Ansichtssache: Anmerkungen zur Postkarte „1940 Stuttgart. Weissenhofsiedlung, Araberdorf".

The article focuses on new research regarding a 1940 photomontage postcard depicting the Weißenhofsiedlung, a key modernist housing estate built for the 1927 Werkbund exhibition Die Wohnung in Stuttgart, which was pejoratively labeled as the "Araberdorf" ("Arab village"). Contrary to previous interpretations that saw the postcard solely as National Socialist propaganda against the Neues Bauen (New Building) movement, findings show it originated earlier, around 1932, as part of a series of humorous "future cards" published by the Schwäbischer Kunst-Verlag Hans Boettcher. The postcard’s imagery draws on a longstanding local and architectural discourse that disparaged modern flat-roofed buildings by associating them with Orientalist stereotypes, a trope with antisemitic and nationalist connotations prevalent in Weimar Germany. While the postcard popularized this derogatory motif, its creation appears independent of direct National Socialist authorship, reflecting broader cultural tensions about modern architecture before 1933.