Printed in black ink with the personalized inscriptions in black typewriter face on a newsprint paper stock, letterhead inscribed "Der Staatsminister und Chef der Präsidialkanzlei des Führers und Reichskanzlers / Berlin IO, Vossstrasse 2" (The Minister of State and Chief of the Presidential Chancellery of the Fuhrer and Reich Chancellor / Berlin IO, Voss Street 2", dated "den 13, März 1944" (March 13, 1944), addressed "Herrn / SS-Obergruppenfuhrer / Max Amann / Berlin / Reichspressekammer" (Mr./ SS Group Guide / Max Amann / Berlin / Reich Media Chamber), the text inscribed "Lieber Max ! Am 13. März werde ich 64 Jahre alt. Aus diesem Anlass veranstaltet der Führer eine kleine Geburtstagsfeier zu meinen Ehren. Es wird Dich sicher besonders freuen, dass auch Dein alter Freund Ich hoffe, dass Du an diesem Tag ebenfalls mit uns anstossen kannst, trotz Deiner vielfältigen Aufgaben und Pflichten. Solltest Du ausbleiben, so würde der Führer in Dir gewiss seinen treuesten Gefolgsmann und Mitstreiter schmerzlich vermissen. Ich zähle also fest auf Deine Anwesenheit ! Auf Bald ! Heil Hitler ! Dein" (Dear Max! On March 13, I'm going to be 64 years old. On this occasion, the leaders have organized a small birthday party in my honour. I am sure you are particularly pleased for your old friend and I hope you can join us on this day, in spite of your many tasks and obligations. If you are unable to attend, the leader would certainly miss you, my most faithful follower. So I'm counting firmly on your presence! See you soon ! Hail Hitler ! Thy), signed in black ink by Otto Meissner, Chief of the Presidential Chancellery, 208 mm x 296 mm, fold marks, slight tear at the top on the vertical fold line, near extremely fine.
Footnote: Otto Lebrecht Eduard Daniel Meissner (March 13, 1880 – May 27, 1953) was head of the Office of the President of Germany during the entire period of the Weimar Republic under Friedrich Ebert and Paul von Hindenburg and, finally, at the beginning of the Nazi government under Adolf Hitler. He was born on March 13, 1880 in BIschwiller, Alsace, the son of a postal official and studied law in Strasbourg from 1898 to 1903, where he also became a member of the Strassburg Student Youth Fraternity (Burschenschaft) Germania. Later, he also studied in Berlin and earned his Doctor of Laws in 1908, at the age of 28, in Erlangen, Bavaria. Afterwards, he became a bureaucrat for the national railroad, the Reichsbahn, in Strasbourg. Between 1915 and 1917, he participated in the First World War in an infantry regiment. Up to 1919, he was more active behind the front, first in Bucharest, Romania, then in Kiev, and finally as a German business agent for the Ukrainian government. Thanks to his good contacts, in 1919, Meissner became "Acting Advisor in the Bureau of the President" (who at that time was the social democrat Friedrich Ebert), and by 1920 rose to the position of "Ministerial Director and Head of the Bureau of the President." Ebert named Meissner to the post of State Secretary in 1923. He continued in that post under Ebert's successor Paul von Hindenburg. When Hitler fused the functions of Head of State (here, the President) and the Head of Government (the Chancellery) in 1934, Meissner's office was renamed the "Presidential Chancellery" and restricted in its responsibilities to representative and formal matters. In 1937, Meissner was appointed to the newly created position of "State Minister of the Rank of a Federal Minister and Chief of the Presidential Chancellery of the Führer and Chancellor." After the Second World War, Meissner was arrested by the Allies and interrogated as a witness in the Nuremberg Trials. In July 1947, he appeared as a character witness for the accused former State Secretary Franz Schlegelberger. He was finally prosecuted himself in the Wilhelmstrasse Trial, but the court acquitted him on April 14th. Two years later, in May 1949, he was accused again, in Munich, and adjudged a fellow traveller. His appeal was turned down, but the proceedings was called to a halt in January 1952. In 1950, Meissner published a memoir covering his unusual bureaucrat's career in a book entitled State Secretary under Ebert, Hindenburg and Hitler, written by his son, Hans-Otto Meissner. The Otto Meissner, who lived with his family in the palace of the