
book was published by Publikationsstelle Berlin-Dahlem, some information on
their history can be found - in German - in wikipedia, and more details in two
books:
M. Burleigh "Germany turns eastwards. A study of Ostforschung in the Third
Reich",
and
I. Haar & M Fahlbusch
"German Scholars and Ethnic Cleansing, 1919-1945"
@JMisiewicz
I tried to send an e-mail, but got an auto-response: "The e-mail address you entered couldn't be found"
If you want to get in touch, please use e-mail (see left)
Hello Marek. I am referring to the Ossada settlements created by Marshal Pilsudski in the Kresy after the 1920 Polish-Soviet war. I am hoping that there exists a map showing the location of these Ossa
Hi, I want to donate to mapywig 3 scanned WWII German maps from the Osteuropa 300K series (actually 3 Zusammenfassungen with 4 maps each). Is there a contact e-mail address?
