This is a very rare, perhaps unique, Third Reich publication! It is the 5-7/8 x 8-3/8 inch, 90-page Fernsprech-Teilnehmer-Verzeichnis des Luftgaukommandos VII or telephone directory for German Air Force, Headquarters Air Command VII in Munich, Germany dated January 1944, clearly marked for service use only.
The Deutsche Luftwaffe Luftgaukommando VII was located on Prinzregentenstrasse 24-28 in Munich and was built in 1937-1938 by order of Nazi Aviation Minister Hermann Göring (see reference photo below). It was a block east and across the street from the House of German Art, and a few hundred meters west of Adolf Hitler’s Munich apartment that was located at Prinzregentenplatz 16. Today, the building is used by the Bavarian Ministry of Science, Infrastructure, Transport and Technology
This late-World War II phone directory has many practical thumb notches and tabs that quickly direct the user to phone numbers for the Commanding General of Luftgau VII, General Emil Zenetti, his right-hand man Oberst Otto Petzold and his orderly, Major Rienecker, and anyone else in the Luftgaukommando VII who had a telephone.
There are numbers to call during air raid alarms, in-house phone numbers for the dining room, guard quarters, housing matters, the archive department, administration department, medical department, personnel department and map department for example, but also different Luftwaffe barracks and Flak batteries inside and outside Munich, Luftgau VII doctors and hospitals, Luftwaffe training and education facilities in the city and area, Luftwaffe engineers, Luftwaffe transportation outfits, the DAF liaison office, etc., etc. The phone numbers for the Medical Section for example (shown below), list numbers for a wide variety of department from Pharmacy to the Dentist to the Psychiatrist.
Luftwaffe Fliegerhorste (air bases) in and near Munich are of course mentioned, such as the fighter base at München-Riem and Fliegerhorst Fürstenfeldbruck, which was the scene of the infamous end of the Israeli athletes hostage affair during the 1972 Munich Olympics
There is a section in this Luftwaffe telephone directory with numbers for Bauangelegenheiten or Luftgau VII construction matters for Flak facilities, Luftschutz bunkers, military housing, as well as the electrical, heating, water and administrative matters connected to construction.
There are many neatly written corrections of name and phone number changes that were added as Munich was literally bombed off the map in 1944 and 1945. The annotations and additions were kept up to date by the original owner of the Fernsprech-Teilnehmer-Verzeichnis des Luftgaukommandos VII, Oberleutnant Riedmüller, who wrote his name in the upper right corner of the front cover.
