WWII GERMAN LARGE CIGARETTE CARD FROM THE ADOLF HITLER SET, GROUP 62, CARD 103

Description

This is one cigarette card from the collectible set ADOLF HITLER. Collective work No., 15 Group 62, Image No. 103.  Drawing by Hitler done summer 1917, as a frontline soldier, in Flanders. This cigarette cards measures approximately 4 1/2″ x 6 1/2″.

Cigarette cards were a long held tradition in Germany dating to the 1890’s with WWII marking a huge increase in these collectible cards.  These small illustrated inexpensive cards were included in all cigarette packages and were collected and traded widely.  These cards were manufactured by the Cigarettenfabrik Constantin, in Dresden and Berlin.

Larger cigarette cards, ones that could not fit into a cigarette package, were introduced later as an added collectible.  You would receive “points” upon purchase of cigarettes and these “points” could be accumulated and mailed into the manufacturer for larger collectible cards sets.  Books, or albums, of a highly descriptive nature were also purchased from cigarette companies, where you could paste in your cards in blank spaces provided in the books. Some of these books could contain as many as 1000 cards.  Just as in sports cards these were highly collectible and very tradeable.  Books for sets included:  Adolf Hitler, Deutschland Erwache and Kampf ums Dritte Reich.

Even though Hitler did not believe in cigarette smoking for the master race was good and it became not popular to smoke during the Nazi regime. Soldiers however were still rationed cigarettes and cigarette sales were taxed at rates of 90% becoming a large source of income for the government.  The collectible cards were also good sources of propaganda to the Nazis.  Hitler tolerated cigarette sales for 9 years but in 1942 he finally banned cigarettes altogether.

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