If I'm getting the hang of Picassa web albums, photos should be here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/1170387...K71l4myno2itAE
Several items here may be of interest to forum viewers.
There clearly seems to be a huge amount of concern about fake SS license plates and I thought it might be worth sharing one which is certainly not a fake (unless it was faked in 1945, probably a fairly risky business). My certainty has nothing to do with expertise (I have none) and everything to do with knowing where it came from and where it has been for the last 68 years. Obviously, given the hand made nature of these items they will vary, but this is a good example of one that has been sitting indoors, uncleaned for a long time. I have a question which I would like to have answered on the plate. however. The list of plate numbers which have been posted on the site seem to terminate shortly after 100000 (ie into 6 digits), but clearly they went on well past that. Does someone know the answer to this seeming riddle? Is the first digit perhaps not included?
The ID cards, I find fascinating because they are such real French faces and the ones I see in my own day-to-day life in France. Both men are listed as day laborers on the front card but the younger man's occupation on the second card is listed as a baker. Unless he lived above the bakery, biking to work in pitch black at 4am to bake bread must have made for a very nervous daily commute in occuppied France, with or without an ID card from the German army.
The third item is something I have been unable to find out more about on the internet. The Swiss consul has tried to help out a vary nervous Swiss citizen living near Stuttgart in the beginning of 1945 with a "Letter of protection." Obviousy drafted in part in English, suggesting it was American forces making him nervous and not Russians. Wonder if it worked? Has anyone seen one of these before?
All the best.
https://picasaweb.google.com/1170387...K71l4myno2itAE
Several items here may be of interest to forum viewers.
There clearly seems to be a huge amount of concern about fake SS license plates and I thought it might be worth sharing one which is certainly not a fake (unless it was faked in 1945, probably a fairly risky business). My certainty has nothing to do with expertise (I have none) and everything to do with knowing where it came from and where it has been for the last 68 years. Obviously, given the hand made nature of these items they will vary, but this is a good example of one that has been sitting indoors, uncleaned for a long time. I have a question which I would like to have answered on the plate. however. The list of plate numbers which have been posted on the site seem to terminate shortly after 100000 (ie into 6 digits), but clearly they went on well past that. Does someone know the answer to this seeming riddle? Is the first digit perhaps not included?
The ID cards, I find fascinating because they are such real French faces and the ones I see in my own day-to-day life in France. Both men are listed as day laborers on the front card but the younger man's occupation on the second card is listed as a baker. Unless he lived above the bakery, biking to work in pitch black at 4am to bake bread must have made for a very nervous daily commute in occuppied France, with or without an ID card from the German army.
The third item is something I have been unable to find out more about on the internet. The Swiss consul has tried to help out a vary nervous Swiss citizen living near Stuttgart in the beginning of 1945 with a "Letter of protection." Obviousy drafted in part in English, suggesting it was American forces making him nervous and not Russians. Wonder if it worked? Has anyone seen one of these before?
All the best.
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