United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
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George Howard Tellier collection
The George Howard Tellier collection includes a photograph album titled “SS Standarte ‘Westland’: Erinnerungen and die SS” documenting one of the regiments of the Wiking division of the Waffen-SS, which was composed primary of Dutch volunteers under German command and stationed in Munich. The album includes picture postcards and photographs of the mountains near Oberau, Germany, the Berghof (Adolf Hitler's home in the Obersalzberg of the Bavarian Alps near Berchtesgaden), Hitler and Goering, mountain scenes, the SS-Kaserne Standarte “Deutschland” in Munich, Krakow, war damage, and SS-men at drills, at ease, swimming, and on maneuvers. The collection also includes ten loose items: four additional Nazi-era picture postcards, four copies of a mass-produced Christmas message from Heinrich Himmler to the families of fallen SS-men, one photograph of an unidentified SS officer, and a racist pamphlet about eugenics titled “Gutes Blut - ewiger Quell!.” Tellier collected the album and loose items while serving with the US Army in Berlin and Frankfurt in 1945-1946.
George Howard Tellier (1914-1988) was born in Des Moines, Iowa, to George and Mildred Tellier. He served in the US Army from 1942 to 1946. He received meteorology training at MIT and was assigned to the Romulus Air Field near Detroit. Following VE Day, he was initially reassigned to the Pacific Theater, but someone who knew of his dairy engineering training and experience had him transferred to Berlin to assist in rebuilding the Germany dairy industry. He also worked in the Frankfurt area.
The George Howard Tellier collection is arranged as a single series.