2nd January 1933
Turnfest
Envelope with advertsing/propaganda vignette to reverse.
Envelope with advertsing/propaganda vignette to reverse.
Cover sent from Austria to Switzerland featuring a propaganda vignette (measuring 72 x 50 mm) to the reverse stating '1933 3.Verbandsturnfest Saaz'
on a 'Turnerkreuze'. Ref: 02.01.1933 - 14/54
The 3rd Gymnastics Festival, Saaz, held between 13th - 16th July 1933, was staged by the Sudeten German politician Konrad Henlein. The event saw some 20,000 Turnerbund members perform carefully choreographed displays. Henlein would later declare the Turnerbund as the 'educational body of Sudeten Germans'. After the Saaz rally Henlein was widely viewed as the 'man of the hour', and knowing that the Czechoslovak authorities were about to ban two main völkisch parties in the Sudetenland as treasonous, Henlein took advantage of the ensuing political vacuum.
On 1st October 1933, Henlein founded the Sudetendeutsche Heimatfront (Sudeten German Home Front).
The advertising stamp above celebrates the 1st Turnfest in Linz, 1922. It is noted that the symbol being held in the eagles claw is similar but not quite the same as the vignette on the present cover. The original symbol is circular and constructed of four interlocking 'F's. It could easily be construed as an early form of Nazi swastika. The term for this symbol is 'Turnerkreuze' and the 'F's represent the initial letters of the organisations motto, 'Frisch, Fromm, Fröhlich, Frei' (Fresh, Pious, Cheerful, Free). The vignette produced for the Saaz event is overtly designed to reflect the German nationalist sentiment prevalent at the time in the Sudetenland.
Turnfest vignettes from the 12th festival held in Leipzig 12th - 16th July 1913
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