Keeping "That Face" Out of Sight

TWENTY-SIX years after Adolf Hitler shot himself to death in his Berlin bunker, the face of the late, unlamented dictator has become an acute embarrassment to the Austrian government. Der Fuehrer, whose likeness appeared on at least 15 different stamps in dozens of denominations, commissioned a special issue for his 54th birthday in 1943. The Austrian State Printing Office, a Nazi enterprise at that time, printed the stamps in Vienna. No one knows how many went into circulation. But when the Third Reich fell two years later, some 20 million remained, and they have been gathering dust ever since in the basement of the State Printing Office.

Recently the brisk market in Hitler memorabilia has brought demands for the stamps' release. Two years ago Dr. Franz Sobek, then director of the State Printing Office, was set to sell the stamps to an anonymous collector for $250,000, a fraction more than 10 a stamp. But the Austrian Resistance Fighters objected to the idea that an official Austrian body should profit from "that face," and Dr. Sobek, who was president of the Resistance, quickly agreed. Sobek has since retired, and Austrian stamp dealers as well as lawyers for two important foreign buyers, said to be an American and an Israeli, have stepped up pressure on his successor, Dr. Helmut Fichtenthal. But Fichtenthal is as adamantly opposed to selling the stamps as his predecessor. Rejecting all offers, he said last week: "The sale is an ethical question. I shall guard the stamps as long as I am in office." Philatelists estimate that in the meantime the value of the stamps has increased to $300,000.

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