Secret Heydrich Nazi Police & SS Directive

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SECRET HEYDRICH NAZI POLICE DIRECTIVE 1940

Reichsführer-SS und Chef der deutschen Polizei im Reichsministerium des Innern

1940 NAZI SS & POLICE SCHNELLBRIEF DIRECTIVE
FROM HEYDRICH ON CONFISCATED PASSPORTS

This rare and historic URGENT DIRECTIVE dated 10 October 1940 originated at Obergruppenführer-SS Reinhard Heydrich’s office in Berlin and was sent to the Reichsstatthalter (the highest Nazi government authority) in Wien (Vienna), Baldur von Schirach. The subject of the “FOR YOUR EYES ONLY” SS Schnellbrief was the confiscation of expired German and foreign passports, and replacement passports.

The official, red bordered 8-1/4 x 11-5/8 inch letter says that effective immediately all expired German and foreign passports have to be collected.

On the 1st and 15th day of each month these passports have to be handed in at police offices. All collected material has to be sent to the Police President of Berlin, Department II on Burgstraße 29/30. Foreign passports that need to be returned to the country of origin by people who have become German citizens are exempt.

Heydrich’s office in Police Headquarters in Reichsministerium des Innern on Prinz Albrechtstraße in Berlin requested that this information be passed on immediately to local police personnel. At the bottom of the Schnellbrief is a black rubber stamp with an eagle and swastika in the middle, showing this letter originated at Der Reichsführer-SS und Chef der deutschen Polizei im Reichsministerium des Innern (Heinrich Himmler, Head of the Nazi Police) .

This Nazi police document grouping also contains an official copy of the cover letter with which this SS Directive was sent on by the Reichsstatthalter’s office to the Head of the Police of Wien, dated 18 October 1940.

Then there are more than a dozen pieces of other paperwork from Nazi police offices all over the Ostmark, letters to the Reichsstatthalter’s office on Ballhausplatz 2 that accompanied the confiscated passports. Many of these letters have long lists of names of Jews and others attached to them naming the people whose passports were sent in.

For example, on 13 November 1940 the city of Döbling sent in 399 passports, German and Austrian ones, but also Czech, Polish, Hungarian and Italian travel papers, as well as two Austrian diplomatic passports! Several on the list are without names - ohne Namen followed by eingezogen!! or “confiscated!!”.

One police office sent a letter stating 167 were enclosed and a handwritten entry notes that only 166 were received. Many lists contain Jewish names (Theodor Israel Herz, Samuel Morgenstern, Alfred Rosenbaum, Sofie Rosen, Salomon Spiegel, Chain Belzer, Anni Mandl, etc.) and many have passports that belonged to children. The city of Favoriten sent in 480 passports, the city of Penzing 100, Brigittenau 95, 125 came out of the inner city of Vienna, 162 from the Mariahilf section of Vienna, 262 from Währing, 399 from Alstergrund, etc., etc.

The most amazing thing about this grouping is that even the RECEIPT FOR TRANSPORTATION of these passport to Berlin is attached!

On 19 November 1940 a courier company called J.Z. Dworak Junior of Vienna picked up the cases with confiscated passports at the Reichsstatthalterei on the Ballhausplatz to transport them to the Polizei Präsidium Department II on Burgstraße 29/30 in Berlin on 20 November.

Another interesting detail of this police file is that the Schnellbrief from Heydrich was signed on his behalf by an aide named Hagen. The blue stamp of Heydrich’s name is upside down!

This rare, secret Nazi Polizei archival material is **SOLD**.

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