1938 Silver Arrows Daimler-Benz Framed Poster WW2 Mercedes Wehrmacht War Orders

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1938 Silver Arrows Daimler-Benz Framed Poster WW2 Mercedes Wehrmacht War Orders:
$8262.83

1938 FRAMED SILVER ARROWS COMMEMORATIVE POSTER WITH HINGED DOOR SHOWCASING
WW2 MERCEDES-BENZ WAR ORDERSLOT DESCRIPTION, PLEASE READ
This LOT comprises of FOUR historically connected Pre WW2 and WW2 official documents from Mercedes-Benz and Third Reich Kreigsmarine executiveErnst Lage.
Paper trails tracking a single executive across critical industrial timeline boundaries are exceptionally rare. These items have stayed together, multiplying their standalone historical value.
1) Mercedes-Benz AG & Third Reich Kriegsmarine executive Ernst Lage, commemorative framed poster with hinged door.Featuring the Silver Arrows cars and team pictured beside the MS Victoria at the Port of Naples May 8th 1938 preparing for staging and final loading to cross the Mediterranean to the Italian colony of Libya ahead of the Tripoli Grand Prix.
The poster features two of Lage's original signed Mercedes-Benz war orders affixed to the rear and which can be viewed at any time by use of the hinged door.
2) 4th August 1938 Daimler-Benz Aktiengesellschaft MannheimSigned by Erst Lage and factory franked Mercedes-Benz Pre-WW2 anti-espionage postcard (description below)
3) 23rd May 1940 Daimler-Benz Aktiengesellschaft MannheimSigned by Ernst Lage and factory stamped WW2 urgent engine procurement order (description below)
Also included in the LOT is a loose leaf official Daimler-Benz order:
4) Dated 6th July 1938 Daimler-Benz Aktiengesellschaft MannheimSigned by Ernst Lage and factory stamped Pre-WW2 engine invoice/order (description below).BIOGRAPHY
By July 1937 Germany was a consolidated one-party dictatorship under the Nazi regime.
On 18th July Adolf Hitler opened the Haus der Deutschen Kunst in Munich, showcasing "ideal" Nazi-approved art. It featured works by artists like Chagall and Kandinsky and was intended to mock and demonise modern art styles.
While 1937 is often viewed as a period of relative "quiet" before the radicalisation of 1938, Germany continued its involvement in the Spanish Civil War using the Condor Legion to test new military equipment and tactics.
Motor racing had become a showcase of the states incredible power by proxy in the shape of the Silver Arrows being Auto Union (soon to be Audi) and Mercedes-Benz whose factories were already subsidized by Nazi Germany with an annual stipend of two hundred and fifty thousand Reichsmark granted to each company by Hitler.
The 1937 season would feature the most powerful Grand Prix cars of the pre-war era; the Mercedes-Benz W125 producing power the likes of which would not be seen again in Grand Prix racing until the turbo-charged era of the 1980s.
WW2 OVERVIEW
May 8th 1938.
During Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini's week long state visit to Italy (May 3rd to 9th 1938) the entire maritime zone of Naples was under total, militarized lock down by the Regia Marina.
This is of the most heavily documented diplomatic days of the pre-war era.
This LOT is an original, unbroken four-piece primary source archive detailing the pre-war and early WWII secret industrial pipeline between Daimler-Benz and the Kriegsmarine.
Through these officially signed and stamped period documents this unified dossier charts the direct evolution of German military procurement from standard commercial engines in 1938 into active, classified military asset integration by May 1940.
Preserved for nearly a century, this collection centers on historic technical executive (engineer) Dipl.-Ing. Ernst Lage, providing an unparalleled window into Mercedes-Benz and the Third Reich's hidden wartime supply chain.
POSTER
Features the Mercedes-Benz Siler Arrows W154 race cars sitting at the Port of Naples on May 8th 1938 awaiting staging and final loading onto the MS Victoria on route to Libya and the Grand Prix of Tripoli.
The location of the MS Victoria and the Silver Arrows was tightly choreographed at the Neapolitan docks to align with the state visit to Italy that day of Adolf Hitler.
The MS Victoria was a Flagship luxury motor liner operated by Lloyd Triestino. Because of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini's week-long state visit to Italy the entire maritime zone of Naples was under total, militarized lock down by the Regia Marina.
Just three days prior on May 5th Hitler and Mussolini were aboard the Italian battleship Conte di Cavour in the very same Bay of Naples, reviewing a massive naval parade of 190 Regia Marina warships and submarines staged specifically to project absolute Axis naval supremacy.
By May 8th, as the state visit was concluding its final legs in Florence and Rome, the Regia Marina was strictly controlling port logistics, customs clearances, and security cordons across Naples. No strategic asset, especially a highly publicized fleet of state-subsidized Mercedes-Benz racing cars, could be loaded onto a high-profile liner like the MS Victoria without direct naval clearance, military port authority oversight, and protective escort planning.
