I was reading up on Nazi Germany the other day, and this question popped into my head. Say I were a really avid Naziana collector, and I wanted to find myself some real Nazi flags (of all kinds: normal ones, rally-banners, etc.), how much trouble would I have getting my hands on them?
You probably wouldn’t have too difficult a time. A military “tradition” that goes back to the dawn of time is that soldiers want to take souveniers home with them, and given some of the tales I’ve heard from my own family members of the kinds of things they brought back from the war, I don’t doubt that many flags were scavenged from the battlefield/where have you and taken home.
They can’t be entirely uncommon–I’ve seen a two at antique shops around here. One was a fairly big deal of a place, but the other is just a local junk-type store. In one stall (it’s in an old horse barn) there’s a fair collection of WWII stuff, including a large Nazi flag which they assure is authentic (and its condition and accompanying memorabilia give little reason to doubt that). I don’t have any idea what they’re worth, but they were asking $160.
The stall was a mixed lot of both Allied and Nazi things. I’m not really into WWII history, so I didn’t closely examine everything, but there was a shoebox of other fabric items. Surely, some of them must have had Nazi emblems.
If they can be found in places like this, then I have no doubt in my mind they’re readily available.
Incredibly common. An anecdote:
When I went into the coin biz in 1971, a fellow brought in a very large Nazi flag, bigger than 6x10’
I paid him $50 and figured I bought it rather cheap. Later I found out I paid retail for it at that time.
Imagine how many public buildings(libraries, schools, city halls, etc.) existed in Germany the day that the war was over. Every one of these had a flag. Many of them came home as souvenirs.
As a rule of thumb, the very large flags are less desireable than ones that measure 3x5 or so.
When I was about 15-16 years old my dad gave me a whole bunch of stuff that he’d brought back from Germany.
Armbands, medals, an officers cap, flags etc; I swapped the cap for a balsa wood model aircraft and believe that the cap is worth quite a bit to a collector :smack:
The rest of the stuff I gave my son but I’ve no idea if he still has it