Above: German president Paul von Hindenburg and chancellor Adolf Hitler riding in the 1933 May Day parade in Berlin.
The Library & Archives have acquired a substantial collection of German photographs and other documents, mostly from the 1930s and the early years of the second world war. These materials have been added to Hoover’s extensive German Subject Collection.
The images include numerous postcards and photos of notable political and military leaders, as well as troops, equipment, and architectural monuments. A color image of Adolf Hitler on a postcard is canceled on the reverse at his birthplace on his forty-ninth birthday, April 20, 1938. There are portraits of Hermann Göring, Erwin Rommel, Friedrich Paulus, and Benito Mussolini. Also included are photos of troops, including those from the Skijäger division, Tiger tanks, cannons, bombers, ships, a copy of Heinrich Himmler’s Christmas card, and some 150 “cigarette book” photos on various subjects.
Among other materials, most noteworthy are the 1933 Nazi Party polling results and voting documents. The national elections of March 5, 1933, were the last political contest held in pre-World War II Germany; they enhanced the Nazi Party (NSDAP) voting bloc in the Reichstag and the provinces. The head of a Berlin voting precinct, one Robert Schwerk, once owned those election papers. They include five tally sheets showing NSDAP candidates with commanding leads over their political adversaries; a list of members of the Reichstag; a notice on where to vote; a pass to the “House of the Reichspräsident” (Paul von Hindenburg); a sample invitation to the March 21, 1933, opening of the Reichstag; and a document deputizing a poll worker.
Maciej Siekierski siekierski@stanford.edu
Above: Tops of tally sheets for the Reichstag (national parliament) and the Landtag (provincial diet) elections of March 5, 1933. The National Socialist Party was first on the list, with Adolf Hitler as the first candidate of his party for the Reichstag, and Joseph Goebbels as the first candidate for the Landtag.
