Nuremberg Laws

Hitler changed the laws to nullify the degrees of Jewish professionals. Doctors, lawyers, and dentists could not pursue their respective careers, except with Jewish clients.

For example, this letter, sent from Dr. Alfred “Israel” Karpen, includes the text “Licensed solely for the legal counseling and representation of Jews” in the lines below the return address. Dr. Karpen could serve only as an advisor (Konsulent) to Jewish clients. (NOTE: The title doctor [Dr.] applied to lawyers in this era.) Even if a lawyer had many Aryan clients, he could not practice law on their behalf.

Sara and Israel Middle Names

When Hitler was elected to power on March 22, 1933, he immediately started to change German laws to take things from the Jews, including citizenship, property, and professional degrees. On August 27, 1938, he finally gave the Jews something: He required the Jews to assume a middle name. All female Jews were to take the middle name of Sara, and all male Jews, Israel. This addition had to appear on all documents: passports, land titles, court papers, and so on. With regards to the postal system, this made it easier to identity Jewish mail for censorship.

This cover was sent air mail from Martha Sara Lipmann in Hannover, Germany, to Cleveland, Ohio, on September 11, 1939.

Der ewige Jude

Der ewige Jude was an exhibit featuring what the Nazis deemed to be “degenerate art” that traveled all over Germany and Austria. Depending how you translate the phrase der ewige Jude, it could mean “the wandering Jew” or “the eternal Jew.” Photographs featured in the exhibit identified typical “Jewish” features. The clothes they wore, facial and racial characteristics, religious items, and culture, were all shown in a very negative light. It also included so-called entartete Kunst (degenerate art) by Jewish and other sculptors and painters.

This postcard acted as an announcement of the opening of the exhibit and became the symbol for the show. It depicts a Jew with a hand out asking for money, we see the black coat (kaputa) and the sidelocks (payot) the traditional dress of the ultra-orthodox European Jew.The letters are in a Hebrew-like font in red to symbolize the blood libel, a slanderous myth related to Passover that was used to justify persecution of Jews starting in the Middle Ages. The map of Russia with the hammer and sickle links the Jews with Communism.

Anti-Semitism

Hitler’s rise to power began with the fall of the Weimar Republic. There was rampant unemployment and great unrest in Germany. Hitler made speeches at beer halls, union party gatherings, and other events. One of his major themes was that Jews were the root of all evil and the cause of Germany’s problems. Anti-Semitism began to raise its ugly head and was manifested in many different forms: anti-Semitic literature, songs, and even labels placed on envelopes.

The back of this envelope, postmarked in the mid-1920s, bears an anti-Semitic label reading “Don’t buy from Jews or shop at their stores.”

Ludwig “Israel” Lewinter was a dentist practicing in Vienna. However, due to the changes in laws, his practice was limited to Jews and his title was no longer dentist: it was “caretaker of Jewish teeth” (Zahnbehandler).

A very popular collecting area for stamp collectors is souvenir cancels, which commemorate an event. For many events, the postal authorities create a special cancel just for that event. Collectors will have a cover cancelled for their own collection or to send to other collectors. The following is an example of a souvenir cancel from Der ewige Jude.

This souvenir cancel, from when the exhibition was in Berlin, is dated November 13, 1938. In this case the collector had the stamp cancelled and placed the cover in his collection, rather than sending it through the mail.

This letter, also postmarked in the mid-1920s, is another example of a label containing anti-Semitic propaganda. The label reads

The Berliner Tageblatt, the Frankfurter Zeitung, the Vossische Zeitung, the Berliner Zeitung am Morgen, the Vorwärts, are all almost exclusively written by Jews for Jews, and are thus Jewish newspapers.

An interesting observation: The backwards swastika appeared here before it was formalized as the logo for the Nazi party.

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This cover contains an example of the Israel middle name: Max “Israel” Schlesinger. This letter was sent from Vienna to Shanghai, China, on July 11, 1941.

This cover was addressed to a collector and has a souvenir cancel dated August 26, 1938, when the exhibit was housed in Vienna, Austria.

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Laws were passed in late 1935 that stripped Jews of their right of citizenship in the Reich. The new regulations applied if you were Jewish and had any Jewish relatives. Even if you were not raised as a Jew, you could not be considered an Aryan.

This following is a voter registration card, which serves as a reminder that an election is coming up. It relays to the voter the location of the polling place and what issues are being decided. The handstamp on lower left of the front of the card was made at the polling place and indicates that the person voted. The front also has a nice souvenir cancel, dated April 1938.