Original Item: Only One Available. The WHW, Winterhilfswerk (Winter-help-work), was an annual charitable donation event held by the NS -Volkswohlfahrt (National Socialist - Peoples’-welfare-organization), in which personnel from all of the organizations would solicit donations from the public, and reward contributors with a wide variety of lapel badges or propaganda booklets.

This is an very nice condition red-painted, sheet metal can, roughly 17cm in overall height, and 10.5cm in diameter. Featuring a hinged lid which is stepped as it ascends, with an angled coin slot to its apex, unto whose surface are the raised serial numbers 20544 (serial number). To the lid, immediately above its hinge, is a small, circular perforation, with Papier (Paper) embossed to one side of it and Geld (Money) to the other. A handle is riveted to the reverse, beneath the lid’s hinge. This is a later pattern, which has a simple hole where the lock for the lid would be installed, compared to the fold down bracket. The mechanism under the coil slot to prevent coins from being shaken out of the can is intact and looks to be functional.

Embossed to the can itself, Gau Bayr.-Ostmark, the abbreviation for Gau Bayerische-Ostmark (Bavarian East March). This was a regional district established in 1933 in NSDAP Germany, when Hans Schemm, the gauleiter of Oberfranken, united the three Gaue of Oberpfalz, Niederbayern and Oberfranken into one in an internal power struggle. The term Bayerische Ostmark was coined after the First World War for the region to refer to the fact that the area now bordered the new Czechoslovakia, a country perceived as hostile to Germany. The term Mark (English: March) was historically used in Imperial Germany for border regions to hostile neighbors. It was the only one of the Bavarian Gaue to incorporate more than one Regierungsbezirk, covering three of them. Later on, because the Gau Bayerische Ostmark was not a border region any more, it was renamed Gau Bayreuth in June 1942, so this can is from before this time.

The bottom of the can is embossed with the maker’s name; M. Westermann & Co, with G.m.b.H. underneath it, for Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung (Company with limited Liability), both arching above Wesco within a diamond, and with Neheim-Ruhr arching beneath that. The embossed number 41 may be seen below the latter location, for a date of 1941.

Examples of these cans have become harder and harder to find, especially in such great condition.