The main focus of this blog is to highlight individual photographs from WWI and WWII veterans whose photos have made their way to the secondary market; eBay and flea markets are a good way to find these photographs, and the typical image comes with little-to-no context. Today’s photograph shows a typical German trench in the spring of 1917 with a pair of handmade signs.

I collect WWI German trench signs and shots like this are a good way to identify the style and construction techniques of a period trench-made sign.

Thanks to a Reddit user I was able to translate the writing on the reverse side of the postcard:

In the dwelling trench by the phone dugout.

NCO Biernacki, me, NCO Schwabacher, ?? Puppchen of the artillery observers.

May 1917.

The trench signs that are shown in the image are as follows: Villa Margarete and Fernsprechen (Telephone)