Accession Number: 2022.02.12.5.5

Stamp:  Imprinted stamp was designed by Erich Stahl. The card was issued on 21 September 1936 and remained valid until 30 June 1937.

Postmark: Weidhausen bei Coburg is a municipality in the southeastern portion of the Coburg district of Bavaria in Germany.

Historical background:

The official post card commemorating both the Winter Aid fund and the completion of one thousand kilometers of autobahn on 23 September 1936. The card depicts Hitler lifting the first spade beginning work on the autobahn on 23 September 1933. The scene was taken from a photo by Heinrich Hoffman. Dr. Ley, Minister of Labor, can be seen directly behind Hitler.

The autobahn is the federal controlled-access highway system in Germany. Much of the system has no speed limit for some classes of vehicles.  However, limits are posted and enforced in areas that are urbanized, substandard, accident-prone, or under construction.

Just days after the 1933 Nazi takeover, Adolf Hitler enthusiastically embraced an ambitious autobahn construction project, appointing Fritz Todt, the Inspector General of German Road Construction, to lead it. By 1936, 130,000 workers were directly employed in construction, as well as an additional 270,000 in the supply chain for construction equipment, steel, concrete, signage, maintenance equipment, etc.

During World War II, many of Germany’s workers were required for various war production tasks. Therefore, construction work on the autobahn system increasingly relied on forced workers and concentration camp inmates, and working conditions were very poor. As of 1942, when the war turned against the Third Reich, only 3,800 km (2,400 mi) out of a planned 20,000 km (12,000 mi) of autobahn had been completed. After the war, numerous sections of the autobahns were in bad shape, severely damaged by heavy Allied bombing and military demolition.