German Document Lot – Identity & Membership Cards, 1930s to Post-War, Kaiserslautern & Pfalz

Description

This German document lot gathers original identity papers and membership cards from the 1930s, the Second World War, the post-war occupation and later decades. Many of the pieces come from Kaiserslautern and the Palatinate (Pfalz), but the documents were issued to several different people. Together they show the dense web of organisations, cards and stamps that surrounded ordinary civilians in twentieth-century Germany.

What Does This German Document Lot Contain?

The main pieces identified in the photographs are:

• Nationalsozialistischer Reichsbund für Leibesübungen – blue cloth membership booklet with the organisation’s eagle.
• Reichsbund der Deutschen Beamten e.V., Gau Rheinpfalz – Vorläufiger Ausweis (provisional membership card) with a large circular stamp.
• NS-Volkswohlfahrt, Gau Saarpfalz, Ortsgruppe Kaiserslautern – Vorläufige Ausweiskarte issued on 19 November 1936 to Martha Müller, born 1904 in Kaiserslautern.
• NS-Volkswohlfahrt – second membership card with a 1937 entry date.
• Reichsbund der Kinderreichen – Vorläufiger Mitgliedsausweis, Kaiserslautern, 1938, with contribution stamps.
• Reichsnährstand – Beitragskarte (contribution card) for an agricultural worker, 1936.
• Deutsches Rotes Kreuz – Mitglieds- und Beitragskarte für 1937.
• Kaufmännische Krankenkasse Halle (Saale), Ersatzkasse – Mitgliedskarte, 1939.
• Wartime agricultural labour Kontrollkarte – issued to Emma Schneider, born 27 May 1910, of Walshausen, through the Arbeitsamt Zweibrücken.
• Deutsches Reich Kennkarte – grey cover with the state eagle.
• Youth hostel membership card – issued within the Reichsverband für Deutsche Jugendherbergen, with contribution stamps.
• Post-war bilingual German/French booklet – with portrait photograph and Arbeitsamt Kaiserslautern stamps, from the French occupation period.
• République Française passport – issued to Daniel Charles Florentin.
• Bundesrepublik Deutschland Internationaler Führerschein – issued by the Kreisverwaltung Germersheim and valid until 1993.

Further papers, including occupation-era identity documents, are partly visible in the group photographs. The lot is sold as the complete group shown, without a guaranteed piece count.

What Is the Wartime Kontrollkarte?

This is one of the most telling pieces. The printed text explains that the card records agricultural work (Landarbeit) carried out under the decree of 7 March 1942 on the deployment of additional labour to secure the German people’s food supply, together with the Dienstpflichtverordnung of 13 February 1939. In other words, it documents civilian labour conscription on the land during the war. It was issued to a woman born in 1910 and stamped by the labour office at Zweibrücken.

The decree belongs to the same spring of 1942 in which Fritz Sauckel was appointed Plenipotentiary General for Labour Deployment and drew up a programme linking labour to war production and the food economy. That programme relied above all on millions of forced labourers deported from occupied Europe, as the German Historical Institute’s documentation explains.

What Do the 1930s Membership Cards Show?

The cards for the NSV, the Reichsbund der Kinderreichen, the Reichsbund der Deutschen Beamten, the Reichsnährstand and the German Red Cross show how membership of Party-affiliated and state-controlled organisations reached into daily life. The NSV card from Kaiserslautern, for example, gives the holder’s address as Adolf-Hitler-Straße, a small detail that says a great deal about the period.

Collector’s Note

This German document lot is a multi-person archive, not one family’s papers, and I do not claim a common provenance. Its value lies in its range: sport, civil servants, welfare, large families, agriculture, health insurance, labour conscription, youth hostels and identity cards, followed by post-war French-zone and later documents. Signatures on the cards are part of the documents and are not offered as separate autographs. For more on reading these papers, see my guide to WW2 German documents and the related German historical document lot.

Condition

• Toning, staining and foxing to many pieces.
• Folds, creases, edge wear, small tears and punch holes.
• Rubbed covers on the booklets.
• Handwritten entries, stamps and signatures throughout.

Condition varies considerably. Please study all sixteen photographs of this German document lot, which form an essential part of this condition description. Sold exactly as shown.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do the documents belong to one person?

No. They were issued to several different people.

What period does the lot cover?

From the mid-1930s to the post-war decades, with one document valid until 1993.

Are the pieces sold separately?

No. The whole group is sold as one lot.

Historical Responsibility Notice

This German document lot is offered as a historical artefact for collecting, preservation, education and research. Some documents bear emblems of National Socialist organisations, which are retained because they are an original part of the documents. Autographs & Militaria does not endorse or glorify National Socialist ideology. For our approach to this material, see collecting Third Reich material responsibly.

References & Further Reading

• Original documents in this lot, as transcribed above.
• German History in Documents and Images (German Historical Institute), Fritz Sauckels Programm des Arbeitseinsatzes (20. April 1942).
• Autographs & Militaria, WW2 German documents.