Rare photograph of Adolf Hitler delivering a speech on "Potsdam Day". March 21, 1933 - the official day of the Nazi ...

Rare photograph of Adolf Hitler delivering a speech on "Potsdam Day". March 21, 1933 - the official day of the Nazi takeover and the beginning of Nazi rule

Rare photograph of Adolf Hitler speaking on "Potsdam Day". March 21, 1933 - the official day of the coup and the beginning of Nazi rule. Photo Hoffmann - Adolf Hitler's personal photographer.

After the Reichstag building in Berlin was destroyed by fire on February 27, a proposal was made by Friedrich Besthoren, the Chief Justice of Potsdam, to hold the first parliamentary session with about 600 participants in the Garrison Church. The official opening of the Reichstag took place on the afternoon of March 21, 1933, at the Kroll Opera in Berlin. On that day Potsdam was densely marked with Imperial black white and red flags and swastika flags. The "Third Reich" presented itself as the legitimate successor to the "Second Reich", which was established in 1871 and collapsed with the proclamation of the Republic in November 1918. The hall was crowded with representatives of business and administration as well as officers of the Reichswehr and members of the Sturmabteilung (SA). After the speeches by Hindenburg and Hitler, the wreath was laid in the crypt of Frederick the Great.

The event was accompanied by a propaganda production that reached all parts of Germany. The staging, which was successfully carried out by the Nazi leadership, increased the prestige of their regime at home and abroad. The "Potsdam Day" was broadcast in its entirety on the radio; special editions of the press found countless readers. For many Germans, the symbolic image with the supposedly revered handshake of Hitler with Hindenburg found fertile ground: they linked the "Potsdam Day" with the hope of overcoming the political situation in Germany, which was perceived as a national divide. The picture that emerged from Potsdam was meant to emphasize Adolf Hitler's claim to power as self-evident, a soldier of the First World War ranked as "a man of the people" in the gallery of the fathers of the "great Germans" and now he is claiming their inheritance. The illusion was shattered within a few days with the arrival of rumors about the Dachau concentration camps (which was established one day after the "Potsdam Day"), and Oranienburg (which was established in the same month, later Sachsenhausen).

Photograph: 9x14 cm. Divided on the back for use as a postcard. Very good condition.