What did the 1930 Gavrilo Princip plaque in Sarajevo represent? Was it just a rotting piece of wood with rain smears running down it? Did it represent “infamy” or “freedom”?
Winston Churchill wrote that it represented “infamy” in 1932 and demonstrated the infamy of the Serbian people: “The assassin, a Serbian student named Princip, was seized by the crowd. Princip died in prison, and a monument erected in recent years by his fellow-countrymen records his infamy and their own. Such was the tragedy of Sarajevo.”
The Nazis, as revealed in the May 1, 1941 Illustrierter Beobachter, the official illustrated magazine of the Nazi Party, wrote that it represented a “shame” or “Schande” that had to “disappear”.
Hitler ordered that it be put on display at the Berlin military museum, the Zeughaus.
It was given to Hitler by Yugoslav ethnic Germans or Volksdeutsche and the families of German Wehrmacht troops. The German Army was thus involved in its removal.
Hitler apparently did not ask for it and may not have even known about it. It was placed high on the wall of the former Moritz Schiller delicatessen where the assassination occurred. It was hard to see from the ground and was weather beaten. It was easy to overlook. It was a present that was sent to him for his 52nd birthday on April 20, 1941. The inscription on the plaque read in Serbian Cyrillic: “On this historical site Gavrilo Princip proclaimed freedom on Vidov-Dan 15. (28.) June 1914.”
What must have struck Hitler was the word “sloboda” or “freiheit” in German, “freedom”, when it was translated to him. The word “freiheit” also appears in the German newsreel that was shot by Die Deutsche Wochenschau. So Hitler is contemplating that message on the plaque, Gavrilo Princip brought “freiheit” or “freedom” by the assassination, by the political murder of Franz Ferdinand and Sophie von Hohenberg.
The cover of the Thursday, May 1, 1941 Illustrierter Beobachter, No. 18, featuring Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering congratulating Fuehrer Adolf Hitler on his 52nd birthday in front of the Amerika train in Austria.
Adolf HitlerWhat did the pre-Hitler German Weimar Republic think of the 1930 plaque in 1930? Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung characterized the plaque as “a monstrous provocation”.
British historian R. W. Seton-Watson, who was staunchly pro-Serb, wrote that the plaque represented “an affront to all right thinking people”.
The plaque represented “infamy”, was “shameful” or a “shame”, “an affront”, a “monstrous provocation”, and was inappropriate. This was the general consensus in the Western countries in 1930 after the plaque was erected on February 2, 1930, the 15th anniversary of the executions by hanging of three of the conspirators in the assassination. The international reaction was one of rebuke and consternation.
Why were so many people offended and shocked by the plaque? What are we missing here? What were they missing? What didn’t they get? What don’t we get?
Why did German occupation forces remove the plaque? Why was it one of the first objects targeted by German troops in Sarajevo in 1941? Why and how was Adolf Hitler photographed with the plaque?
The photograph of Adolf Hitler examining the plaque was first published in the German magazine Illustrierter Beobachter, The Illustrated Observer, No. 18, in the May 1, 1941 issue, on page 542. The photograph was featured in only some issues of the magazine while other editions had different photos showing the German entry in Zagreb. The Illustrierter Beobachter was published by the Nazi Party in Munich by the publisher Franz Eher Verlag, which also published the party newspaper Volkischer Beobachter from 1920 and editions of Mein Kampf from 1925. Max Amman headed the publishing firm in the 1930s. The illustrated magazine, edited by Hermann Esser, was published from 1926 to 1945.
This alternate page 542 appeared in some issues of the May 1, 1941 magazine, while other editions contained the 1930 Gavrilo Princip plaque photograph on the same page.
Why is the photograph in only some issues and not in others of the magazine? It appears that the plaque photograph was inserted later. The plaque page has an asterisk on the top right corner. None of the other pages in that issue have that marking. This denotes that the page is a variation or alternate page added later. The alternate edition has photos of German General Field Marshals Walther von Brauchitsch and Wilhelm List, as well as photos of German troops being received with “joy” or “jubilation” by cheering crowds in Zagreb. These were taken on April 10. The Hitler plaque photo was taken on April 20. Most likely the latter was unavailable when the magazine was printed and was added later in subsequent printings. It is the only page that is different in the two editions of the magazine.
The photograph was taken by Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler’s personal photographer and the official photographer of the Nazi Party. Hoffman took a series of at least three photographs in rapid succession of Hitler examining the plaque.
In the first published photo, Hitler’s head is slightly bowed as he contemplates the plaque. The scene shows Hitler with two German Wehrmacht officers on the left and a third officer on the far right barely in the frame. All three officers have Iron Crosses. Hitler is contemplative, pensive, and thoughtful in examining the plaque. This is in stark contrast to his examining the Compeigne railway car memorial in France in 1940 where he was in a rage, furious, and disdainful. He left the Ferdinand Foch statue standing but had the train sent to Berlin and the Alsace-Lorraine memorial dismantled. A second, different photograph of the same scene was taken by Hoffmann with a different pose by Hitler. In the second photo, Hitler is standing straight and upright. He is more detached and sober in this shot. He is looking directly at the plaque. The third German officer is not in the scene on the right. A third photograph of the same scene by Hoffmann shows Hitler with his back to the camera. The third officer on the far right can be clearly seen wearing a Wehrmacht uniform and collar tabs and an Iron Cross. In all three photos, Hitler’s arms are crossed.
What was the original reaction to the plaque by the Nazis and by Adolf Hitler in 1941? Can we ever know?
Top photo, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Heinrich Himmler, Karl Wolff, Hans Lammers, Hermann Goering, and Wilhelm Keitel, with back to the camera, congratulate Adolf Hitler on his 52nd birthday. Bottom: Adolf Hitler in front of the Amerika train on his 52nd birthday greeted by Hermann Goering, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, Field Marshal Walther Brauchitsch, and OKW chief Wilhelm Keitel.
The original publication of the photograph contained a caption. This can be assumed to be an accurate interpretation or understanding of the plaque by Hitler and the German Nazi Party.
The title of the caption was: “The glorification of a shame disappears.” The objection to the plaque was that it “glorified” a political murderer, an assassin. This is how the Germans perceived the plaque. A murderer was deemed a “hero” who deserved to be on an “honor roll”. The assassination was blamed on the Serbs and was seen as the spark that ignited World War I. The assassination was “an atrocity”. It was “shameful” or a “shame” to honor a mass murderer. This was the German take on the plaque.
Volksdeutsche in Sarajevo removing the plaque as a German Army band plays in the foreground.
The original caption in German read as follows:
“On June 28, 1914, the Archduke couple was murdered by the Bosnian Serb Princip in Sarajevo. By this atrocity the Serbian conspiracy circles inflamed the World War. The Serbs attached at the murder site this ‘honor roll’ in memory of this bloody deed which has now been removed by ethnic Germans and family members of the Wehrmacht who have passed it to the Fuehrer’s headquarters. Adolf Hitler decreed its transfer to the armory.”
In his 1932 book The Unknown War: The Eastern Front, Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1st edition, 3rd American printing, Volume 6 in The World Crisis series, Winston Churchill wrote that the 1930 plaque represented “infamy” and showed the infamy of the Serbian people.
The plaque was subsequently placed in the Berlin Zeughaus or military museum where it was viewed by spectators. At least two photographs exist of the plaque on display in the museum. It was removed and disappeared after 1945. There is no trace of it after the war.
What does the plaque represent? Infamy or freedom? With the ninety-six year anniversary of the end of World War I on November 11, do we now know in 2014? Or is this still an open question? What are the lessons, if any?