Fall 2026 Militaria and Aviation Auction
Lot 153:
Description
1938 ‘Grundsteinlegung des Volkswagenwerkes’ Commemorative Cast Desk Ashtray with Matching Pair of KdF-Wagen Lapel Badges, Marked GES. GESCH. This lot brings together a cast, bronze-patinated desk ashtray and a matching pair of lapel badges, all produced to commemorate the cornerstone laying of the Volkswagen factory at Fallersleben on 26 May 1938. Each piece bears the identical design – the streamlined KdF-Wagen (the prototype Volkswagen Beetle) set before a Deutsche Arbeitsfront cogwheel enclosing a swastika, above the raised inscription GRUNDSTEINLEGUNG DES VOLKSWAGENWERKES MAI 1938. The badges carry a maker’s diamond cartouche and the GES. GESCH. protection mark on their reverse, consistent with period commercial manufacture of commemorative and souvenir badges produced for state-sponsored ceremonies of this kind; no separate biography or presentation record accompanies the group, and the history here rests entirely in the objects and their inscriptions. The cornerstone ceremony they commemorate was a heavily publicized event of the Nazi propaganda apparatus, staged before a large crowd and attended by Adolf Hitler, who used the occasion to announce the new factory town and the KdF-Wagen program under the auspices of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront’s ‘Kraft durch Freude’ (Strength Through Joy) leisure organization. German workers were encouraged to purchase savings stamps toward eventual ownership of the car, a promise never fulfilled, as the plant was redirected to military vehicle production with the outbreak of war in 1939. Commemorative badges and desk pieces such as these were produced or distributed to mark the occasion, blending automotive enthusiasm with the regime’s broader industrial and social propaganda, and they survive today as tangible souvenirs of the KdF-Wagen project before the factory turned instead to wartime Kuebelwagen and Schwimmwagen production. The ashtray is a heavier cast-metal piece with an irregular, naturalistic outline, the KdF-Wagen and DAF cogwheel motif raised in relief at the rear beside an oak sprig, and a scalloped bowl for cigarette rests; its underside retains the original red felt protective backing, now toned with age. The two lapel badges are of silver-finished stamped metal, each repeating the car-and-cogwheel design over the two-line inscription, each with a diamond maker’s cartouche and GES. GESCH. mark stamped into the reverse, and each retaining an intact, functional pin-back fitting. Condition on all three pieces is very good for age: the ashtray shows light overall surface oxidation and an attractive dark patina consistent with bronze-toned castings of the period, its felt backing intact though worn and lightly discolored at the edges; the badges display mild age-toning and minor contact marks but remain crisp in detail with legible markings. As with most surviving examples of this popular commemorative issue, reproductions of the 1938 VW cornerstone badge are known in the collecting market, and buyers are encouraged to weigh authenticity through in-hand examination. A cohesive, matched grouping pairing the desk ashtray and lapel badge forms of this well-known 1938 Volkswagen cornerstone commemorative – automobilia bound inseparably to the industrial propaganda of the Third Reich.
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