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PRISONER OF WAR – Unteroffizier Rudi Miesl. Gesammelte Raritäten – Buntes Durcheinander – So was gehört zum Leben – Bitte, wer liest das nicht? – Erotische Kleinigkeiten – Hoch das Bein! Autograph manuscripts signed in an exquisitely neat gothic cursive script, collections of erotic prose and verse written at the prisoner of war camp at Kaufman, Texas, November 1944 – March 1945, the text and covers decorated with numerous cuttings from (American) popular magazines (some with added hand-colouring), together with 32 drawings in pen and ink, the majority coloured, and a brief comic-strip, in six volumes, altogether approximately 780 leaves, 4to (220 x 170mm), text on rectos only, original pagination (a few leaves detached but present at end of vol.1), bound in cloth-covered boards with applied illustrations.
MAKE LOVE NOT WAR. Subtitled 'Kleine Sachen zum Scharfmachen‘, Miesl’s erotic albums were evidently intended for circulation amongst fellow PoWs, and indeed a manuscript publicity slip inserted into vol.4 indicates the commercial nature of the undertaking, announcing the release of the January 1945 issue at the very reasonable price of $20. In the address to the reader at the end of volume 6, Miesl confesses that he is concluding the series for lack of fresh material. The author was one of nearly 80,000 Axis PoWs held in camps in Texas by the end of the war: it seems probably that, like many of them, Miesl had served in the Afrikakorps, whose recognisable uniform appears in one or two of his erotic drawings (Texas was considered a particularly appropriate location for PoWs from the Afrikakorps, in accordance with the Geneva Convention stipulation that prisoners should be held in a climate similar to the place of their capture). Given the limited possibilities offered by PoW camps, homemade erotic materials of the present sort cannot have been uncommon, but this meticulously-produced set seems to be an exceptionally rare survival.
MAKE LOVE NOT WAR. Subtitled 'Kleine Sachen zum Scharfmachen‘, Miesl’s erotic albums were evidently intended for circulation amongst fellow PoWs, and indeed a manuscript publicity slip inserted into vol.4 indicates the commercial nature of the undertaking, announcing the release of the January 1945 issue at the very reasonable price of $20. In the address to the reader at the end of volume 6, Miesl confesses that he is concluding the series for lack of fresh material. The author was one of nearly 80,000 Axis PoWs held in camps in Texas by the end of the war: it seems probably that, like many of them, Miesl had served in the Afrikakorps, whose recognisable uniform appears in one or two of his erotic drawings (Texas was considered a particularly appropriate location for PoWs from the Afrikakorps, in accordance with the Geneva Convention stipulation that prisoners should be held in a climate similar to the place of their capture). Given the limited possibilities offered by PoW camps, homemade erotic materials of the present sort cannot have been uncommon, but this meticulously-produced set seems to be an exceptionally rare survival.
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