WARTIME ARCHIVEOriginal photographs, maps and documents of the World Wars

Over 100,000 primary sources

Original photographs, maps and documents of the World Wars

German, Russian, American, British, Canadian and French records — scanned at archive resolution, dated, researched and catalogued image by image.

Browse the collections See the Eastern Front move
Battle against Soviet tanks at Jucourica
German Army photograph, 1941 · ref. 273-GT-21 · from the Barbarossa collection
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0daily situation maps across eight operations
0manuscripts, battle plans and after-action reports
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The Eastern Front, day by day

434 OKH situation maps from July 1942 to February 1943. Watch the front line move across nine real dated sheets.

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Lage Ost

Lage Ost - 2 October 1942, North–Center sheet

1942-10-02

Original OKH daily situation map (Lage Ost), northern and central sheet, evening of 2 October 1942. The northern half of the front in the autumn lull: the Leningrad and Demyansk positions holding, the Rzhev salient quiet after the summer battles, roads dissolving in the rasputitsa mud season as both sides gathered strength for the winter. A fair copy in clean staff draughtsmanship. German dispositions in blue, Soviet formations in red, on the 1:1,000,000 base map used by the German Army General Staff.

Lage Ost - 2 October 1942, North–Center sheet Click to see it larger Preview · licensed file is unmarked

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$12.99 Personal Use

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Public domain original. Copyright in the photograph has expired. What you buy is our reproduction and the research attached to it.

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Our images are supplied under an access and service agreement rather than a copyright licence. Almost everything in this archive is a reproduction of a photograph, map or document whose copyright has long expired, and Piemags asserts no copyright in those originals. What you pay for is our high-resolution reproduction, the caption, date and keyword research attached to it, and our supply of both to you. Every agreement is worldwide and non-exclusive, with an instant full-resolution download.

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A whole operation, in sequence

A collection is the entire accessioned body of images in the order they were taken or dated, with the battle guide, order of battle and timeline where we have them. From $149 for a collection of up to around 250 images, $249 up to a thousand, $399 above that.

Collections carry the Personal Use and Newsletters and Presentations terms only. Editorial publication or commercial use of images from a collection is priced separately — a single-image editorial licence, or an Archive Access agreement, covers those. This is deliberate: at well under a dollar an image, a collection is priced as a research resource, not as a cheap way to buy publication rights.

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You cannot grant exclusivity in something you do not own. The originals here are public domain: the same photograph may sit in a national archive, on Wikimedia, or in somebody else's collection, and nothing we sign can change that. A buyout would be selling you a promise we are not able to keep. Where we hold an image we actually own outright, that is stated on the image page and different terms apply.

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Personal, presentation and business terms are worldwide with no time limit. Editorial terms are worldwide for five years from purchase, which is long enough for a book to go out of print.

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Nothing here transfers ownership of anything, and nothing here restricts what you may do with a public domain original you obtain somewhere else.

Licensing FAQ

The questions we actually get asked

If the original is public domain, what am I paying for?

The work of finding it, scanning it properly, researching what it shows, and handing it to you in a usable state. A catalogued, captioned, dated, keyworded high-resolution reproduction is a different thing from a low-resolution copy of unknown origin found in a search engine. You are paying for that, and for the record group and accession number that let you cite the original with confidence. You are not paying for permission — the original needs none.

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You receive the file and the right to use it under the terms you chose. You do not acquire copyright in the original, because there is none left to acquire, and you do not acquire any exclusive right against anybody else.

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Yes, under the Online Editorial terms for ordinary and non-commercial posts. A post promoting a product, service or brand needs an Advertising agreement.

Can I use it in a documentary or a YouTube video?

For informative, historical or educational video, the Online Editorial terms apply. For sponsored content or business promotion, Advertising applies. Broadcast documentaries with significant reach are usually better served by an Archive Access agreement — ask us.

Can I use it in my company's internal materials?

Yes. Small Business Internal covers an organisation of up to ten staff; Large Business Internal covers any size. Both exclude external advertising and public-facing marketing.

Can I put it in a book?

Yes, under Newspapers, Magazines and Books — interior placement, any size, worldwide, five years. National or international circulation and cover use are priced on application.

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Not under these terms. Redistributing or reselling our reproduction, or adding it to another library, is not permitted. This is an agreement about our file and our research, and that is what it restricts.

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Yes. Move to a higher tier by paying the difference. Send us the image reference and your original order number.

Do you offer exclusivity or a buyout?

No, and we explain why above: the originals are public domain, so exclusivity is not ours to sell.

