GERMAN PHILATELY

PROPAGANDA POSTCARDS
(1935)

This page was last updated
16-Sep-2026 05:27

REICHSHANDWERKERTAG
GERMAN CRAFTSMAN'S DAY
(15th/17th Jun 1935)

This postcard was published to commemorate the 1935 German Craftsman's' Day held from 15th to 17th Jun 1935 in Frankfurt AM. The image depicts an older craftsman teaching his students how to work metal.




This card documents a specific, well-recorded piece of Nazi urban propaganda, and the back happens to be postmarked on the exact date the key decision was made.

The front is a "Festpostkarte" (festival postcard) for the Reichshandwerkertag 1935 (Reich Craftsmen's/Tradesmen's Day), held in Frankfurt am Main from 15th to 17th June, 1935 (the fuller event, including exhibitions, ran roughly June 12/15–23). This was the first of what became an annual national gathering celebrating and showcasing the Handwerk (skilled trades/craft guild) sector, organized under the Nazi corporatist restructuring of German trade associations.

The event had a specific civic-propaganda purpose. According to Frankfurt's official historical archive (Institut für Stadtgeschichte), Hitler personally approved, by telegram dated 15th Jun, 1935, the very date this card was cancelled, that Frankfurt be granted the honorary title "Stadt des Deutschen Handwerks" (City of German Craftsmanship).

The archive states plainly that this was a deliberate rebranding effort: Frankfurt was, in Nazi Party parlance, reviled as the "Stadt der Juden und Demokraten" (city of Jews and democrats), a reference to its large prewar Jewish community and its Weimar-era liberal/democratic reputation, and the regime used the Reichshandwerkertag as the occasion to publicly relabel the city with an approved "German" identity instead.

The image itself, three generations of craftsmen (an older master, a middle-aged worker, and a young apprentice) collaborating at a workbench, silhouetted against a glowing sunset city skyline, visualizes exactly that themed continuity: craft tradition passed down through generations, tied to place. It's signed "Witte, HBG" (a Hamburg-based commercial artist).

The back carries a second, unrelated commemorative postmark for the "Römerberg-Festspiele in der Goethestadt Frankfurt am Main," a theater festival running 15th Jun to 1st Sep, 1935 at Frankfurt's historic Römerberg square, branding tied to Frankfurt's status as Goethe's birthplace, run concurrently that summer. The card itself was used for an ordinary personal letter (from "Georg" to "Frieda Prunske"), with real postage (a 6-Pfennig Hindenburg stamp).