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This authentic confidential 1941 Himmler Schnellbrief about confiscated passports is for sale for $595.00 delivered by 1st Class Mail in the USA.

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VERY HISTORIC SS SCHNELLBRIEF (URGENT DIRECTIVE) DATED 28 FEBRUARY 1941 FROM THE REICHSFÜHRER-SS UND CHEF DER DEUTSCHEN POLIZEI IM REICHSMINISTERIUM DES INNERN (HEINRICH HIMMLER) IN BERLIN REGARDING CONFISCATED PASSPORTS OF JEWS AND FOREIGNERS

HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL - NOT FOR PUBLIC EYES

Few historians and collectors of Third Reich material have ever seen an authentic Reichsführer-SS Schnellbrief or Urgent Directive. Schnellbriefe are extremely rare because they were used exclusively at the highest level to dispense very sensitive information to a tiny group of SS and Polizei officials. The Urgent Directives have a unique appearance. The page size is 210 x 295 mm (8-1/4 x 11-5/8 inches) and the perimeter of each page is a bold 10 mm (3/8 inch) red border.

The rare Schnellbrief we offer here is two-sided. The address of the sender (Der Reichsführer-SS) is at the top along with the code of the Schnellbrief and the day it was sent, 28 February 1941. A receiving stamp from the Office of the Reichsstatthalter (the highest Nazi government authority) in Wien (Vienna, the second largest city in Adolf Hitler's Greater Germany) was applied with the date of receipt, 10 March 1941, along with the initials of those who read it. An additional stamp at the top shows it was officially entered in Police files on 11 March 1941.

The office of the Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, Der Reichsführer-SS und Chef der Deutschen Polizei im Reichsministerium des Innern, also sent this confidential Schnellbrief to the Prussian Interior Ministry, the Reichskommissar of Saarpfalz, the Reichsstatthalter of Sudetengau, the Reichsprotector of Bohemia and Moravia in Prague (Reinhard Heydrich), the Head of the Sicherheitspolizei in Prague, the Polizeipräsident of Department II in Berlin.

Schnellbriefe were NEVER allowed to circulate outside the offices of those agencies specifically addressed at the beginning. Everyone addressed also knew precisely who else had access to the information the Schnellbrief contained. When received by the addressee, each Schnellbrief was stamped in the upper right corner and dated with an official receipt stamp. All those who read the Schnellbrief were required to initial it.

With this rare Himmler Urgent Directive are two lists (7 pages total) with the names of many people whose Reisepass or passport was sent to Berlin as a result of the new German law explained by Himmler in his Schnellbrief dated 28 February 1941. The lists have the stamp of the Polizeipräsident Abteilung II of Vienna at the top and a total of 165 names of people who lost their passport.

The subject of this confidential 28 February 1941 Himmler Directive was passports, new rules regarding confiscated German and foreign passports. Local police officials were to confiscate passports of foreigners living in Greater Germany and send them to the Polizeipräsident of Department II on Burgstrasse 29/30 in Berlin. The passports had to be accompanied by a list which had the name of the passport holder and the passport number.

Interestingly, it is made clear that passports belonging to citizens of Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Danzig should not be considered foreign [it is just as important to remember that Jews were NOT considered citizens and did NOT have the rights of citizens of Greater Germany]! It is also pointed out that local police officials should inform the passport owners that they should not count on getting their Reisepass back.

This Schnellbrief was sent by a man name Krause at the Der Reichsführer-SS und Chef der Deutschen Polizei im Reichsministerium des Innern. His name appears next to the eagle and swastika rubber stamp of Himmler's office.  Handwritten notes dated 11 March 1941 were added below that stamp at the office of the Reichsstatthalter in Wien.

The names on the lists range from Maria Wagner and Herte Bergmann to obvious Jewish names such as Chaim Simon Rosenfeld, Dr. Ephraim Rath, Jakob Israel Schmiel, Eugen Israel Grün, Erna Sara Jaub and Abraham Isak Klapp. The list also contains the numbers of several passports without names (Ohne Namen).

This rare Himmler correspondence and historical confiscated passport list is absolutely original to the Third Reich. The confidential Schnellbrief is the official archival copy sent from Himmler's office in Berlin to the Reichsstatthalter in Wien, obtained in Vienna where this material was removed from city files and destined to be shredded by city officials bent on destroying any connection of Austria with Nazi Germany. This rare Third Reich correspondence shows how meticulous the inner working of Nazi Germany were, and the attention given to every small detail inside Hitler's Grossdeutschland!