Third Reich Car Tax Discs

[torstenbel]

I am sure that I have seen these discs being discussed on the forum before, but I just cannot find now where that was.... so, here is my problem: as far as I know these six discs that I have got here are vehicle tax discs.

1. Is there anyway of dating them? Did they get issued new every year or only once in the life of the vehicle?

2. Were there different designs/colours?

3. The one from Aachen on the bottom right is smaller than the other five...I believe that this one is for motor cycles and the others are for cars...is that true?

Cheers and thanks for any help given... Torsten.

[Dave C.]

Torsten, nice examples you have! I've not encountered the smaller size before or have been able to find a different color. Although, I thought I seen some in different color(s) many years ago but no pictures. Also, there is a period picture of one example on a plate that was previously posted at WAF but I've not been able to relocate it! No idea as to specifically dating them other than by era!

Below is another related thread:

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...license+police

[torstenbel]

Hi Guys, I did call them tax discs previously, but others have been calling them licence discs...? Does anyone know for certain what exactly they are and how and why they were issued? Cheers, Torsten.

[JoeW]

Hi Torsten, I had always called them property tags used by the particular police authority to tag their vehicles.

I don't believe they are license tags because the car licenses were issued by the particular Land or Provinz in case of a large Land like Prussia. So I would have thought any taxing would have been done at that level when the car license was acquired. Unless the municipality taxed locally. But I have one of the tags I got off ebay in the good old days that is from a Staatspolizei office. That indicates a Gestapo authority and it surely wouldn't have been issued for use by a civilian.

I am trying to find some visiual identification or written authorization for the tags. I have found some photos of police license plates dating from the later 1930s displaying circular stamps. The darker background of the solid tags are not evident, so they must be a hand applied ink stamp of some sort. I have found one photo of a plate with a dark background stamp that may be a disc but the photo is not close enough to determine. It could be that the solid ones were introduced for more permanence and durability. And the use of the eagle/swaz on the affixing rivit also leads me to believe use by the state authority, rather than something applied for civilians.

[torstenbel]

Hi Joe, thank you very much for your comments... this throws a completely new picture on it...mmhh..why not? it could be a specific disc to mark police property, including vehicles?? How can we find out for one way or another ?? Cheers, Torsten.

[Dave C.]

Gentlemen, I trust you will find the following pictures of great interest in regard to this topic! Luckily, I was able to locate the current owner and gain permission to post these (Thank You Jeff!!!).

[Dave C.]

Closer look...

[JoeW]

Excellent Dave. Throw my theory out..... But wait. This is a license plate bearing a Kreis issued tag. To be specific, IK is the license prefix for the Prussian Province of Silesia. And Kreis Habelschwerdt was located in Lower Silesia with a population of a little over 55 000. But we don't know if this license plate was used on a vehicle owned and operated by the Kreis and thus would have a Kreis property tag, or whether this was a civilian's vehicle license plate bearing a tax tag. If we found a "Pol" license plate with a corresponding Pol authority tag, we would know more.

[Ernst-H]

According to the regulations it was as follows:

• All license plates had to be marked with the Dienstsiegel of the respective Authority (Zulassungsstelle) that had issued the numberplate. Only exceptions were the license plates on trailers which did not need to be stamped. When a cars right to drive the open road was revoked the mark had to be removed from the plate.
• Marking had to be done in either red or black
• Size of the marking was to be either bigger than 4cm which was, if I read it correctly for motorcycle license plates.
  On al other plates the mark had to be bigger than 4.5cm
• These round metal plaques are specifically mentioned in that they simply were a replacement for rubber stamps or templates. They had to be attached to the plate by means of lead seal or any other means that could not be removed without damaging it.

To summarize:
All civilian and military license plates (except trailers') had to be marked. This mark could be either in paint or in metal (the ones being discussed here). They are not tax-discs.


The attached image shows a paint stamp on one of my Police plates (POL-35790). It is marked "Polizeipr******228;sident in D******252;sseldorf"

[JoeW]

Thanks Ernst. Did the use of these start in 1936 or later? When did the metal tags begin in use? So police authorities stamped plates issued by themselves, as did the military? So I would surmise, plates like your Pol plate were issued according to the Min of Interior list to various police authorities. When they in turn issued them for use by their own vehicles, they had to bear their Dienstsiegel. In the case of civilians, civilian plates were issued the police authority on request and they had to tag them before release to the civilian reguesting the plate.

[torstenbel]

Great!! Brilliant!! Looks like the use of these discs is now clarified....thank you very much Ernst!!!

So, the five larger ones I have shown in the first post are for cars and lorries and the smaller one is for motorcycles and they are licence seals, pretty much like the licence seals still in use in Germany today....thank you. Cheers, Torsten.

[Ernst-H]

Joe,
It was not so simple that police-authorities automatically stamped their own vehicles. For example my Pol-license plates were issued to the Hauptamt Sicherheitspolizei but were stamped by the local civil authority (Polizeipr******228;sident) in Dusseldorf.

Basically it all depended on which civil authority had the right to issue licence plates. It would be the exact same civil authority that issued passports, permits etc

According to what I read also military vehicles would have a civil seal from the authority that issued the plates. How exactly this was done by the various military organistions I do not know. What I think is that certain military branches or units were given the "right", by the respective civil authority, to stamp their own plates
For example I have seen SS plates with SS-unit stamps but I also have seen Heer, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine plates with civilian stamps.
For example I guess Police licence plates must exist with for example a "Landrat" Dienstsiegel.

The precise order in which this was done must be somewhere in the regulations but trying to decypher all this official government text is not easy

[Ernst-H]

I am not sure about dates. As early as I could find there is mentioning of of these Dienstsiegel. I guess that every time the official seal for the civil authority changed (like in 1933 the new prussian eagle) also the seals on license plates would change.

I haven't been able to locate any info yet about when these metal seals as shown in this thread were introduced.

[Ron Weinand]

Great information. Thanks for sharing.
Ron Weinand
Weinand Militaria

[Carlton Gooch]

Rivot

Wow, A Swastika on the Rivot itself...Gotta love those Nazis!
All the Best, Butch