The book covers look innocent: Lucrative Goose-Breeding, by Paul Hohmann, with 9 illustrations, or The Shrewd Housewife, offered by Franck - for over one hundred years the perfect taste for your coffee. The subsequent pages, however, reveal an anomalous content: the book is not about goose breeding or good coffee, but tells the reader about the cruelties of the Nazi regime or about recent developments in the Soviet Union. These two titles are samples of "Tarnschriften," publications issued during the Hitler regime with disguised covers to conceal their antifascist, democratic or anti-war content. This camouflage aimed to protect the owner of the book from treason and arrest by the police. There is no an precise translation of the German word "Tarnschriften" in English or in Dutch.
On February 28, 1933, one day after the Reichstag fire in Berlin, the Verordnung des Reichspräsidenten zum Schutz von Volk und Staat came into effect. The democratic right of freedom of the press and speech, the right of association and assembly, and the confidentiality of the mail were terminated. The publications belonging to the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD) and the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (KPD) were no longer legal. On July 14, 1933, the printing offices and publishing houses of the political parties and trade unions were confiscated. The printing presses were allocated to national-socialist publishers.
The KPD and the Communist International (Comintern) in particular used Tarnschriften to keep their adherents informed after 1933. The number of publications issued by the socialists and leftist trade unions significantly lags behind. Initially, the distribution of Tarnschriften originating from the central offices of the KPD, Comintern, and SPD was restricted to cities and industrial regions. After 1935 special propaganda materials were also distributed to rural areas.
There are no concrete data about the number of Tarnschriften issued in this period. Of course, they were never included in official bibliographies, and only the Gestapo archives can give us a clue about their range of distribution. Heinz Gittig, who composed the Bibliographie der Tarnschriften 1933 bis 1945 (Munich: Saur, 1996) estimated their total number at 900; his bibliography gives 590 records. About 80 percent of these were published by the KPD or Comintern. Not much is known about the range of the Tarnschriften. The number of brochures confiscated by the Gestapo was written down, but this must have been only a small part of the total.
In a few cases the print run for a brochure was recorded in the archives. The Prager Manifest by the SPD (camouflaged title: Die Kunst des Selbstrasierns - The art of shaving yourself, Gittig 0193) had a run of 40,000. This was exceptional according to Gittig, who estimates the run of a brochure printed outside Germany at 10,000 and material printed locally at 1000.
The covers of current publications were used to disguise the Tarnschrift. Usually, the first and last pages of the camouflaged publication were similar to the original titles. The imprint of famous publishers or literary series such as Reclams Universal Bibliothek, Insel-Bücherei, Lehrmeister-Bücherei, Wege zum Wissen adorned many Tarnschriften. The original titles were widely distributed and had large print runs.
In the beginning the illegal publications were smuggled into the country by boat or train, hidden in cans, bottles, and boxes. Tourists and sailors were involved in these activities. As of 1937, part of the distribution was done by the postal services. This was safer and more goal oriented. The use of small india paper publications with a neutral cover in an envelope made camouflage less necessary. In 1936, 2700 persons were convicted of possessing, publishing, or distributing Tarnschriften. Possession of Tarnschriften could lead to imprisonment or the death penalty. Therefore, readiness to make sacrifices was indispensable to the owner. Historians of the Tarnschriften have never tried to assess the effect of this illegal activity. Often the content of the publications lacked credibility and led to confusion.
As early as 1933, illegal publications were sent to the IISH - or rather to its predecessor, the Social History Department of the Economic-Historical Library. Correspondence regarding these matters has been preserved. Sympathizers from the Netherlands also sent copies to the Institute. Some archives contained Tarnschriften; these have been transferred to the library. A catalogue of the Tarnschriften at the IISH, now available on line, contains 324 titles. A small segment is not included in Gittigs Bibliographie. The IISH owns one of the major collections, comparable to those of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek (Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek) in Hannover and the Stiftung Archiv der Parteien und Massenorganisationen der DDR im Bundesarchiv (SAPMO) in Berlin. The latter is responsible for the collection of Tarnschriften on microfiche published by Saur [Tarnschriften 1933 to 1945 / publ.in collaboration with the Stiftung Archiv der Parteien and Massenorganisationen of the DDR im Bundesarchiv (Munich: Saur, 1997) 175 Mfiches + Begleitheft].
Text: Co Seegers
