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This original First Edition of Das braune Heer was given as an award to Johann Richthammer, to thank him for his loyal service in the Postal Administration and thereby his service to the German Nation. This information is on a special tipped-in dedication page inside the front cover (shown right) which has a hand-signed ink autograph of Dr. Richard Lauxmann, Präsident der Reichspostdirektion Nürnberg, dated 28 February 1939.

We provide more fascinating information about the life and career of Dr. Lauxmann (the personal advisor of Reichspostministers Ohnesorge), at our end of the description of the book we are offering. *

Note page 44 (above) which has the photo portrait of SA Stabchef Ernst Röhm opposite Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler.  Later editions of this book, after the infamous Night of the Long Knives, had a photo of SA Stabchef Viktor Lutze on that page. Since this rare First Edition example of the book was presented to a postal worker in 1939, the two images of Röhm in it were both very obviously edited by crossing them out. Page 70 is shown right.

Among the earliest and rarest books in the series of 50 or so Hoffmann Bildbände or Heinrich Hoffmann photo books produced during the Third Reich in Germany, this 96 page, 7-1/8 x 9-7/8 inch, softcover volume is called Das braune Heer - 100 Bilddokumente: Leben, Kampf und Sieg der SA und SS (The Brown Army - 100 Documentary Photos of the Life, Battles and Victory of the SA and SS). This book is from the First Edition of only 30,000 from 1932, before the Nazis took control of the government of Germany.

The forward was written by Germany’s 23rd Reichskanzler and Führer of the Nazi Party, Adolf Hitler himself. With 100 spectacular photographs, the book documents the rise of Hitler and his rag-tag group of National Socialists from the earliest of the 1920s through their parliamentary victories in 1932.

There is a portrait of Hitler in his “Brown Shirt” as “SA High Leader”, pictures of men wearing home made armbands and carrying home made Nazi flags, the burial of a Nazi martyr, early formations such as Stosstrupp Hitler, the storming of the barricades on 9 November 1923, the Nazi martyrs of 9 November 1923, NSDAP Reichsparteitag in Nürnberg in 1927 (the last year Hitler smiled during a parade), Horst Wessel, faces of the SA, Reichsführer-SS Himmler, SS troops from all over Germany, rows of Standards, the High Leadership of the SS (including Sepp Dietrich and Reinhard Heydrich), the Motor SA, the Flying SA, SA horsemen, etc., etc.

Within months of Hoffmann’s publication of this book, Das braune Heer, the Nazi Party was in complete control of the political apparatus in Germany and other photo books followed which depicted the rise of the NSDAP and complete victory in Germany, as well as the cleansing of the Party ranks of undesirable members.

* World War I veteran Dr. Richard Lauxmann was a lawyer who joined the German Postal Service in 1925, and had several positions in different German cities until 1933. He was member of the Nazi Party as well as the SA. In March 1933 he started at the Organisation des Postwesens im Wehrkreiskommando V, then moved to the Nazi Postal Ministry in Berlin and in September 1937 became the head of the Reichspostdirektion in Nürnberg, the City of Nazi Party Days. From December 1937 onward, he also held the important position as the personal advisor of Reichspostministers Wilhelm Ohnesorge!

After the outbreak of World War II, Dr. Lauxmann moved to the Deutsche Reichspost in the East and headed the  Deutsche Post Osten im Generalgouvernement. By June 1943 he reached the rank of SS-Sturmbannführer. Photos of Dr. Lauxmann are very difficult to find, but photo below shows a few of his co-workers in their fancy Generalgouvernement uniforms. Lauxmann survived World War II and headed the postal service in the city of Tübingen in the 1950s.

This is a fine FIRST EDITION of Das braune Heer.  It is complete, in very nice used condition and with all its original photographs.  The photos have a slightly more sepia tint than they appear in the photos on this web page. The color dust jacket is an original from 1932 which was laminated by a previous owner to preserve it.

The book is extremely rare, has a tight spine and no offensive odor. The additional hand-signed dedication page makes this 90 year old Nazi photo book even more special!