From a color slide group of Flak-Regiment 3: A Weimar regiment, Luftgau III. The big regimental standard follows the Musikkorps to the far right out of the image.
In 1935 the Luftwaffe's Musikkorps were keen to announce their arrival and introduced a distinctive style of brass music to emphasise this new air-arm within Nazi Germany's newly-created Wehrmacht. The freshly appointed Luftwaffen musikinspizient Prof. Hans Felix Husadel, un-bound by the strict tradition of the army, set about 'freeing' Luftwaffe music and brought the full range of clarinets, bass trumpet and alto-slide trombone into the musical line-up, plus the saxophone, so breaking a previously long-held boycott of this, supposedly, 'Negro instrument'.
With the enthusiastic support of Herman Göring, a change to the construction of existing instruments was also made and the much-beloved traditional rotary valves were replaced on the bass trumpet by pump valves! In a further move, Husadel engaged composers who would write specifically for the new arm to develop a modern style of military band music more similar to the American 'Sousa' style than the old traditional Prusso-German marches.
With Prof. Husadel's modern and exciting compositions allied to his introduction of silver-plated instruments over the army's more traditional and standard 'plain' brass finishes, a much more distinctive look and sound for the Luftwaffe's military bands was guaranteed and this successful transformation was fundamental in now promoting a feeling of elitism and real pride in this, the new airm arm within the Nazi Third Reich.
With the enthusiastic support of Herman Göring, a change to the construction of existing instruments was also made and the much-beloved traditional rotary valves were replaced on the bass trumpet by pump valves! In a further move, Husadel engaged composers who would write specifically for the new arm to develop a modern style of military band music more similar to the American 'Sousa' style than the old traditional Prusso-German marches.
With Prof. Husadel's modern and exciting compositions allied to his introduction of silver-plated instruments over the army's more traditional and standard 'plain' brass finishes, a much more distinctive look and sound for the Luftwaffe's military bands was guaranteed and this successful transformation was fundamental in now promoting a feeling of elitism and real pride in this, the new airm arm within the Nazi Third Reich.
Source :
Akira Takiguchi photo collection
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10221814799072651&set=gm.1532973903554694
http://www.tomahawkfilms.com/german-airforce-music.html
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