RAREST PIECES OF MY ENTIRE STAR WARS COLLECTION: 4 German Minibooks (published only in Germany)

[image=http://www.pauly-alsdorf.de/starwars/mini_luke_und_leia.jpg]

[image=http://www.pauly-alsdorf.de/starwars/mini_han_solo_und_chewbacca.jpg]

[image=http://www.pauly-alsdorf.de/starwars/mini_die_jedi-ritter.jpg]

RAREST PIECES OF MY ENTIRE STAR WARS COLLECTION: 4 German Minibooks (published only in Germany)

In discussions with Plaristes, I typed up lots of info from them and now I present it to you, too.
PS: If Dan, Jason, Abel, Leeland or Nathan read this... use it!

4 unnumbered Minibooks total
Author: Oliver Denker, Head of Official Star Wars Fanclub Germany back then 1997
Publishing House: HEYNE, Munich

1 Han Solo und Chewbacca -
2 Die Jedi Ritter -
3 Das Imperium -
4 Luke & Leia -

Finally you get the information on the German books:

Most interesting is that they feature a page which looks like a letterhead with a date. The date looks like the Adventure Journal Resynch Dates from WEG but does not fit with the Resynch Calendar since the books say they review history from 1000 ABY. So to me it seems this might hint at either an Author error (most likely) or a new calendar being in use at the time 1000 ABY.

Well, I will give you detailed information in the order it appears in the books, and will regroup the info later into several subtopics for discussion in here. Also I will add my notes in (...) or mark them so you see what is fact, quote or my notes.

Each is written like an in universe history book from a pov 1000 years ABY (you heard me right!).

Series called Heyne-Mini books

Paperback: 127 Seiten
Publishing House: Heyne Verlag (August 1997-1998)
ISBN-10: 345312135X
ISBN-13: 978-3453121355

ISBN-10: 3453121341
ISBN-13: 978-3453121348

price: about 8 to 20 Euro on amazon germany or ebay where some copies can still be found by private sellers





Details on each book:

1 Han Solo und Chewbacca

Letterhead page translated (scan follows):

New Republic Holomessage
35 : 3 : 6 /cdn/
G8FD.1.IPC/POL
Source: Journal of the Whills
To: Senator Heria Organa
From: Historian Halsyykh
Topic: Han Solo & Chewbacca

My Notes:
-The numbers sound like a date and then random numbers and letters
-Each book has multiple letterhead pages starting the chapters each, all with a different number in the "date". Maybe they are not dates but file numbering, hmm.
-Heria Organa seems to be an heir of the bloodline of Bail Organa I think
-Halsyyk sounds Wookiee do me
-This historybook is inuniverse based on the Journal of the Whills. I wonder if R2, the Keeper of the Journal of the Whills helped^^

The other numbers from chapter start pages are (I only type what changes from the above):

34:3:6
G8FD
topic: The Honor of the Lawless

39:3:6
G8FD
topic: Han's fate

37:3:6
G4FD
topic: end of the wild days

32:3:6
L5GD
topic: The Millennium Falcon

32:3:6
L5GD
topic: Quotes of Han Solo

36:3:6
G2BD
topic: Quotes of Chewbaccy


2 Die Jedi Ritter

Letterhead page translated:

New Republic Holomessage
34 : 3 : 6 /cdn/
G2FD.1.IPC/POL
Source: Journal of the Whills
To: Senator Heria Organa
From: Historian Halsyykh
Topic: The Jedi Knights and the Forgetting

Other chapter intros:

34:3:6
G2FD
topic: Rise of the Jedi

36:3:6
H6FD
topic: Jedi Lore

34:5:6
H2DD
topic: The Fall of the Old Republic

35:2:6
G7DD
topic: Portrait of Darth Vader

34:3:6
G2FD
topic: The Lightsaber

34:3:6
G2FD
topic: Portrait of Yoda

33:3:4
J2FD
topic: Quotes of Grandmaster Yoda

34:3:6
G2FD
topic: Portrait of Obi Wan Kenobi

34:7:6
G2FD
topic: Famous Jedi Knights

listed are:
Exar Kun
Ulic Quel_Droma
Nomi Sunrider
Bodo Baas
Obi Wan Kenobi
Joruus C'Baoth (wrong spelling in book)
Tionne
Yoda
Vima-Da-Boda
Vodo-Siosk-Baas
Arca Jeth




3 Das Imperium:

Letterhead:
35:3:6
G8FD.1.IPC/POL
topic: The Fall of the Old Republic

35:9:6
M8FS
topic: Rise of the Empire

35:8:6
G4DD
topic: Portrait of Emperor Palpatine

35:2:6
G7DD
topic: Portrait of Darth Vader

35:4:7
G7EE

 

Wow. That Rise of the Empire section was awesome. I normally like the prequels, but this would have been so much better. Also, good to have parts far in the future, because as of now the timeline only extends to 137 in the ABY direction. I wish I could read German!

