Teaching, conferences, and administrative business has thoroughly interrupted my work on this project. I’m slowly coming back to it and recently began sorting information pertaining to tourism immediately after the end of the war. As I mentioned in my intro post, for that time period the term tourism is more a misnomer. But of course there were people engaging in activities that related to tourism, and soldiers from the three Western allies featured prominently among them.
Here’s a picture I found in the National Archives:
American soldiers relaxing at an Alpine lake in June 1945
The backside of the photo contains the following information:
“Infatrymen of the 44th division, occupying Austrian Tyrol, acquire suntan swimming and relaxing at a lake in the Alps. L-R: PFC Louis W. Carlile, Gainesboro, Tenn., PFC Jesse W. Fugett, Joliet, Ill., PFC Robert J. Hayes, 8803 Dexter BLVD., Detroit, Mich., PFC Kelly R. Campbell, 2478 S. 25th St., Akron, Ohio, PVT. Jim [?] Redding, 313 Center St., Ithaca, N.Y., and CPL. Edwin C. Crews, Edgewood, Ill.”
The picture was taken by the Signal Corps of the 7th Army, VI Corps, 324 IN-F, stationed in Landeck, Austria.
Any additional information about the soldiers in the picture and their experience in postwar Austria would be greatly appreciated.
OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Graml Gundolf (April 13, 2012). Soldier-Tourists in 1945 Austria. Tourism and National Identity. Retrieved September 11, 2024 from https://doi.org/10.58079/d1se