The poster captures the MS Victoria at the literal height of her pre-war peacetime elegance - known globally as the ultra-fast Ship of the Maharajas.
However, the poster heavily foreshadows the ship's fate. Just as the documents on the rear of the poster details the corporate shift to military hardware production, in 1940 the MS Victoria was officially requisitioned by the state to serve as a high-speed troop transport ship for the war effort.
In a grim historical intersection with Ernst Lage's operational zone, while traveling from Taranto to Tripoli in January 1942 carrying Axis troops, she was torpedoed and sunk by British aircraft.
The presence of this numbered Regia Marina/Hitler state visit stamp directly alongside the MS Victoria loading photo and Ernst Lage’s secret engine orders demonstrates how each asset in this dossier was part of a meticulously synchronized military-industrial pipeline.
This specific insignia provides the definitive historical anchor linking the Tripoli Grand Prix photo to a massive, official state event involving Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.
The emblem features a stylized letter "H" entwined directly with a naval Anchor. This is the official, restricted commemorative insignia created exclusively for the Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina) state visit of Adolf Hitler to Italy and Libya in May 1938.
The letter "H" explicitly stands for Hitler. The anchor symbolizes the Regia Marina, which hosted the naval reviews, transport, and coastal security for the massive diplomatic entourage traveling across the Mediterranean.
The Italian script printed next to the emblem reads: “il giorno 8 del mese di maggio dell'anno 1938" (The 8th day of the month of May of the year 1938).
The serial number stamped below it N° 08391 was a numbered, strictly cataloged and officially issued commemorative document given only to high-ranking state delegates, officers or embedded industrial partners such as Ernst Lage.
The date May 8th 1938, is one of the most heavily documented diplomatic days of the pre-war era.
On this day Hitler, accompanied by Mussolini, Goebbels, and the top tier of the German military-industrial command, was concluding a massive state visit to Italy. This included an immense naval parade of over 100 warships and submarines staged in the Bay of Naples, designed specifically to showcase Axis maritime power.
As a direct extension of this state-sponsored demonstration of technical supremacy, the Mercedes-Benz Silver Arrows were arriving in Tripoli, Libya (then an Italian colony) on that exact same day to prepare for the upcoming Grand Prix.
As a key naval procurement executive working directly with the Deutsche Werke Kiel, Ernst Lage wasn't just a bystander; he was an active cog in the expansion of Germany's naval infrastructure.
High-ranking technical experts and liaisons involved in these joint military-industrial supply chains were frequently issued with commemorative portfolios and gifts as official mementos of historic state visits. This numbered, official Hitler/Regia Marina commemorative print explicitly grouped with his classified Mercedes-Benz engine files serves as ironclad proof of Ernst Lages trusted status within the Rome Berlin Axis.
The connection between the accompanying Mercedes-Benz AG documents and this remarkable poster represents a direct convergence of clandestine military-industrial planning and the propaganda machine of the Nazi regime.
The Mercedes Grand Prix team was not a separate entity; it was an integrated development lab for the military. The Silver Arrows were powered by the brand-new, highly complex 3.0-liter supercharged V12 engine (M154). This engine was rushed into existence for the 1938 season to meet new international sporting regulations.
The engineers designing the V12 race engine (headed by Rudolf Uhlenhaut and Max Sailer) worked in the exact same corporate infrastructure as the Mannheim Engine Construction department (Motorenbau).
The metallurgy, supercharger mechanics and multi-stage fuel systems developed to keep the Grand Prix cars running at 450+ horsepower were immediately funneled into designing reliable, high-performance power units such as the OM/BOM 67 marine engine series for the Kriegsmarine.
The chronology demonstrates how these documents belong to the same operational window:
May 8th 1938 (The Poster):
One week later, on May 15th 1938, Mercedes scored a legendary 1-2-3 sweep at the Tripoli Grand Prix (won by Hermann Lang, followed by Von Brauchitsch and Caracciola).
July & August 1938 (Documents):
Fresh off the global propaganda victory in Tripoli, the exact same corporate framework finalized the engine offer for Dipl.-Ing. Ernst Lage (July 6th) and initiated the active counter-espionage telephone security protocol (August 4th) to protect their manufacturing lines from Allied ears.
Under the Third Reich, the Grand Prix team (Rennabteilung) and the military procurement branch were heavily subsidized by the same state ministries.
The Silver Arrows were deployed to Tripoli as tools of international prestige, proving Germany's absolute mastery of mechanical engineering on the world stage. Meanwhile, behind the closed doors of the Untertürkheim and Mannheim facilities, that exact same engineering prowess was being quietly weaponized to build the naval auxiliary grids and U-boat sub-systems that Ernst Lage was installing in Kiel. The presence of this stamped commemorative dock photograph alongside Ernst Lage's secret technical files demonstrates he was a high-level insider within the Daimler-Benz technological elite.
