Hitler's Image Used in Postwar Germany

[Music] thank you even before the Germans surrender the process of wiping away the physical symbols of Nazism had begun in each German village town and city that was captured by the Allies the process was called denarcification and I've already made a video about this and it would continue into the immediate post-war period all portraits of Hitler were removed streets were renamed and new signs put up to replace the Nazi ones and Nazi uniforms and decorations banned huge bonfires were made of uniforms flags and anything else that carried a swastika or an image of a Nazi leader at the same time officials who had held positions in the local administrations Villages towns and cities were investigated and many fired while new people less directly associated with the previous regime found employment under Allied occupation governments Nazi era buildings and monuments were defaced or even destroyed and an aggressive re-education program instituted for children in an effort to turn people away from Nazism and Hitler worship and to encourage in the western Allied sectors anyway the flourishing of democracy this enormous effort was certainly effective in physically eradicating Nazism from Germany but perhaps less so in eradicating it from the minds of some Germans today you won't find any Hitler memorials or statues nor any swastikas or Nazi imagery outside of museums many Nazi era buildings still exist of course and we visited many during the course of the videos I've made on this channel but they have been repurposed but don't necessarily advertise their origins or their original uses by the former regime but despite all that effort Hitler was still completely visible for almost a year after his death and the German surrender his portrait was everywhere and his use was sanctioned officially by the Allied Powers why because it had to be so and to the Allies could make arrangements to replace Hitler's image with something new so where did Hitler's image survive on postage stamps of course in the days before email post was the most important tool for private and official Communication in any state and getting the postal system back in operation as soon as hostilities ended was a vital part of returning German Society to a functioning status so that business and private Communications could resume and the Allied occupation authorities could communicate with the people the telephone system took longer to repair owing to wartime damage and the amount of physical equipment required to restore networks but post could resume quickly and effectively even among all the damage when the war ended post offices across Germany still had hundreds of millions of stamps in storage all printed from the Nazi era the Allied authorities ordered postal services to resume as soon as possible and further told the postal Administration to use up their existing stocks of stamps while new non-nazi designs were being considered and then printed so in a somewhat surreal situation German Postman many of whom had served in the folkstrom Home Guard during the last months of the war removed the Nazi badges from their postal uniforms and set to work sorting and delivering mail adorned in large part by the image of the now dead fuhrer the man who had reduced Germany to such a state of distraction and suffering the Hitler head was the most common Nazi era stamp and came in many denominations of reich's marks Hitler had insisted His Image was used on most stamps in order to make money for himself he received a tiny royalty payment on every stamp sold obviously the new local governments Keen to show their loyalty to the new occupation regimes or at least to distance themselves with the criminal old one were not so Keen to keep Hitler's image in mass circulation it was bizarre and the daily reminder of the past and of course to some who still harbored Nazi ideals and interests it was more than that so many local authorities took two deliberately defacing hitler-head stamps at post offices before they entered the postal system various methods were used the most famous among collectors are the Saxony blacks named for the German state of Saxony where Hitler head stamps were officially defaced by postal clerks who use corks potatoes and their fingers to doorbon a splodge of black ink over the fuhrer's image in some places the Hitler head stamps were over printed with anti-nazi slogans such as blood and Trauma many varieties exist Austria which regained its independence from Germany in 1945 under Allied occupation also continued to use Hitler head stamps for some months after the war over printing them with the words osterhike Czechoslovakia faced the same problem and overprinted their stamps as well Hitler head stamps were still in use by all Allied occupation zones of Germany and Austria including the Soviet ones until the end of 1945 and some lingered on into 1946 as well where new non-nazi stamps began to appear and the Hitler's head stamps were finally banned being demonetized losing their value remaining stocks were either destroyed or turned over to stamp collectors in fact Hitler head stamps remained the cheapest relics from Nazi Germany that are still available today and mint condition examples can be bought for just a few pounds the story of the post-war use of Hitler head stamps is a strange one but also a practical utilization born out of desperate need efficient communication was so important that officials and the defeated people could turn a blind eye to seeing on practically a daily basis the image of defora the flags swastikas and uniforms could be collected and burned but the Nazi stamps were vital and still had a job to do in the post-war reconstruction of Germany many thanks for watching please subscribe and share and also visit my audiobook Channel War stories with Mark Felton you can also help to support both of my channels at PayPal and patreon details in the description box below

Channel: Mark Felton Productions

Views: 331,152

Keywords: Mark Felton, Allied Occupation Germany, Hitler stamps, Reichspost

Id: OfsK7EbP9Jk

Length: 6min 50sec (410 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 08 2023