Background: These photographs are taken from one of the “bestsellers” of the Nazi era: Germany Awakes: Growth, Battle and Victory of the NSDAP. First published in 1933, over a million copies were in print by the following year. It was a so-called “cigarette book.” One got the pictures as premiums for buying cigarettes and pasted them into the album.
I've selected color photographs from the book. Since most photographs of the era are black and white, it’s easy to forget that Nazism was a colorful phenomenon. Color film was new (the first common color film was introduced in 1932 by Agfa), so the color in these photographs was added to existing black and white photographs.
The source:Deutschland erwacht: Werden, Kampf und Sieg der NSDAP (Hamburg: Zigaretten-Bilderdienst Hamburg-Bahrenfeld, 1934). This book saw a variety of editions. Early ones included pictures of Ernst Röhm. This post-Röhm edition brought the number of copies printed to 1,075,000.
Nazi Color Photographs from 1933
“Third party rally in Nuremberg in 1927. Once again, the Brown Army marches.”
This picture shows Hitler holding the “Blood Flag,” the flag carried during the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, probably the most sacred “sacred” relic of the Nazi Party.
This pictures shows Horst Wessel at the head of an S.A. column at the 1929 Nuremberg Rally. He was killed shortly after under circumstances that the Nazis concealed.
This is a photograph of the “Brown House,” the Nazi Party’s headquarters in Munich.
Hitler’s office in the Brown House.
A picture of the “Hall of Flags” in the Brown House.
A Hitler Youth bonfire.
A Hitler Youth fanfare.
The Hitler youth march past Baldur von Schirach and Julius Streicher in Nuremberg, 1933.
A photograph from the Reich Youth Rally in Potsdam, 1932.
An S.A. march in Dortmund, 1933.
Hitler speaks to a mass meeting of the S.A. in Dortmund, 1933.
Hitler speaks to a mass meeting in Dortmund. Next to him are Joseph Wagner, Wilhelm Schepmann, and Victor Lutze.
Hitler addresses a mass gathering of the S.A. in Dortmund, 1933.
Hitler's house on the Obersalzberg, near Berchtesgaden.
An interior picture.
Another interior picture.
A hundred thousand S.S. and S.A. men at the 1933 Nuremberg rally.
