D 699/41 - The Transart Guide To The Schwimmwagen

The Transart Guide To The Schwimmwagen has been lovingly reproduced with all of the sublime Transart foils included in their original form. They have been offered to sell exclusively through The Tank Museum.

The Type 166 Schwimmwagen was a remarkable vehicle. Quite simply, it was the best all-round, off-road performer of World War II. The Willys jeep and the Ford GPA amphibian were good machines – but the Schwimmwagen was in a class of its own.

The Waffenamt was justifiably proud of their new schwimmwagen, and, despite wartime economies, they commissioned the firm of Transart in Berlin to supply a de-luxe supplementary training guide, cross referenced to D 662/13. This handbook -D 699/41- composed of transparent foils, duly appeared in 1943. Transart foils were colourful leaves printed on film, which could be overlaid to reveal the complicated inner workings of a subject. Well known in Germany as ‘Transarts’, these foils were often included in training manuals, medical textbooks, and promotional material. They were expensive to produce, and only a very few pieces of Wehrmacht equipment merited this sophisticated Transart treatment.

Little wonder that, at the end of the war when the allies were picking over the spoils to be gleaned from a defeated Germany, the British confiscated the Transart concern and took it to England. And it is thanks to them that we present this edition of D 699/41