The Three-Part Archival Manifest
July 1938: Original Daimler-Benz Aktiengesellschaft official invoice/offer (Angebot Nr. 3527)
This was sent from the Hamburg office. A meticulous mechanical manifest outlining a custom Mercedes-Benz 4-stroke Diesel Engine (Typ ZB). Includes rare, itemized surcharge pricing (Mehrpreise) for an isolated, remote helm station configuration including a water-cooled muffler, a 4-meter mechanical tachometer shaft, and a dual-stage sea-cock silt filtration system.
Explicitly signed by "Gez. Remmers" proving the early-stage gatekeeping role of the historic Heinrich Remmers Hamburg technical agency.
August 1938: The Counter-Espionage "Self-Sticking" Postcard: A remarkably preserved, patented Daimler-Benz Selbstklebekarte (Secure Fold-and-Seal Postcard) sent via express postal meter from the Stuttgart-Untertürkheim plant. Masked under the guise of an ordinary corporate circular change (Rundschreiben 201a), this secure document updates direct telephone extensions for the vital Mannheim Engine Construction department and the Gaggenau plant. A spectacular artifact of pre-war industrial sabotage prevention, illustrating the mandatory communication security protocols used to rotate telephone extensions to actively disrupt Allied wiretapping and espionage networks.
May 1940: The Active Wartime Courier Procurement Order: High-urgency wartime letterhead document explicitly marked "Eilboten!" (Express Courier) sent from Daimler-Benz Mannheim directly to Ernst Lage's Kiel headquarters at the height of the Battle of France, this document confirms the urgent allocation and pricing (RM 6,345) of a specialized Bordhilfsmotor OM 67/3 (Naval Auxiliary Diesel Generator) designed to power the sub-systems and electrical grids of harbor defense vessels or frontline craft.
The Security Profile: Fully cataloged under a secure internal factory tracking archive stamp (EINLAGE 29997), linking the purchase directly back to the Firma Remmers brokerage network.
Unbroken Provenance: Paper trails tracking a single executive across critical industrial timeline boundaries are exceptionally rare.
These items have stayed together, multiplying their standalone historical value.
All of the documents originate from a Tel-Aviv sale at which most of the vintage Mercedes lots where purchased by a Mercedes executive at Mannheim.
The frame has previously been repaired and strengthened with metal supports on all rear corners.
Features crisp, striking pre-war Mercedes-Benz three-pointed star typography, sharp typewriting, clear date stamps and intact wartime political sign-offs tying directly into the infrastructure of Deutsche Werke Kiel (DWK) and the critical production hubs that manufactured Germany’s frontline maritime fleet.DIMENSIONS
SILVER ARROWS FRAME WITH HINGED DOOR: 72 cm tall x 62 cm wide x 3cm deep (distressed silver frame approximately 6.5cm wide with hinged door, see photographs) weighing approximately 4.55 kilos prior to packaging.
TWO LARGE MERCEDES DOCUMENTSApproximately 30 cm x 21 cm - hole punched
POSTCARDApproximately 15cm x 10 cm - hole punched
POSTERApproximately 49 cm x 39 cm
FRAME HANGING NOTE
This bespoke artisan Silver Arrows frame is heavy (glass front and rear) and not a mass produced piece and therefore will require you to fit your own picture hangers or mounting solution to suit your own exact needs.
CONDITION
Please refer to the many large photographs provided which are of the actual framed poster you are buying to reassure yourself of the condition.
Poster and frame in good condition but with PLENTY OFVISIBLE SIGNS OF WEAR AND TEAR including some creasing, light folds, bumps and surface scuffs to poster.
Frame has distressed appearance with PLENTY OF VISIBLE SIGNS OF WEAR AND TEARincluding previous frame repairs and marks to silver surface, please refer to the many large close up photographs provided.
Discoloration and foxing to poster front and rear hence SOLD AS SEEN offered WITHOUT PROVENANCEnevertheless an extremely rare Mercedes-Benz Silver Arrows document with official PRE-WW2 andWW2Daimler-Benz artifacts.
Please use messenger to request photographs of any specifics you might require additional images of.
PAYMENT, SHIPPING & INSURANCE
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QUESTIONS - GET TO KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE BUYING
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If you purchase promotional items, drafts, hand made preparatory work or "not for sale" editions frequently these objects are very different in quality and presentation to later factory made or mass produced retail editions - so please ask questions if you are uncertain before you commit to buying.
Take a moment to understand exactly what you are buying, ask questions and reassure yourself of condition by referring to the video and the many large photographs which accompany the listing and which are of the actual item you are buying.
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