Real photo postcard of the Herrenplatz in St. Pölten, Austria — shot in 1939 with a swastika flag on the pole and Nazi bunting on the facades, the unremarkable face of the Anschluss in a provincial square. The baroque plague column stands in the foreground, the Franciscan church's onion dome rises behind, and the shopfronts of Franz Hasl and neighbors carry on as if nothing has changed — which, for daily commerce in a town now absorbed into the Reich, was largely true. St. Pölten had been Lower Austria's administrative capital for centuries; after March 1938 it became a regional center of the Ostmark, the Nazi designation for incorporated Austria. Franz Möntl's Wien-based Postkartenverlag dated this card 1939 on the reverse — made, kept, never sent.

• Caption: St. Pölten N.D. Herrenplatz
• Card no.: 10109
• Publisher: Franz Möntl, Postkartenverlag, Wien I., Bauernmarkt 8
• Status: Unposted