Antique & Vintage Postcards

Two wooden flat-bottomed boats rest at the muddy bank of the Enns River in this evocative real-photo postcard of Steyr, Austria — a medieval iron-working city whose picturesque skyline of gabled houses, Baroque church facades, and the silhouette of Lamberg Castle belies its wartime reality in February 1941, when it was a key armaments production center for the Nazi war machine. The card was mailed on February 4, 1941 from Steyr-Municholz to Soldat (Private) Josef Billensteiner, recuperating at Reserve-Lazarett (military hospital) Wien II, Große Mohrengasse 2, Vienna — and bears the chilling dual-stamp evidence of Nazi military censorship: a purple eagle-and-swastika censor seal numbered "1429" and a bold red hand-drawn "B" censor notation, with the printed warning "Nachdruck verboten" (reproduction forbidden). The human story here is poignant: someone writing to a wounded soldier from the home front.