Chapter 241 Austria
4/18/2010
Austria
I also won 7 WHW badges on eBay that were made Nov 5 & 6,1938. It's the same year Germany annexed Austria (a la Sound of Music) and each piece is for a different state of Austria like Oberdonau and Steiermark (Hank). Just a few days later Hitler's Kristallnacht campaign to smash the Jewish stores Nov 9 & 10,1938 was determined while commemorating the Beer Hall Putsch. Though small and 70 years old the colors and detail are intricate and all documented in reference books.
Austria was had been a strong central theme for the Nazis and the end game of the war was expected to occur there at the National German redoubt as Hitler's Eagle's Nest was there.
The benign images and thoughful intent behind the charitable cause are in striking contrast to the reality of the madness and the final solution practices of the Third Reich that are too ghastly to depict here. The NSV was the social welfare system under which the WHW existed.
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.