The images and the entire text used on this and all other USMBOOKS web pages are the copyrighted property of USM Inc.  Those images and the text may be used by others ONLY AFTER completion of a formal international licensing agreement and payment of a licensing fee! It is therefore, illegal for anyone to take any of the material found on USMBOOKS.com and use it for their own purposes without our written permission, irrespective of any excuse they may feel they have for doing so.

This is an interesting, sturdy green leatherette pocket size map book of the country of Austria, published after 1933 but some time before the Anschluß, the Austrian reunification with Nazi Germany in the spring of 1938.

Before the Anschluß people drove on the left side of the road in much of eastern Austria, as well as in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Believe it or not, in western Austria people drove on the right hand side of the road! For example, drivers headed west in the left lane had to switch over to the right lane just west of Salzburg and Braunau!

Note the 'border between driving right and left' on the explanation of symbols on the maps in this unusual, historical pocket map book!

In the Deutsches Reich (Hitler’s Nazi Germany) as well as in Italy, Switzerland and Yugoslavia driving on the right was the law of the land. This important information is marked in red on the edges of every page of this fine approximately 90 year old example of the Oesterreichs Autokarte.

The 4-1/4 x 6-1/8 inch Handbuch der Auto-Strassen von Österreich has 16 pages with color maps of Austria. The maps are marked with cities, highways, distances, railways, national and provincial borders, as well as the unusual Austrian demarkation where traffic was required to change between Rechts und Links Fahren, driving on the right or left side of the road.

Adolf Hitler made it mandatory for all traffic in Austria to drive on the right after the 1938 reunification of Germany and Austria. Czechoslovakia was next in 1939, and in 1944 Hungary also changed to driving on the right side of the road.

The name of a car repair business called Karl Kraty in Vienna is embossed in gold on the front cover. It is interesting to note that the front flyleaf has the oval Nazi eagle and swastika stamp of the library of Ordensburg Vogelsang on it.

A very rare and unusual undated pocket map book in very good condition, printed between 1933 and 1938. No odor.