Accession Number: 2022.02.11.5.77
Artist: Erich R. Döbrich-Steglitz
Historical Background: Döbrich was wounded twice while serving in a machine gun company during World War I.  In the late 1920s and early 1930s, he was a member of the National Socialist Sturmabteilung (SA) in Berlin.  Döbrich attracted public attention at this time when, as leader of SA Standard I (Charlottenburg, Spandau, Moabit), on the night of August 30th, 1930, on the orders of the supreme commander of the Berlin and East Elbian SA, Walter Stennes, he led the twenty-five-man SA commando to the offices of the NSDAP’s Berlin Gau to relieve the SS guards there after the SA suspected that the party leadership and the SS were acting against their interests. Since the SS guards refused to obey the order sent to them by Stenne and to vacate the rooms of the Gauleitung, Döbrich had the door of the Berlin party headquarters forced open, which led to a mass brawl between SA and SS men who devastated the office and two SS men were seriously wounded. The argument was only resolved when the police were summoned.   After Stennes and his followers left the SA and the formation of a secessionist replacement organization in April 1931, Döbrich also left the party army. For Stennes, Döbrich, who was said to have communist sympathies, is said to have acted as a liaison to Waldemar Pabst’s traditional publishing house.

This postcard is one of a series of watercolors done by the artist and published in the 1930s.  (Source: Wikipedia)