Lot 360

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Description:

1936 HITLER VISIT TO COLOGNE PHOTO ALBUM, ONE DAY PRIOR TO LANDSLIDE ELECTION VICTORY
A most historic and illustrative archive, a photo album, 48pp. folio, filled with 34 photographs and numerous other articles of ephemera, all related to German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler''s March 28, 1936 visit to Cologne in celebration of the remilitarization of the Rhineland, one day before the NSDAP''s landslide victory in the 1936 parliamentary elections. The album opens with a finely-executed calligraphy dedication from Dusseldorf Gauleiter FRIEDRICH KARL FLORIAN (1894-1975) to Hitler Youth regional leader HEINZ DEINERT (1911-1990), which Florian signs in black ink at the conclusion. In this message, Florian lays out the reason for Hitler''s visit, and goes on to state that the follwing day, the NSDAP won 99% of the vote nationally, and 99.5% nationally. The following pages bears an 8" x 10" b/w portrait of Hitler, faced with a propaganda poem extolling his virtues. The following images depict Hitler''s celebratory procession through Cologne at the head of a massive parade of NSDAP bigwigs, Gauleiters (including Florian), miners, Hitler Youth, BDM members, police, and Wehrmacht bands, surrounded on all sides by cheering throngs of Germans and buildings bedecked with NSDAP flags and banners. Also in this section are photographic copies of the timetable for the festivities and the first news report of the visit. The procession than arrives at the Gurzenich, a concert hall in the old town of Cologne, where a number of images depict Hitler and other NSDAP figures giving rousing speeches in a space again filled with honor guards and enormous swastika-bedecked banners. Besides Hitler, figures visible in these images include Josef Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, Robert Ley, Cologne Gauleiter Josef Grohe, and many others. Inserted into the album at this point is a program containing parts of a speech of thanks to Hitler. The crowd then departs the Gurzenich, and begins another procession through the city. The album includes additional newspaper clippings and images of Hitler speaking, and concludes with the vote tally of the following day''s election hand-written in red pencil, and the inscription: "God calls one soul from the people, and this soul is, Fuhrer, you!" Many of the prints presented here bear the backstamp of Cologne photographer and photojournalist HANNES MARIA FLACH (1901-1936), the bulk of whose work reflected the "New Objectivity" philosophy of contemporaries Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Alexander Rodchenko, of which the NSDAP highly disapproved. Flach was stabbed to death in October of 1936 in a fight with an SA member over a taxi. Furthermore, the front pastedown of the album bears the ink inscription in English: "Germany - 1945 in the town Madgeburgh [sic]", presumably added by the Allied soldier who liberated it. The pages show slight toning, else very good. A fascinating chronicle of this highly important event demonstrating the power of the NSDAP.

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September 13, 2017 11:00 AM EDT
Chesapeake City, MD, US

Alexander Historical Auctions LLC

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Bid Increments
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$0 $99 $10
$100 $499 $20
$500 $999 $50
$1,000 $1,999 $100
$2,000 $4,999 $250
$5,000 $9,999 $500
$10,000 $19,999 $1,000
$20,000 $49,999 $2,500
$50,000 $99,999 $5,000
$100,000 + $10,000