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This is an extremely rare Third Reich highway map of Greater Germany, called a “Karten-Wunder” (Miracle Map) which is self-contained in a weatherproof bakelite case that measures about 7 x 13 x 1 inches thick. The sturdy cassette is finely assembled with nickel plated brass screws.

The 1:1,500,000 scale maps identify all major cities and towns as well as many hamlets in Nazi Germany as they existed on the eve of World War II. Today, many towns like Dachau near Munich are missing from many modern maps which show the cities as grown together with other urban towns and lost forever in the incredible paved-over mass of German urban sprawl.

These beautiful detailed multicolor map sheets are perfectly preserved from dust, dirt, finger prints and wear behind thick clear plastic panels in the bakelite case. The Karten-Wunder is still in its original like-new tan chipboard shipping box, and we doubt it was ever used. Still in the original chipboard carton with the Karten-Wunder is its ultra-rare instructions for use. This sheet is missing from 95+% of the Karten-Wunder we have ever seen.

The front, or starting panel of this device (G for Gebrauchsanweisung, or Instructions For Use) has the name of the publisher of the map, Ed. Hölzel of Vienna at the top. We purchased this Karten-Wunder decades ago as a New-Old-Stock piece in Nazi Germany’s second largest city, Vienna. It is the best example we have ever seen!

Pressed into the black bakelite on both sides at the top of the cassette are the words Automobil-Karte (automobile map), and at the bottom the case is customized with the logo of the renowned German clock manufacturing company Junghans, which apparently offered the Karten-Wunder to their clock customers.

Below the name at the top there are numbered thumbnail size miniatures of all the large scale maps and a key to identifying Reichsstrassen (National Highways), Reichsautobahnen (National Freeways), other streets, freeways under construction, instructions for use, etc.

At the sides of the front panel is the letter G and the numbers 1 through 6 and six tan tabs on each side. On the sides of the back panel there are six tan tabs on each side and the numbers 7 through 13. Using the master map on the first panel as a guide, and by selecting any set of tabs to be moved upward, a new map section replaces the former one. The 13 choices provide very large scale sections of Hitler’s Großdeutschland (Greater Germany - includes Austria, Sudetenland, Bohemia and Moravia, Memel, and Slovakia) as of about summer 1939.

The mechanical sliding map mechanism in this device is absolutely ingenious! Each of the maps when revealed is composed of nine sliding panels measuring approximately 1 x 5-3/8 inches. A complete change of any one of the 5-3/8 x 9-1/2 inch map sheets only requires the user to slide the tabs on either side just ONE INCH! As you can see in our photos, these sliding panels fit together perfectly (the thing was made in Germany, after all) to provide an ideal, seamless, quick-change map. If spread out as a single map, the map sheets in this cassette would measure about 28 x 28 inches in size.

Most examples have cracks in the bakelite casing, but this entire Nazi map machine is in wonderful condition , with instructions and in its original 81 year old sturdy cardboard case. As mentioned above, we doubt it was ever used!