Nazi Germany & Holocaust, Collected Materials

These collected materials reference the Holocaust and Nazi Germany during World War II. The material includes copies of News in Brief, 1936-1939, an English-language Nazi political periodical and propaganda tool printed in Berlin and distributed in English-speaking countries. Articles promoted Nazi policies such as annexation of Austria, the repression of clergy in Germany, and economic issues. Miscellaneous Nazi publications are represented, including:  12 Uhr 4 September 1939, Presse-Korrespondenz, August 1939, a newsletter of the Deutsches Ausland-Institut of Stuttgart, Germany, that promoted pro-Nazi propaganda among German-speaking minorities around the world; Tobis Cinema Information, April 1940, an English-language newsletter that served as the official publication of Tobis Studios in Berlin.  Articles cover actors in Tobis Studios films during the early years of World War II and calls for German poets to devote their talents to the German film industry.  Merkblatt für den jungen Soldaten, August 1943, is a booklet printed for German Air Force trainees.  This manual offers various rules and instructions for soldiers on topics such as weaponry and alcohol and nicotine abuse. The first four pages are missing from the booklet.  Ein Wort zur Stunde, 1945, is an official notice prepared in Prague by Nazi SS General K. H. Frank for public distribution and outlines rules and procedures to be observed by ethnic Germans of Bohemia and Moravia when leaving the country. Materials specifically relating to Hitler include photocopies of his Last Will and Testament and Certificate of Marriage to Eva Braun, which is dated 29 April 1945, and a published copy of Hitler’s Reichstag speech of April 1939.  There are selected newspaper clippings about Hitler’s personality and the faked Hitler diaries. There are some items that relate to the Strasser brothers (Gregor and Otto), Nazis who were anti-Hitler activists in 1930s Germany. Their brother, Father Bernard Strasser, a Catholic priest, wrote an essay on his brothers in 1974, and a copy is included. Other anti-Nazi items include a 1943 letter by the Catholic Bishop of Berlin Konrad Graf von Preysing (later a Cardinal of the Catholic Church).  A 1934 clipping on a Nazi translation of the biblical book of Psalms incorporates mention of the ancient Germanic deities.  A 1940 booklet about Nazi persecution of Christians in Germany is also included. Folder 8 contains materials on the post World War II Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals and later trials of Nazis who escaped prosecution in the years immediately following the war’s end.  Clippings and articles in this folder cover Ilse Koch, the wife of Buchenwald concentration camp commander Karl Koch, Rudolf Hess, Adolf Eichman, Klaus Barbie, and other Nazis and Nazi collaborators. Other items in the collection relate to the Holocaust, mainly concerning the Nazi extermination of Jews, Nazi concentration and death camps (Belsen, Treblinka, Auschwitz), criminal Nazi doctors, concentration camp survivors, book reviews on Holocaust literature, and related subjects.  There are also materials on the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. and clippings on Holocaust remembrance topics in general.  Clippings are available on Holocaust survivors in Lincoln, Nebraska.  Bibliographic lists provide information on literature related to the Holocaust, World War II, and Nazi German documents seized by Allied forces after World War II.  Folder 12 contains miscellaneous clippings on World War II, dated 1975-1986, dealing with American veterans’ memories, the entrance of Soviet forces into Berlin during the final days of the Nazi regime’s existence in 1945, and related subjects.  Photographs in the collection include photos of Nazi occupational forces entering Prague in 1939 and photos from Tobis Studios in Berlin. These photos are of German movie stars shortly before and during the Nazi period, 1930-1940, and include images of Olga Tschechowa, Hannse Stelzer, La Jana, and others. There is also a photo album of possible wedding photos taken in Munich on 24 March 1939.  Typeface used for the title page of a 1939 edition of Mein Kampf are also a part of the collection. The typeface does not include all of the words on the title page, but does include title, author, publisher, and date information.