Chapter 241 Nazi Glass

I've collected some cheap and easy Nazi memorabila via eBay from Munich Germany (Geretsried). This blue piece is especially significant. It's only an inch tall and I'm holding it in my fingers as I took aim with my canon on macro focus. It has three dimensional relief and does show some wear for it's nearly 70 year age. One can only wonder if the brown dirt stains were a result of the Allied bombing of the two munitions factories previously located by Geretsried. When Kathy and I visited Munich, we did not hit these historic spots but instead visited the world famous Deutsches  Museum a few blocks away.

This series of glass pieces representing buildings, monuments, and landmarks were only produced during September 19 and 20, 1942 at a time when 1,230,000 soldiers were dying at the Battle of Stalingrad in Russia. These badges were given out as mementos by the Hitler Youth and brown shirted storm troopers to German citizens in response of their contributions to charity.

The program was called Winterhilfswerk or WHW, a form of socialized welfare. Hitler vowed "No one shall suffer from hunger and cold!" and the program ran from 1933-45 to help the disadvanted especially through the lean winter months. It also bonded the people and had to help the war effort by taking in hundreds of millions of dollars a year. There were hundreds of different types of mementos produced. During the war years '39-'45 they are sometimes referred to as KWHW or kriegswinterhilfswerk, krieg meaning  war.

Adolph Hitler had a real interest in Architecture and Art, having studied and practiced in Austria as a youth. His real passion, however, was a burning nationalistic fervor for Germanization. He moved to Munich and fought for Germany in WW1.

Before Hitler came to power and turned the World upsidedown he was forming the Nazi party at Munich beer hall meetings. Mahnmal Munchen is the inscription on this piece referring to the monument in Munich commemorating the Beer Hall Putsch . The Putsch or attempted coup by the Nazis to overthrow the established German Government was unsuccesful. Sixteen of his party's revolutionaries were killed on November 9, 1923 creating the Nazi sacred blood flag.

The actual monument was at Feldherrenhalle Field Marshalls Hall and inscribed with the names of the 16 who died there (lettering the size of a finger print ridge in my piece, those Germans were clever). Hitler and Goering were merely injured; had they died would we have WW2? Hitler instead was imprisoned for eight months in Festungshaft or the Landsberg Prison at Landeberg am Lech where he wrote Meine Kampf. The monument was erected in 1933 and removed at war's end 1945.

The swastika symbolic of the Nazi party has been outlawed in Germany and so that it becomes more difficult for sellers to advertise some historical pieces. A Reichsadler is a long time symbolic eagle for the German Empire. If it holds the Nazi symbol looking right (a Hoheitszeichen) it stands for the the Nazi country itself (1939-45). Note that early Americans also liked the symbol,as in this 1909 southwest indians photo. The Parteiadler is an eagle looking left, symbolic of the Nazi party itself. 

related links

Into the Darkness a more detailed contemporaneous description of the WHW by Stoddard alluding to the insideous and sinister nature of the program as part of the propaganda and psychological warfare of the Reich.

eBayer at 25 Johann Sebatien Bach Strass, Geretstried,Germany

Munitions factory near Geretstried at Stein now making pencils for Faber Castell.

Story of German-American Hitler Youth/American Soldier/Tenesee pastor surviving bombing of munitions factory near Geretstried at Gartenburg.

Mission #935 on Apr 9, 1945 333 B-17's hit munitions factory at Wolfratshausen near Geretstried.

Paul Ludwig Troost Hitler's architech designed the above monument. 

Fascinating Hitler is  1938 Man of Year,   If you find MORE info on the Putsch Monument let me know !

Nicedisplay of  WHW offerings from Austria.