Bidspirit auction | Dr. Benno Martin Signed Post-WWII

Dr. Benno Martin Signed Post-WWII Civilian Internee POW Letter - A folded civilian internee ”Prisoner of War” mail cover addressed to Frl. Meta Hoffmann at Einzelhof Huf, Post Lauf/Pegnitz-Land, Germany, bearing a Deutsche Post 24-pfennig orange stamp with a Nuernberg postmark and a purple ”WAR CRIMES CENSOR - 27” handstamp. The sender's details in the address panel read ”Dr. Fermo Martin, C.I.F.Z.29, No. 6665416, Dachau Internierungslager I, ” indicating the writer was held as a civilian internee at Dachau following the war. Enclosed is the matching WD AGO Form 19-4 letter sheet, printed with instructions in English, German, Italian and Japanese (”DO NOT WRITE HERE”), filled in with a lengthy handwritten letter in German script addressed to Meta Hoffmann and signed ”Dr. Fermo Martin, C.I.F.Z.29, No. 6665416, Dachau Internierungslager I.” This form and cover type was used for correspondence to and from civilian internees held under Allied authority in occupied Germany in the years directly following the war, with the War Crimes Censor stamp reflecting the additional scrutiny applied to mail connected with internment camps such as Dachau, which in this postwar period held German nationals under investigation or awaiting processing rather than its wartime prisoner population. Benno Martin was a senior SS and police official who served as Hoeherer SS- und Polizeifuehrer for the Nuremberg region during the Third Reich, overseeing SS, police and Gestapo apparatus in that district, including involvement in the persecution of Jews and enforcement of Nazi security policy. After the war he was held by the Allies at the former Dachau concentration camp, by then repurposed as an internment facility for German nationals under investigation for war crimes and denazification proceedings. His postwar case drew attention because he was also credited by some Nuremberg civic figures with having intervened to limit destruction of the city in the war's final days, a factor weighed during his later trial and sentencing.