This would be an interesting board game to play. Apparently Hitler youth under the Third Reich would play a board game invented to teach them military tactics against the British.
Specifically designed in 1941 to prepare young members of the Hitler Youth ‘for an attack on the Fatherland’, the box illustration shows a British plane being shot down by a German gunner – indicating exactly where the manufacturers thought such an attack might come from.
Players take turns to roll a die with six symbols on it to decide the success or failure of each military move with points awarded for each successful military move.
A roll of a red cross means ‘damage to people’ – the highest scoring type of damage in the game.
As well as the die, the game comes with little model airplanes to symbolise aerial attacks.
Various positions on the board represent valuable bombing targets, in a similar way to Battleships, a game familiar to many British children.
Barrage balloons and flak guns helped defend the positions and the game was like a smaller version of the popular pastime of Risk.
The object of Eagle Air Defence was to attack airfields, barracks, gas and electricity works, iron works and radio stations.
And the instruction booklet included with the board and pieces explain that the game was ‘developed by an officer of the Luftwaffe with the aim of the defence of our airspace.’
[Full story]
Specifically designed in 1941 to prepare young members of the Hitler Youth ‘for an attack on the Fatherland’, the box illustration shows a British plane being shot down by a German gunner – indicating exactly where the manufacturers thought such an attack might come from.
Players take turns to roll a die with six symbols on it to decide the success or failure of each military move with points awarded for each successful military move.
A roll of a red cross means ‘damage to people’ – the highest scoring type of damage in the game.
As well as the die, the game comes with little model airplanes to symbolise aerial attacks.
Various positions on the board represent valuable bombing targets, in a similar way to Battleships, a game familiar to many British children.
Barrage balloons and flak guns helped defend the positions and the game was like a smaller version of the popular pastime of Risk.
The object of Eagle Air Defence was to attack airfields, barracks, gas and electricity works, iron works and radio stations.
And the instruction booklet included with the board and pieces explain that the game was ‘developed by an officer of the Luftwaffe with the aim of the defence of our airspace.’
[Full story]
