Scope and Content Note
This collection consists of 425 posters and broadsides that were included in materials acquired by the Library of Congress Mission to Germany in 1946 after the end of the Second World War. The LC Mission to Germany was made up of Library of Congress staff and German staff on site in Germany in order to facilitate the acquisition of German language books and materials for the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Many German materials had been stockpiled prior to 1939 and later materials were under embargo and could thus not be acquired during the war. The LC Mission to Germany broadened its efforts in obtaining other confiscated materials as part of restitution and cooperative efforts on behalf of the U.S. military and other groups including American libraries. A large portion of the Third Reich Collection in the LC Rare Book and Special Collections Division consists of a portion of the personal library of Adolf Hitler and other German Nazi leaders but includes other confiscated material from many other sources. These posters were included in the confiscated German materials found with the Third Reich Collection. Some of the posters have property stamps of the Haupt-Archiv der NSDAP (main archive of the National Socialist German Worker's Party), the Nazi party archive located in Munich Germany.
The posters and broadsides range in date from 1917-1945 are related to the rise and establishment of the German Nazi Party, 1923-1945 with some earlier related materials from the aftermath of World War I. Posters include announcements of speeches or appearances by Nazi leaders. Also included are some anti-Nazi political posters announcing speeches or public appearances. An owaversize portfolio include an early poster about Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, Nazi Party posters from Austria and the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia 1938-1941 and official notices in German and Polish from German occupied Częstochowa, Poland in 1942-1943.
Includes election campaign posters for the NSDAP (Nazi party), DAF (German Worker's Front), KPD (Communist party) and SPD (Social Democratic party). Includes announcements of party rallies and regional (Gau) meetings; conferences and cultural events; appeals for charity campaigns of the Winterhilfswerk and Hindenburgspende; propaganda posters with slogans by Hitler, Goebbels, Göring and Himmler; exhibition announcements and public information notices including Parole der Woche [Slogan of the Week] posters. Included also are posters from German occupied Sudetenland (Czechoslovakia), Poland, Austria and groups sympathetic to the Nazis in other European countries
Notes: Title devised by Library staff.
Many unprocessed items are in poor condition.
Philipp Gassert and Daniel Mattern in The Hitler Library, a Bibliography, 2001 cite title as NSDAP Posters from the 'Kampfzeit' Other Parties, Freikorps, and Rater.... Mattern cite title as: NSDAP posters from the "Kampfzeit", other parties, Freikorps, and Räteregieung in Munich, from the "elections" in Nazi Germany, and other posters from Nazi Germany and "Posters. 3 boxes."
References: Gassert and Mattern. Hitler library 1635, 1636, 1637.
Organized/Arranged: Organized in 15 boxes (1 processed, 14 unprocessed) and 1 oversize portfolio. Content list accompany each box and portfolio. Processed items arranged by date and by size. Other items arranged by processing status or by shelving arealocation.
Nazi Posters