This postcard was formerly the property Anna Herzog (the wife of the former Gauleiter of Carinthia from 1927 to 1933 - Hugo Herzog) for whom it was signed. This card together with other material was apparently donated to the NSDAP Carinthia archives and was was removed from there by a British Intelligence officer in 1945.

There appear to be 11 signatures on the reverse of the card. The signatures were gathered during the second conference of the federated Nazi Party which was held at Salzburg between the 7th and 9th August. This was the first to be attended by Hitler and Anton Drexler.

In February 1920 Dr Walter Riehl had designed a flag using a swastika on a white field. The Flag was first flown on 1st May 1920. In the meantime Hitler had been designing his own swastika flag (apparentlyindependently ) in Munich.

1) Possibly Max Sesselmann
2) Possibly Heinrich Kraeger
3) Hans Knirsch (1877-1933) Austrian Nazi Leader.
4) Unidentified
5) Engineer Rudolf Jung (1882-1945) A leader of the Austrian Nazi Party DNSAP. It was he who convinced Hitler to use the words Nationalist Socialist in the renamed DAP.
6) Possibly Ferdinand Burchofsky
7) Dr.Walter Riehl (1881-1955) Chairman of the Austrian Nazi Party (DNSAP)
Engineer Alfred Brunner (1881-!936) A prominent member of the DSP (German Socialist Party)
9) Unidentified
10) Unidentified
11) Adolf Hitler. On the 7th August the swastika was accepted as the Party’s official flag. On the 8th August 1920 Hitler received permission to rename the DAP (German Worker’s Party) the NSDAP (National Socialist German Worker’s Party).

Adolf Hitler left the Army in April 1920 so his signature on this card must represent one of his very earliest political signatures. The signatures of Riehl and Hitler on the same card must rank as an extraordinary association piece in that they both designed swastika symbols for use in their faschist causes in 1920, the year they both signed it.

I would welcome comments and particularly any assistance which may help to identify the ‘unidentified’ signatures.

Regards
Ian

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