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This well-illustrated hardcover book is absolutely essential to any intelligent understanding of the events, people, growth and success of the Nazi Movement in Germany from the end of World War I onward. Based on a collection, accumulation and archive of Friedrich Josef Maria Rehse of Munich, an art photographer with a unique sense of the momentous nature of the events surrounding him. This book Dokumente der Zeitgeschichte (Documents of Current [Nazi] History) carefully documents the minutia of national life and political strife in Germany as no other document could even attempt to.

Rehse (shown above) documented the war (WW1) and subsequent shortages of consumer, military and technical goods. He documented what he called the Jewish-Marxist propaganda he saw being used against Germany, and the traitors who allowed the post-war plundering of Germany through murder, intrigue and the inflation of German currency. But mostly, Rehse documented the rise of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) from its very first days in January 1919.

This is Volume (Band) 1 called Dokumente der Zeitgeschichte. The hardcover book measures 5 x 7-1/2 inches, is over 1 inch thick, and contains 376 heavily illustrated pages. Fritz Maier-Hartmann assembled all the material and it was published in 1938 by Dr. Adolf Dresler (Hauptamtsleiter der Reichspressestelle der NSDAP) and the Nazi Party Publishing House, Zentralverlag der NSDAP Franz Eher Nachfolger in Munich. This example is a Second Edition from 1940 and is in very nice, little-used condition.

With the success of the Nazi Movement, Nazi leadership found that they had not saved those ephemeral objects used to achieve victory over the communists and fell back on the Rehse collection (die Sammlung Rehse). It was exhibited on special occasions throughout Germany for many years.

There are photos taken during World War I of German troops in Palestine, German and French tanks, German and American artillery, famous pilots Ernst Udet and Hermann Goering, Hitler as a war volunteer in the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment List, postwar ration coupons, emergency currency and “ersatz” food, Jewish and Communist politicians, the French occupation of the Rhineland, the first office of the Nazi Party in Munich, the room in the Hofbräuhaus beer hall where Hitler gave his first Nazi Party speech, important early members of the Nazi Party (Dr. Wilhelm Frick, Dr. Adolf Dresler, Dietrich Eckart, Max Amann), the first Nazi Party swastika flag, the rare 1932 Coburg Honor Badge, SA Leader Hermann Göring, 1923 Deutscher Tag in Nuremberg, Heinrich Himmler during the 1923 Putsch, the 1924 Hitlerprozeß (Hitler Trial), Hitler and General Ludendorff, Hitler in Landsberg prison (including a photo of Hitler’s phonograph record player!), Rudolf Hess, Hitler at the 1927 Reichsparteitag, Hitler with ‘fellow fighters” in the Hofbräuhaus in 1929 and during a speech at the Berlin Sportpalast in 1930, Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler at the 1929 Reichsparteitag with the Blood Flag, Hitler with wounded SA men, Hitler during election speeches, Hitler with his cabinet members (Goebbels, Goering, Hess) at the Kaiserhof Hotel in Berlin, etc., etc., etc.

Like no other Third Reich book, Dokumente der Zeitgeschichte chronicles and depicts in photos the struggle of the National Socialist rise to power in the 1920 and early 1930s. Many of the photos are not found in later Nazi publications and the selection of the NSDAP posters and election material in this book is amazing.

Some of the subjects it covers are: FJM Rehse (his life and work), World War I (“the battle against a world of enemies”), Jewish-Marxist propaganda against Germany, the November Revolution, Germany after 1918, the early years of the NSDAP, Dietrich Eckart, the start of the Völkischer Beobachter newspaper, Adolf Hitler in Landsberg prison, the Nazi Party from 1926 thru 1932, the NSDAP in Austria, Nazi election victory, Chancellor Hitler, National Socialists and their assumption of control of the German government in January 1933.

Early SA and SS uniforms are pictured as well as communist and other political uniforms of the early days. There is even a photo of bare-chested SS men after they were forced by the police to take off their ‘illegal’ Brown Shirts!

One priceless historical photo in the book(left) shows the aftermath of the communist destruction of the Munich police headquarters after its plundering in 1919, 101 years before American anarchists and communist rioters adopted the identical tactic in American cities in the summer of 2020!

Other illustrations include anti-Jewish and anti-black illustrations from the magazine Simplicissimus, examples of rare Nazi posters and announcements, early NSDAP election posters, the first Nazi Party membership book, early editions of the Nazi Party newspaper the Völkischer Beobachter, examples of posters for Nazi rallies, early Nazi Party correspondence and other long forgotten examples of historical National Socialist material.