I asked previously about German offices, but I was wondering about the buildings themselves. I wanted to do up a plain, generic office building in WW2 Germany. What kind and size were there, were they stucco or brick, what windows did they have, how many stories tall (I'd prefer to do a shorter one for my diorama), etc.

Hallo Tom,

I looked up this link for you.
http://www.das-neue-dresden.de/epochen.html

These are pictures from a lot of office buidings. Follow the links to see more photos. (I did not yet see these myself , it's a pretty good collection of photos for reference)

The german architecture was very straightlined.

I think those pictures will answer most of your questions.

If you need an translation or explanation regarding one of the buildings , please feel free to ask.

Cheers
Claude

Thank you so much, but one more question:

I cannot tell from the photographs what material the buildings were made of. Brick? Stucco? Concrete? Stone?

Hallo,

Glad i could help

As for the materials used, in the article regarding this building
http://www.das-neue-dresden.de/luftkriegsschule.html, it is said that
"Sämtliche Gebäude besitzen einfache Putzfassaden mit sparsamer Verwendung von Werkstein aus sächsischen Granit."

That means the used plaster with limited use of local granit stone (for decoration purpose on different spots i suppose)

The overall devise given to the german architects was to build simple, with straight lines, to build german.

Now i want to see what you are going to build with this informations

Cheers
Claude

Have you ever seen the TV show Hogan's Heroes, about a group of Allied POW's in a German camp who run a secret spy ring? This is a scene inspired by (but not directly from) the show, where several members have swiped a general's car (I'm using a Steyr Kommandeurwagen), drove it up to an office building, and are sneaking in, carrying a container. It is ambiguous about their exact mission, but presumably they are taking something out or putting something into the building, or both. The idea is that later they will head back to Stalag 13 with the car, mission accomplished with nobody ever suspecting, which is the normal plotline for the series.

Sounds good!

What figures are you planning to use for the prisoners, there is not much choice out there.

Looking forward to see the dio

Claude

There are no 1/35 scale figures of the Hogan's Heroes characters that I know of, so I'll have to cheat by finding generic figures with the right uniforms and have them face toward the building. I was going to have one in the car, one outside, and a couple inside anyway. For Kinchloe (the black character) I should be able to find an appropriate replacement head. He can be outside.

Tom,

This building from MiniArt ( review here ) may be an idea.

Cheers
Henk

Thanks, but my decision is to use a plain stucco building, with a darker paint color on it to suggest secrecy and furtiveness of the diorama, and to show just the front area and the first rooms of the interior. The diorama will have a base and back wall.