1926 Frankfort dog show - Page 1

I think that is Stephanitz in the middle first row.

Thanks to German American Hundesport, Inc.

Interesting toplines and angulation 

 

Seeing this picture from the early days of the breed, I got to think that, for the most part, Stephanitz would be happy with 'alot of' todays dogs.( of course not all).

I'm not so sure Stephanitz would be too excited about any of today's GSD's, but we will never know. 

I'm guessing these dogs are all closely related, they are very uniform in type.

I don't know Blitzen,  I see a fair amount of dogs, mostly working line dogs, that are built very nicely. 

   Along the lines of Max's dreams. But a lit nicer.

I think he would be over joyed with Jyls boys...

And most of the the other dogs that have been posted here for critique.

I even see a slight improvement in many of the showlines.

At least the ones I'm looking at.

Yes, without doubt, there still are those pumping out junk.

We'll never know. We don't even know how Stephanitz felt about these dogs. He wasn't a man who was easily pleased and according to history, he was always looking to improve something about his dogs, toplines for example. Was he happy with the toplines on these dogs? Who knows? Most of us would not be. Interesting that the first dog in line looks to have a shorter, straighter back than the other dogs albeit it being of the same overall type.

Being as the breed was only a couple decades old, the dogs here are likely "closely related".
The biggest difference i see is that the breed for the most part has had the length of leg shortened too much and the angulation too extreme.
These dogs can at least lift their heads above their backs and stand on their toes....more than i can say for the "new improved" model.

What were the names of the dogs he used as his foundation stock? Tracing generations back would be interesting.

Bluetick, that information has been published in many books.