Sharing Hobby Interest With A Monster

It is commonly noted that quite a few famous people were stamp collectors - British kings and queens, Prince Rainier, President Roosevelt, Charlie Chaplin, etc..

While watching a documentary based on one person's letters and diaries, it came as a bit of shock when an entry noted: "Played piano. Glued stamps in the evening." When he wasn't planning ever more evil schemes with his boss and the rest of that band of psychos, Heinrich Himmler apparently was spending time collecting stamps.

It is ironic that another noted collector was that tireless Nazi war criminal hunter, Simon Wiesenthal.

When he died ,didn't they issue a souvenir sheet at his funeral ,wonder how many stamp collecting buddies went just to get the sheet .

Ayn Rand collected stamps.

floor, I think you're confusing your Heinrichs.

Went to see which modern personalities collect stamps, surprised to see that Maria Sharapova is one of them
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KGB ---Think your right ,it was Reinhard who got the souvenir sheet after his assassination .









KGB ----I think your right . It was Reinhard who got the souvenir sheet after he was assassinated .

Himmler committed suicide after being captured at the end of WWII, so there was no Nazi gov't left to honor him with a stamp. Reinhard Heydrich was assassinated in 1942 and indeed had a stamp in his honor, issued by Bohemia & Moravia. He was the only Nazi leader besides Hitler to be pictured on a stamp. An individually numbered souvenir sheet containing one stamp was given to attendees at his funeral or sometime shortly after. I'm not exactly certain as to exactly who got them and when. Anyway, the individual stamp is common, but the sheets are rare and they'll go for 5 figures at auction for an attractive copy.

In retaliation for Heydrich's assassination, the entire village of Lidice was leveled and most of the inhabitants murdered. Unlike most other massacres committed by the Nazis, Lidice was openly broadcast to the world, shocking people worldwide. Czechoslovakia (and a few other countries) issued many stamps commemorating the Lidice Massacre over the years.

To the OP, stamp collecting has always been and still is a very popular hobby in Germany. I seem to remember reading that up to 25% or so of adult German men collected stamps circa the 1920's - 30's. If that's true (or remotely close to true), percentages dictate that lots of prominent Nazis collected stamps.

That looks familiar ,think I got the "egg on the head stamp",It is a listed variety somewhere in my collection .

Stamp collecting was very popular in Nazi Germany, that's why there were so many souvenir cancels issued during their time in power. But it was also popular in most of the world at the time, so it's no surprise that the bad collected with the good.

The word shock was probably not the best to use, given that an individual who is famous (or infamous) for very positive or negative traits or deeds would have many other dimensions in their lives which bear no relation to their fame/infamy and which resemble aspects of any other individuals' lives. For some reason, though, I was just struck by the fact that someone like Himmler, for whom I admittedly have had a rather one dimensional view as simply one of history's most evil actors, would indeed have something in common with myself and other collectors. No great profundity here, just a weird feeling.

One of the great lessons of Nazism is that, instead of being uniformly evil in every respect, the Nazis were quite often just "normal" people (in most respects) who got swept up in political fanaticism. If one just thinks of the Nazis as one-dimensional and thoroughly evil, it's easy to think that "it can't happen here". If one views the Nazis as regular human beings (which they were, despite their own rhetoric), it's pretty easy to see that it indeed can happen here or just about anywhere, given the right circumstances. It's why Holocaust survivors like Elie Wiesel are quick to say that fanaticism is the thing we most need to guard against.

I'm more surprised that Himmler played the piano!

Heydrich played the violin, and well apparently. Several were brilliant, but that has never stopped anyone from being narrow minded, bigoted, evil, or psychotic, or some combination of the four.

John Lennon collected stamps. His boyhood album on display at the National Postal Museum.

Also Ernest Borgnine. Charlie Bronson. Also Mark Cuban, and King George V.

Here is the "egg on the head" plate flaw .

I will praise you if you call it the 'egg on the pate plate.'