Original item: One-of-a-kind. This is a wartime heavy iron vaulted building identification Emailleschild (enameled sign). This is a very robust well-made sturdy sign, with typical construction details of German government signage. It is white with a large NSDAP Party Reichsadler (National Eagle) over N S D A P in German Blackletter type face, most likely Fraktur.

Condition is generally good with expected areas of surface rust, staining and scuffing from years of exposure to the elements. It is also missing porcelain around the corners, which are bent, and some of the edges, which has allowed the steel to rust and flake. The sign is square and measures approximately 19 1/2 inches on each side. There is no maker mark on the back, which shows rust damage, which was apparently ground out and the rear then sprayed with transparent lacquer to protect it.

Signs of this nature were quickly destroyed after the fall of Germany in April 1945, ones like this were salvaged by USGIs who wanted to bring home a trophy of war. Therefore, finding authentic (beware many fakes) porcelain building signs from the Third Reich has become quite difficult in the collector's market.

The NSDAP, Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, (National Socialist German Worker’s Party), was originally founded in Munich as the DAP, Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, (German Worker’s Party), on January 5TH 1919. When Adolf AH joined the DAP in the autumn of 1919 he was to reform what was basically a debating society into an active political party. Appointed as the first chairman of the party on July 29TH 1921 AH was to restructure it along para-military lines in a hierarchy of four levels of government.