JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post   A History of Blank, Empty, and Missing Things series 

Hans Trzebiatowsky & Karl Spaethe–two engineers turned propagandists–wrote the study/notebook for “students” working through modern German history, Merk- und Arbeitsblatter fuer Reichskunde, which was published in Magdeburg in 1941. It was very successful, as the title page states that this edition (“18…23 Auflage”) was the “1058 ,,, 1035, Thausend” which seems to put the print run over one million. Given that there were 66 million people in Germany in 1940, and that 6.6 million were soldiers, this may mean that just about every child between the ages of 12-17 had one of these–in any event, if those publication numbers were accurate, then the publication must have been ubiquitous. 

The paperback publication is tall (about 12″) and densely written, and for all of that is only 24 pages long.  It is designed with perforation along the left-hand edge of the sheets so that the page could be removed and gathered in a two-ring binder. After dealing with the first and second Reichs in pages 1 and 2, the rest of the issue is a history and philosophy lesson on the Third Reich, presented for the Hitler Jugend in the best interests of the Nationalsozialistche Deutsche Arbeiter-Partei. 

The images in the publication were striking, and even for a bored general student or Hitler Youth could have lazily flipped through these pages without noticing them and having soem sort of message delivered. For example, this map that shows the state of the alliances in WWI and how the rest of the world outside of these allies stood against Germany:

(Map is about 100% larger than the original)

It should be understood though that the booklet was most definitely not a picture book for kids, as it was detail-heavy and brimming with Nazi needs:

The book was definitely intended for instruction, as the back of every sheet of text is a 40-line ruled notebook page, ready for note–my copy hasn’t a word in it.