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.

Schlag Nach! translates as “Look It Up!” and using that name booklets and maps for civilians and military personnel were published in Nazi Germany by the Bibliographisches Institut AG in Leipzig.

The 5-3/4 x 8-1/4 inch, 42-page Tornisterschrift or “backpack booklet” has chapters about Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, Transjordania, Palestine, Arabia, Egypt and Italian Libya explaining in plain language their size, population, form of government, armed forces, education system, agriculture, industry, economy, history, etc.

This lot consists of TWO matching Schlag Nach! items (booklet and map shown above) about the countries in Middle East called Schlag nach über den Nahen Osten (Look It Up about the Near East) published for the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) Department of Domestic Maps in Berlin in 1941. Booklet 54 and its matching map were for use inside the Wehrmacht or Armed Forces only.

The accompanying one-sided detailed color map of the Near East measures 18-½ x 25-½ inches and is in a scale of 1:9,000 000.

Turkey, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are along the top edge of the map, German East Africa is in the lower left corner below Sudan and British Egypt.

It is very interesting to study how the area around what is now Israel was divided by the British and French 80+ years ago.

Both the 82 year old map and its Kartenbeilage or supplemental map booklet are in very good used condition and have no odor. They were produced before the start of the Wehrmacht invasion of eastern Europe and both are marked with the urgent suggestion not to keep them, to pass them on within the military service after digesting the information (Nicht sammeln, sondern weitergeben!).