 

*looks oddly at her set of mini-books* Huh, I never realized they were in any way considered "rare". I've so often thought about just throwing them in the trashcan... I don't even remember where I got them from; maybe while on vacation in Berlin or something. ;-)

 

CH has done fandom a real service, as these books, at least in the US, seem to be even more obscure than the French rpg mags that contain Star Wars scenarios. I had considered trying to track these down before, but decided against it since they would undoubtedly sit unread on my shelf (just like the two Hohlbein Indiana Jones novels that I own) because I don't know German well enough to read them.

The info here is very interesting. With the cancellation of the Plagueis novel, this is probably the most ever written about Palpatine's backstory (and the early parts of it are still consistent with the EU). I also find it interesting that Leia is said to be buried on Coruscant. I would have thought that a pre-prequel source would have assumed that she force ghosted when she died.

 

1.0, you mean. Or 0.1, even.

 

Great summary! Those books were collecting dust on my shelf for over a decade and I had occasionally thought about posting some information from them on this forum. But this is better than what I could have done.

I especially liked the mention of a second clone war. I can remember that this theory floated around on these forums back before AOTC was released, when we were still gathering the sparse information about the Clone Wars from older sources.

I think Denker used the novelizations (the prelude of the ANH novel was our main source for pre-Empire history and Palpatine's rise to power back in 1996), some WEG books, a few Marvel comics and probably some other early sources like the poster magazines.

It doesn't say anything like "(c) Lucasfilm Ltd.", so they probably never saw it before it was released. And it was a rather low-profile release, not reprinted and I wouldn't be surprised it they never showed up in any book catalogue. Oliver Denker was head of the official German fan club and maybe chief editor of the official German SW magazine back then (can't really remember), so he should have known how to get it approved by LFL. I also have three other Heyne mini books, including the X-Files fanbook (Akte X - Das Fanbuch) from 1994 and the Star Trek fanbook (Das Star Trek Fan-Buch) from 1997. Both only say "Copyright by the author and Wilhelm Heyne Verlag", too. So I guess they just didn't care and Lucasfilm didn't know about it.

 

Could you scan the page with the famous SSDs on it? If they are described as being WEG type SSDs (i.e. same as Executor) than that little book may have just added as many as 4 new Executor class ships to the EU (Gladiator, Conquerer, Empire, and Intruder are all new I believe, though some names have been used on other classes before)

 

will scan it later or tomorrow

The page lists them as I listed them without a description. The text that comes on earlier pages describing the SDS and SSDS sounds like taken verbatim from WEG Imperial Sourcebook or any other sourcebook complete with numeric data. But since the book only makes a difference between SSDS and SDS and mentiones no other classes or subclasses for Stardestroyers it is a safe bet that they are indeed Executor-clones

 

Before we get too excited, we should probably verify whether these books are official or not; KamSolusar up above couldn't find any evidence of Lucasfilm's touch on the books.

 

well,... of course we need to verify that and check that, but some french rpg mag articles as well as other obscure stuff exists with the same problems. At the time these books had been published, lots of other material came out with the same obscure status of canon or noncanon. WEG RPG mag articles are just one thing, we had spanish and french only Indiana Jones young reader books, comics, Japanese Indy Mangas and 2 german only Indiana Jones novels by Hohlbein (thx to Plaristes for pointing me to the rare nongerman stuff about Indy ). Considering all that was common around the time of the Special Edition's release and the Holocron either just started or was not even in existence yet, copyright stuff might have been handeled different back then, or more freely. These minibooks are no exception but the rule of that time's lesser known publications. Also WEG had had only very few books translated into german back then before it was no more.

Sidenote: Also a Young Indiana Jones Adventures Mini book exists in the same series from the same publishing house, but like the aforementioned X-Files book, and others (Jurassic Park, Star Trek biographies, Star Trek Lexikon, etc.) it just contained Young Indy TV series episode retelling of the first seasons most important episodes.

 

Yeah, I've heard of these. They're from the German Fan Club -- they're not official. With no LFL copyright on them at all, when the material is entirely under LFL copyright, there's no way this is at all official or that LFL ever saw this. It's not canon.

 

I just now noticed this. As far as I know, the only other pre-prequel source to say that some of the stormtroopers are clones is the "Soldiers of the Empire" article in Star Wars Official Poster Monthly.