2021 Bearing Witness Magazine

COLLECTIONS

Anschluss Commemorative Medal In preparation for AAM Reaccreditation, the Collections and Exhibitions Department is performing a routine inventory of HMH’s permanent collection. Through this detailed process, curatorial staff are rediscovering many hidden gems. This Anschluss Commemorative Medal was issued to Austrian and German citizens or military personnel involved in the annexation of Austria into the Third Reich (the Anschluss ). Depicting two men on the obverse – one standing atop a podium clutching a Nazi flag helping the other, whose right arm bears a broken shackle – serves as a symbolic metaphor for Germany “helping” Austria into the Third Reich. German forces met no resistance when they invaded Austria in March 1938. The date is encircled by the phrase “Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer” (“One People, One Empire, One Leader”), a Nazi propaganda slogan that proved to be effective, emphasizing a “Greater Germany” through the union of Germany and Austria. Suspended from a red ribbon, the medal was designed by of one Hitler’s favorite artists, Professor Richard Klein, who was the director of the Munich School of Applied Arts and a rather prolific medalist, producing designs for German medals since WWI.

Anschluss Medal; From the Permanent Collection of Holocaust Museum Houston, 1995.023i.

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