Mang's Erd-Globus

This is one of the latest editions of Mang's Erdglobus produced in Stuttgart which undoubtedly belongs among the top German globes produced in the first half of 20th century. The globe was produced during the peak of the Second World War and reflects the current political and military situation in Europe and around the world. Apart form its previous version (named Mang's Neuer Erdglobus) from 1930's the map was augmented by a large number of places related to war and German propaganda. The map mentions variety of cities annexed or occupied ba Nazi Germany, for example several smaller cities in the Sudetenland (outer parts of Czechia), therefore altogether 9 names of Czech cities can be found on the map, which is absolutely unprecedented. The list of war and propaganda related places include Adolf Hitler's birthplace Braunau and Berchtesgaden-Obersalzberg, a frequent vacationing destination of the highest ranking members of the Nazi party. The map also provides locations of many strategically important forts and military bases, which were added among already relatively densely distributed places' names.

The variety of information and the level of detail the globe provides is unprecedented, despite the fact that in some areas the map feels overcrowded and even with a good magnifying glass it may be problematic to read all the details. Besides usual political and physical features, the globe provides overview of the world's important areas of natural resources, main crops areas, areas with large production of farm animals, main commerce, transport and communication lines incl. air routes and Zeppelin lines, areas of ethnic groups, important historical and geographical voyages and expeditions and other features which are portrayed in altogether more than 50 different map symbols.

As a reaction to the rise of the global air travel, the globe portrays many air-travel related features like regular air routes operated by Lufthansa, international airports, Zeppelin lines or German ports with ships fitted with plane catapults. The Zeppelin transatlantic lines between Frankfurt (Germany) and Lakehurst (USA) and Frankfurt and Rio de Janeiro, which were operated regularly despite the great depression and growing competition of the fixed-wings aircrafts are portrayed in blue arrowed line. Also notable is the thick red line of Graf Zeppelin which circumnavigated the globe in 1929 in 21 days and 5 hours incl. time needed for stopovers and covered more than 33 thousand kilometres. In Gambia and Brazil you can find positions of German "catapult ships" which were used to speed up the delivery of mail on trans-Atlantic lines between Europe and South America.

Other notable and uncommon features of this globe include:

• names of ethnic groups marked in red colour
• four voyages of Christopher Columbus
• tracks and dates of polar expeditions
• demarcation lines defined by a Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 which divided the Americas discovered by Christopher Columbus between Spanish and Portuguese land
• stations of the "Weltrundfunksender" - the German World radio station which operated from 1929

Besides these unusual references, the map includes all traditional features which we can be found in most (German) globes like mountains with their heights in meters, ocean currents, borders of floating and pack ice, caravan routes, the Great Chinese Wall, the ecliptic, former German colonies and others. There is just so many things to explore in this globe!