Grossly Over-priced Gerhard Rossbach Postcard

[Brian L.]

Hi,

just with google, apparently Rossbach was "Close to Ernst Röhm and Edmund Heines", but maybe not THAT close.

Maybe it is a quick dedication to Heines, initialed by Rossbach?

It's a long held belief that Rossbach brought Röhm out of the closet, so to speak. If you read original texts on the subject (post Night of the Long Knives), they say that Rossbach "corrupted his morals" ("korrumpierte seine Moral") which it's assumed is a euphemism for seducing him into the gay life. I don't know if he did the same with Heines. Rossbach was a bit of a psycho predator with a very twisted dark side. It's amazing he survived the 1934 purge and the war given the rancor between him and Hitler. Not only did he survive, but he became a wealthy older social butterfly in 1950s and 60s Germany before dying in 1967.

As a side note, sometime in the 1950s he had a re-issue made of the Rossbach Kreuz 1 Kl. which he handed out to friends and associates. These occasionally turn up on dealer's sites and eBay identified mistakenly as Freikorps era crosses. They are quite easy to spot because of the finish and the hardware. They fall into a gray area because they aren't exactly fakes because Rossbach did give them out, but not genuine period Freikorps pieces either.