Deutsche Post "Tag der Deutschen Kunst 1939"

DEUTSCHE POST on 16 July 1939 issued this propaganda postcard from Nazi Germany, specifically commemorating the "Tag der Deutschen Kunst 1939" (Day of German Art 1939). 

The postcard featured a pre-printed stamp on the right side depicting a "Venetian Woman" Venetian woman from a painting by German artist Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528). The stamp had a face value of 6+19 Pfennig.

There was a Special postmark as well as a slogan postmark used to accompany the issue of this stamp.  Minerva the goddess of wisdom, war and the arts was shown standing beside a German eagle. The inscription reads "München Hauptstadt Der Bewegung Tag-Der-Deutschen Kunst-MCMXXXIX 16.7.1939" - 'Munich Main Town of the Movement, Day of German Art 1939'. The slogan postmark inscribed "Tag Der Deutschen Kunst 1939.

NAZI POSTCARDS

Nazi propaganda frequently utilised postcards as an inexpensive and effective way to disseminate visual imagery and rally citizens around common causes. Following the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Hitler established a Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda headed by Joseph Goebbels. The Ministry’s aim was to ensure that the Nazi message was successfully communicated through art, music, theatre, films, books, radio, educational materials, and the press.  

Postcards were an extension of the propaganda department to boost morale, glorify their military and political heroes, and commemorate special events and anniversaries.  

Postcards were easier to disseminate than posters and political cartoons and the Nazi government saw in postcards a way to use visual imagery that could express opinions and rally citizens around common causes inexpensively and effectively.

Postcards were printed and sold throughout Germany and German-occupied territories. The postcards offered an affordable way to stay in contact with family and friends in an era before wide access to mass communication, and this common form of communication became interwoven with images of Hitler and party symbols. 

Over a thousand different postcards connected to the Nazi Party in Germany were printed. By late 1943 the printing of postcards stopped due to extreme material shortages from the war.  

It should be noted long before the Nazi regime came to power postcards were used for a similar purpose, and even after WWII as Germany and Europe emerged from the ruins of war postcards were used to convey a message of culture, history and rebuilding the nation. 

(Source: Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University)