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THE COMPLETE, VERY HEAVILY ILLUSTRATED 1938 MEDALLIC AND ART CASTINGS CATALOG OF THE MITTELDEUTSCHE STAHLWERK AG OF LAUCHHAMMER IN SAXONY

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The 200+ year old firm Mitteldeutsche Stahlwerk AG was one of the best and most prolific manufacturers of large and small cast medals, plaques, busts, sculptures and monumental art castings in all of Germany during the Third Reich. In addition to art castings, the company also made gigantic castings for use on Reichsautobahn bridges, structures, by railways, and by ship builders. They even made large scale castings for use in the manufacture of German tanks!

This beautiful 6 x 8-1/2 inch, 354 glossy page brown linen hardcover duotone Lauchhammer catalog book features big, clear pictures of many of the best examples of the company’s work and a multi-page list of many of their creations from 1784 well into 1938. This list includes many recognizable Nazi architectural pieces with information about their size, who they were made for and even in some cases, where they were installed.

The very rare book we offer on this USMBOOKS web page is a fine original example of the 1938 catalog of Lauchhammer Bildguß or Lauchhammer Art Castings manufactured in Lauchhammer by Mitteldeutsche Stahlwerk AG. This catalog includes only a few industrial castings but lists HUNDREDS of photos of their busts of people like Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring, Horst Wessel, Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Richard Wagner, Frederick the Great, Bismarck, Von Möltke, Napoleon, and others.

It should be noted that ALL pictures in this book are black images on a medium yellow background. That is difficult to photograph but the photo of the Hoheitsadler on the right below, is approximately the contrast and color of all the pictures in the book.

There are also examples of Lauchhammer hand grenade throwers, athletes, nude women, amazons, bathing ladies, animals from elk to bears, panthers, eagles of all sorts, platters, signs, medallions, military memorial tablets, fire place and oven irons, Nazi eagles, steel helmeted soldier heads, composers, ships, Zeppelins, aircraft, military monuments, etc.

Editions of Lauchhammer Bildguß published in the early 1930s come up for sale once in a while in Europe, but this 87 year old Ausgabe 1938 filled with National Socialist content, is very, very rare. We have not had one in our inventory for over 15 years!

Above, a picture of the 1-1/2 meter tall fireplace plaque for Adolf Hitler's Berghof by famous architect Professor Leonhard Gall, who also designed the Führerbau in Munich.

The lamps in the Nazi Ehrentempel in Munich and the exterior eagles and huge bronze doors for the Luftfahrtministerium (Hermann Göring’s Air Ministry) in Berlin were produced by Lauchhammer, and they even offered a medallion commemorating the loss of the Zeppelin Hindenburg at Lakehurst, New Jersey USA.

There is also an illustrated section in this very special Lauchhammer book showing and describing the process by which monumental sculptures and art castings are made in their factory.

Above, a double-sided plaque produced to commemorate the Zeppelin Hindenburg catastrophe at Lakehurst, New Jersey on 6 May 1937.

The 87 year old book is also in very nice condition, with a tight spine and no odor. The brown linen embossed covers are in very good condition, but some of the white lettering of the title on the spine is flaked off.

One set of pages, 14 and 15, in all editions of this book seem to have the same problem - they were once stuck together and were somewhat damaged when they were pulled apart. The rest of the very rare book is in very nice condition.

For those of you with more than a casual interest in the company that produced this 1938 catalog, we can tell you it was part of a huge German steel conglomerate owned by German industrialist Friedrich Flick. Like August Thyssen, Flick was a German “steel baron”, and the value of his portfolio increased greatly after the National Socialists were elected to power in 1933.

In early 1933, Flick immediately started making connections with Hermann Goering at the Reichsluftfahrtministerium and at the Reichswehrministerium of Reichswehrminister, General Werner von Blomberg. In addition to art objects, his industrial companies produced bombs, grenades and ammunition from March 1934 onward. Flick continued to buy out small steel producers all over Germany and later in German occupied territories.

Friedrich Flick also belonged to the economic “Circle of Friends of Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler” which consisted of about 40 wealthy German industrialists and bankers. Members like Flick paid around 100,000 Reichsmarks per year to be part of this "economic club" that made connections between privately owned business and the state. Many lucrative contracts were the result of this connection to Himmler.

Many of the companies owned by the Mitteldeutsche Stahlwerk AG of Friedrich Flick ended up in the Soviet sphere in eastern Europe and East Germany after World War II. Flick was arrested and tried as a war criminal in Nürnberg, and sentenced to seven years in prison. He was released early in 1950 and started the process of denazification, clearing his name. He was successful and rebuilt his economic empire with one of his sons.

By 1955, Flick was one of the wealthiest men of Germany again. He was the largest shareholder at Daimler-Benz, and owned stock in dozens and dozens of the largest companies in Germany. The German government awarded him orders and economic prizes. At the time of his death in 1972, Friedrich Flick’s conglomerate was made up of 330 companies and employed approximately 300,000 people.

This fine book comes with an original 5-¾ x 8-¼ inch 1938 Preisliste or price list. The 24 pages list all the items in this catalog book complete showing the pages they are on, the sizes in which they are available, and prices for different metal finishes. The price list is complete as published, and very nice little-used condition.