German President between 1929 and 1939, undoubtedly enjoyed major influence upon the presidents, especially Hindenburg. Together with Kurt von Schleicher and a few others, Meissner, in the years 1929 and 1930, furthered the dissolution of the parliamentary system by means of a civil presidential cabinet. His role in the appointment of Hitler to Chancellor in the period of December 1932 until January 1933 remains a controversy among historians. As member of the "camarilla", Meissner was certainly no small influence as State Secretary, due to his close relations with president Paul von Hindenburg. Together with Oskar von Hindenburg and Franz von Papen, Meissner organized the negotiations with Hitler to depose von Schleicher and appoint Hitler to the post of Chancellor. For the Nazis' part, the talks were facilitated through Wilhelm Keppler, Joachim von Ribbentrop and the banker Kurt Freiherr von Schröder, a former officer and head of the old-guard conservative "Herrenklub" (Gentlemen's club) in Berlin, in which von Papen was also active. Neither Hitler nor Hindenburg, as of the end of 1932, would have initiated contact to one another, so great was their mutual distaste. Meissner submitted his resignation in 1933, but was turned down, whereupon he assumed responsibility primarily for delegational duties. In 1937, the Nazi regime raised him to the rank of Federal Minister, with the title, "Chief of the Presidential Chancellery of the Führer and the Chancellor". But politically, his influence in the Hitler regime was distinctly minor. He died on May 27, 1953 in Munich. Max Amann(November 24, 1891 – March 30, 1957) was a German Nazi official with the honourary rank of SS-Obergruppenführer, politician and journalist. He was born in Munich on November 24, 1891. During the First World War, he was Adolf Hitler's superior and served as Feldwebel in the Royal Bavarian 16th Infantry Regiment. He is credited as being one of very few actual friends of Adolf Hitler. He joined the NSDAP in October 1921, as the Party's business manager. After 1922, he also led the Nazis' publishing house, Eher Verlag, which, among other things, published the SS magazine Das Schwarze Korps. In 1924 he was elected as a NSDAP candidate to the Munich city council and in 1933 became a Nazi member of the Reichstag for the electoral district of Upper Bavaria/Swabia. Perhaps Amann's most notable contribution to history was persuading Hitler to retitle his first book from Viereinhalb Jahre (des Kampfes) gegen Lüge, Dummheit und Feigheit, (Four and a Half Years (of Struggle) Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice) to Mein Kampf, (My Struggle) which he also published, and became a major source of Eher-Verlag's income. Soon after the creation of the Nazi state, Amann was named president of the Reich Media Chamber and Reich Press Leader. In this role, he established National Socialist control over the industry, closing down or seizing newspapers that did not fully support Hitler's regime. He pursued a dual-pronged strategy. In his official role as president of the Media Chamber, he had the power to seize any paper that ran counter to the government's wishes. Then, as head of the Eher Verlag, he bought them for mere pfennigs on the mark: in many cases, via "auctions" in which he was the sole bidder. Combined with the proceeds from Mein Kampf, this eventually made Amann the largest newspaper publisher in Germany and one of the largest in the world. He made a fortune from Nazism: his income jumped from 108,000 Reichsmarks in 1934 to 3.8 million Reichsmarks in 1942, although much of this was a paper fortune. However, as a party official, Amann lacked talent, being a poor speaker and debater. In addition, his handwriting was illegible, thus his Chief of Staff and deputy, Rolf Rienhardt, performed these duties for him. Poor handwriting can be attributed in part to the loss of his left arm in an accident with a firearm while hunting with Franz Ritter von Epp on September 4, 1931. Arrested by Allied troops after the war, Amann was deemed a Hauptschuldiger (Prominent Guilty Party) and sentenced to ten years in a labour camp on September 8, 1948 but was released in 1953. Stripped of his property, pension rights and practically all of his fortune, he died in poverty on March 30, 1957 in Munich.