In Hot Pursuit Of Rommel...Not Kidding
Not long ago, my employer & I had a chance to scavenge the book collection of a former Luftwaffe pilot who'd emigrated here in the early 60s. He'd had an immense library, much of it in German; we hauled out literally tons of books with no chance to translate most of the titles into English. By pure chance I looked at one smallish volume as I emptied a box of books onto a display table---and saw the name 'Oberstleutnant Rommel'. Startled, I read the title: INFANTERIE GREIFT AN: Erlibnis Und Erfahrung (INFANTRY ATTACKS). It was an early (1936) edition of Ervin Rommel's classical work on tactics, written while he was teaching at Germany's Army War College in the 1930s. Value? I can find only one listed for this edition. It's pricey.
So, what did I do next? My employer asked me for help with some other swag, and I set the precious item down, expecting to deal with it the following day. HOWEVER: She moved and cleaned and packed stuff from that table overnight. She doesn't read German, and the title meant nothing to her. We can't find it. Not anywhere in the entire store.
That doesn't mean it's permanently lost, however. The German-language texts all went to one source, and we alerted them to return it to us. They wouldn't know what it was, nor how to market it. The fabled Field Marshal may yet show up again in our humble establishment---or his book, anyway. (I feel as though I were in a 1940's British war drama, scanning North African desert landscapes with binoculars, thinking, "Rommel's out there...somewhere...")
So, what did I do next? My employer asked me for help with some other swag, and I set the precious item down, expecting to deal with it the following day. HOWEVER: She moved and cleaned and packed stuff from that table overnight. She doesn't read German, and the title meant nothing to her. We can't find it. Not anywhere in the entire store.
That doesn't mean it's permanently lost, however. The German-language texts all went to one source, and we alerted them to return it to us. They wouldn't know what it was, nor how to market it. The fabled Field Marshal may yet show up again in our humble establishment---or his book, anyway. (I feel as though I were in a 1940's British war drama, scanning North African desert landscapes with binoculars, thinking, "Rommel's out there...somewhere...")