History confusion:
The German misdeeds and crimes in the colonies became exotic harmless motifs on the collective pictures
Photo:
akg images
There was a huge row in the parents' house of the future bestselling author Hans Fallada: when he was a child and his name was Rudolf Ditzen, the future literary writer had exchanged his father's precious stamp collection for hundreds of colorful collector's pictures.
At his mother's behest, Rudolf was supposed to reverse the exchange.
But the boy was stubborn and didn't think about it: “If father found the stamps so valuable, he shouldn't have given them to me.
I didn't ask him!
I just found the pictures more beautiful, ”Fallada, born in Greifswald in 1893, recalled later.
For many children in the imperial era, the picture cards were a precious treasure - and a welcome instrument for companies to attract buyers.
Around the middle of the 19th century, companies began to enclose the printed picture cards with their products, seven by eleven centimeters in size.
The collecting mania in the families should promote the sale, be it of Reemtsma and Bulgaria cigarettes or of Sanella margarine.
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