a German Serial History Magazine
The illustration on the left, of street fighting in an Antwerp suburb, is a typical result of the liberties taken by news-editors in their never-ending quest for dramatic and heroic events. It is described as an illustration of hand to hand combat between German and British soldiers, taking place in Broechem. The background for this scene is a very recognizable location, but unfortunately not in Broechem, rather it is located in the heart of the medieval city of Antwerp, near the river Scheldt.
A mistake, deliberate or unintentional of location is of course not such an important matter. However in this instance, no combat of such nature ever took place at all in the city itself. Antwerp was evacuated of Belgian and British troops before the first German soldiers entered the city. There was certainly no hand-to-hand fighting. Furthermore, the street were this fictional engagement is supposed to have taken place, was demolished in the 1880's, some 35 years before.
In all likelihood what happened was that an editor in search of something dramatic and inspiring gave a commission to a commericial illustrator, in this instance a Fritz Neumann, to come up with something suitable. Probably making use of archive photos of Antwerp, he would then have chosen this street to use as background for his rendering. All that needed to be done was to add some soldiers engaged in heroic looking combat to complete the assignment.
Of course, nothing sinister or misleading need be seen in this at all. It was simply an accepted practice that news-editors and illustrators employed to produce more news-worthy illustrations.Commericial artists and editors on both sides fell into such mistakes quite often. Much depended upon the state of photo archives from which artists worked. If they were kept up to date, then the artist could draw upon suitable material from which to create his illustrations. If they were long out of date, then queer concoctions were apt to crop up indeed, though most readers would never realize the mistakes in the first place.