================================================
MAPS-L ** MAPS-L ** MAPS-L ** MAPS-L ** MAPS-L
================================================


Subject:        Re: MAPS-L: Nazi-stamped maps
Date:   Wed, 30 Nov 2005
From:   Riley Moffat <[log in to unmask]>
To:     <[log in to unmask]>


A lot of these 'captured maps' have migrated into map collections through the Library of Congress summer projects. Various federal agencies such as CIA would transfer superceded or un-needed maps to LC by law. If LCG&M already had a copy then they were put in the duplicate piles to be selected by summer project participants representing various universities. I understand that most if not all of the maps distributed by the AMS years ago were copies of the numbered series they produced in massive quantities during and after WWII.

Riley Moffat, BYU-Hawaii

>>> [log in to unmask] 11/30 3:50 AM >>>
cc: to MapHist
================================================
MAPS-L ** MAPS-L ** MAPS-L ** MAPS-L ** MAPS-L
================================================

Subject:        Nazi-stamped maps
Date:   Tue, 29 Nov 2005
From:   Michael Fry <[log in to unmask]>
Organization:   University of Maryland Libraries
To:     Maps and Air Photo Systems Forum <[log in to unmask]>


I recently discovered that some of the older European topo maps in our collection have been stamped
with Nazi insignia (i.e., an eagle, wings spread, standing on or grasping a wreath w/ a swastika
inside) and the words "Reichsamt für Landesaufnahme" and "Kartensammlung" (roughly translated, I
think, as "Reich's Agency for Surveying" and "map collections"). The particular sheet in front of
me, Basel-Laufen from a 1936 "Topographischer Atlas der Schweiz," also has "S.282" and "22.[???]
1937" just to the left of the eagle. (I don't know if these are *related* to the eagle, but they're
in the same color ink.)

In addition, there's also this stamp:
CIA Map Branch
Received
Feb 25, 1949

According to Carlos Hagen's "Map Libraries and the Armed Services--A Story of Uneven Relationships,"
some of the maps distributed by the Army Map Service were "captured from Axis Powers." Is this the
likely source of the sheet I'm looking at? Are maps with the Nazi insignia considered rare or
valuable (and possibly worth removing from open access), or simply historically interesting artifacts?

Thanks for any insight you can provide.

mf
--
Michael Fry
Government Documents & Maps Librarian
University of Maryland Libraries


--




--