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This is a very special, original 8-½ x 12 inch Third Reich photo album with 36 black cardstock pages that contain 212 high-quality 2-¼ x 2-¼ inch photographs taken in 1938 in Wien (Vienna), the second largest city in Adolf Hitler’s Grossdeutschland.

Inside the front cover is a portrait photograph of the man who took the pictures and put the album together, below his name, Béla Spangl. He was photographing Vienna with a fine camera at the historic time of the Anschluß in the spring of 1938 and took photos of many buildings along the famous Ringstrasse and in areas of the city decorated with swastika flags and banners, Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer displays, and eagle and swastika Strassenschmuck (street decorations).

He also photographed images of der ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew) painted on the end of the Nordwestbahnhalle where a huge crowd gathered for the exhibition by the same name then taking place. Another picture shows a huge National Socialist gathering where Dr. Joseph Goebbels was speaking. Other photos show the Grand Hotel, the Hotel Bristol, Vienna City Hall, the opera, the Westbahnhof Café, Schönbrunn Palace, Parliament, the Stefansplatz, Danube river bridges, trains stations, a huge Hitler bust and many other sights, most decked out in Nazi swastika flags and banners.

The album also contains a very rare photo of a memorial cross on the site of the car crash that killed Herma, the wife of Austrian Chancellor Schuschnigg on 13 June 1935. Kurt Schuschnigg was also thrown from the car but survived with a broken shoulder. Less than three years later, on 12 March 1938, Schuschnigg was placed under house arrest by the National Socialists. After solitary confinement at Gestapo  headquarters, he spent the war at various Nazi concentrations camps (including Dachau and Sachsenhausen). After WW2, Schuschnigg emigrated to the United States, where he worked as a professor of political science at Saint Louis University from 1948 to 1967.

Above, note the two SS men in the crowd listening to what appears to be a speech by Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels.

We suspect the album owner may have been a plumbing contractor as he photographed the sinks in the public toilettes at an event venue, and towards the end of the album there are a few photos of a showroom with bathtubs, toilets, urinals, bidets, etc.

This album also contains excellent photos of a huge carnival parade with fantastic floats, and the album owner visited the Stadtpark in central Vienna where he photographed some of the famous composer statues and monuments such as Johann Strauss with his violin, Ludwig von Beethoven, and Franz Schubert. There are also photos of a statue of famous Empress Elisabeth (“Sisi”), the Hofburg, the zoo, the Benedictine Abbey at Melk overlooking the Donau (left), etc.