Third Reich Car Tax Discs

[JoeW]

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 When a cars right to drive the open road was revoked the mark had to be removed from the plate.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 "Polizeipräsident in Düsseldorf"

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 (Polizeipräsident) 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

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.

Well, it has only taken eight years, but I found the documentation to which Ernst referred above thanks to an inquiry by Marcus. I have attached the pertinent portions of the Nov 13, 1937 law dealing with the licensing of vehicles and trailers. Section 23, III contains the sentence that specifies that the Authorization Seal of the licensing location must appear on authorized vehicle licenses. There is no specification that the seal be ink or an aluminum one applied to the license plate. It merely states "Dienstsiegel". So I would presume that changes from ink to an aluminum one could have occured at any time after the law was enacted.

[David Fettes]

Interesting stuff I will have to pull out my Reichsgesetzblatt's and have a good read.

[SMV]

From the Cold Case Files, thank you Joe! It's great to see period source material. Perhaps later on regulations mentioning specifically the metal disks might exist, or not.

Thank you again for taking the time to research and scan the actual Law concerning the Dienstsiegel placement.

Marcus

[scotty1418]

From the Cold Case Files, thank you Joe! It's great to see period source material. Perhaps later on regulations mentioning specifically the metal disks might exist, or not.

Thank you again for taking the time to research and scan the actual Law concerning the Dienstsiegel placement.

Marcus

Could another hypothesis be that certain locations used metal plaques and others simply had an ink stamp dependent on local government? It seems like we see the same cities repeatedly and other well known cities, not at all on these...

[rebeldevil89]

Are there any photos of these in use from '33-'45?

[Dave C.]

Are there any photos of these in use from '33-'45?

Check out the below linked thread, post #194, and I believe there are some other that appears on different pages/posts.
http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...plates&page=13