Nazi Donation Schilling - Austria

October 2024

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While this doesn't feature a portrait of Hitler it is similar to the Opferpfennige and Spende pieces shown in this Museum because there is a denomination. In this case a 1 Schilling donation remembrance for the hard winter campaign of 1936. Features a touching and artististic representation of a family bundled against the winter cold.
When the Nazi regime took control of Germany in 1933, individual charitable organizations conducted their own street collections. These organizations typically gave each contributor a token of thanks for their generosity. Desiring to bring these disparate charitable organizations under State control, the regime designated the Winterhilfswerk des Deutschen Volkes (WHW) as the State charitable organization and started to exert control over these other charitable groups.
The smaller organizations had street collections with the accompanying tokens until about 1936, when they were folded into the Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt (NSV) (National Socialist People’s Welfare Organization). The larger groups, such as the Deutsche Jugendherbergwerk (DJH) (German Youth Hostels) and Deutsches Rotes Kreuz (DRK) (German Red Cross), were able to hold onto their identity and continued to have collections throughout the war, usually once a year. The other organizations tended to be special interest groups supporting a particular cause or agenda.