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The route east

From the collection

Eight of the hundred and ninety-seven

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Where it comes from

Provenance

What you get

In the download

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    The collections

    Every front, every year, every side

    Complete runs rather than scattered singles — the whole sequence of an operation, in order, so you can follow a campaign being fought rather than look at one frozen moment.

    Germany197 images · ready now
    1941

    Operation Barbarossa

    The advance into the Soviet Union — armour, wrecked columns, burning villages.

    See the collection$149
    United States
    Jun 1944

    Normandy: the build-up

    Landing ships, rhino ferries and the Sherman squadrons going ashore.

    Complete collectionComing soon
    United States
    Jun 1944

    Supplies over the beaches

    Barrage balloons, LSTs and the logistics of invasion, photographed from the air.

    Complete collectionComing soon
    Germany
    1942–43

    Lage Ost: the Eastern Front

    The OKH daily situation maps — 434 sheets, one for every day of the battle.

    Complete collection$249
    Germany
    1942–43

    The battle for Stalingrad

    The city fighting, the Kessel and the surrender, sheet by dated sheet.

    Complete collectionComing soon
    Mixed
    1914–1918

    Artillery of the Great War

    Heavy guns, tractors and gun crews on the Western and Eastern fronts.

    Complete collectionComing soon
    Mixed
    1914–1918

    Early military aviation

    Biplanes, observers and the first aircraft ever flown in anger.

    Complete collectionComing soon
    Mixed
    1914–1945

    Maritime and float aircraft

    Floatplanes, catapults and the ships that carried them.

    Complete collectionComing soon
    GermanySoviet UnionUnited StatesBritainCanadaFranceAustria-HungaryItalyJapan

    How every image is prepared

    Researched, dated and described — one image at a time

    A hundred thousand images gathered from the world's archives, then given the thing that makes them usable: a caption that says what they show, a date, and keywords that actually find them.

    A written caption on every image Each one identifies what it shows, where and when — researched and written, not carried over from the filename it arrived with.
    Thirty researched keywords Formation, operation, place, equipment and date, applied consistently across the whole archive, so a search for a corps or a village returns every sheet that mentions it.
    Marginalia read and transcribed The duty officer's pencilled notes are read and indexed. “Anhaltender reger Bahn-Verkehr” — continuing heavy rail traffic — is often the only surviving record of what was seen that night.
    Provenance stated on every page The originals are historical works. Piemags asserts no copyright in them, says so openly, and supplies the reproduction and the research under a plain access agreement — the terms on your receipt, and the source in the file itself.

    Lage Ost · 434 sheets · 17 July 1942 – 2 February 1943

    Watch the Eastern Front move

    Nine real sheets from the run, aligned to the same view of the Don bend and the Volga at Stalingrad. The front line you see is the one the German General Staff drew that evening. Nothing here is redrawn or reconstructed.

    OKH Lage Ost situation map, 25 July 1942OKH Lage Ost situation map, 7 August 1942OKH Lage Ost situation map, 22 August 1942OKH Lage Ost situation map, 9 September 1942OKH Lage Ost situation map, 1 October 1942OKH Lage Ost situation map, 19 November 1942OKH Lage Ost situation map, 12 December 1942OKH Lage Ost situation map, 31 December 1942OKH Lage Ost situation map, 10 January 1943
    German Soviet
    THE RUN 434 consecutive sheets North, Centre and South sheets for every day of the battle, from the opening of the Don bend fighting to the surrender in the ruins.
    THE SCALE 1:1,000,000 General Staff base The printed base map the OKH worked on, overprinted each evening in blue for German formations and red for Soviet.
    THE DETAIL Stamps, notes and gaps Chefsache security stamps, the red Verbleib unbekannt panel listing Soviet formations German intelligence had lost, and the duty officer's weather notes.

    Access

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    01 · FINDSearch, don't browse Every image carries around thirty researched keywords, so a place name, a formation or a date brings back everything that matches.
    02 · CHOOSEPick the use, not the size Every licence delivers the same full-resolution file. You choose what you may do with it, and the price follows.
    03 · DOWNLOADImmediately, full size The file arrives at archive resolution with its caption, keywords, date and credit already written into it, and no watermark.

    What you are licensing

    The document is history. The scan is the work.

    The original photographs, maps and papers are historical works and Piemags asserts no copyright in them. What you buy is our reproduction and the research attached to it — the caption, the date, the keywords and the transcription — supplied under an access and service agreement rather than a copyright licence. That position is stated on every page and printed on your receipt, so there is never any doubt about what you have bought.

    Read the full licences and usage page →