My wife grew up on Norwegian army bases, her father was a professional soldier. When he died earlier this year she acquired this dish — it’s roughly nine-inches across, very solidly made, rather nice for potatoes.
I was looking at it this morning, it’s got a swastika on the bottom. According to my wife, when the Norwegians regained ownership after WW2, the former-German military bases were in good shape and they didn’t see any reason to throw away the china.
It looks to my uneducated eye like it had belonged to the German airforce. But why did they bring plates that had been manufactured in Bohemia? It’s so far away. And come to think of it, I thought the German name was Böhmen. Why were they calling it Bohemia, assuming it was not for the convenience of English speakers?
The little squiggle at the bottom seems to have a heraldic lion inside. The dish is in perfect condition, no chips or crazing. I wonder if it’s worth any money, or if we’ll just get to keep it?
A Bad Guide 
It did indeed belong to the airforce, or rather the “Fliegerunterkunftverwaltung”, the Flight Barracks Administration.
Bohemia in this case is the name of the manufacturer, the Keramische Betriebe AG Bohemia in Neurohlau/Nova Role, which is indeed in Bohemia (“Böhmen”, not Böhm in German), near the famous spa city Carlsbad/Karlovy Vary.
Bohemia had originally been a manufacturer of premium tableware goods, but the Jewish owners were expulsed in 1940, after Germany had annexed the Sudetenland, and the company became part of the economic activities of the SS organisation. The figure inside the squiggle is indeed a lion, the heraldic animal of Bohemia.
As part of the SS organisation, the company was turned into an official supplier of the German army. Many of the workers were prisoners from the Flossenbürg and Ravensbrück concentration camps – a so-called “Aussenlager” was located on the factory premises, so it’s reasonable to guess that this very dish may have been produced by someone who was forced to do so.
After the war, the Czechoslovakian authorities resurrected the label as a producer of sophisticated kitchen- and tableware. Not sure whether it still exists today.
I don’t know how much this dish might be worth, but I should think stuff like this crops up on Ebay every now and then.
Claus, thank you for answering all my questions and adding much more.
I see you have a very interesting blog, I’m going to have to take a closer look. You must be an architect.
You’re very welcome. But no, I’m not an architect, I’m just curious about the spaces around me …
Even better!
“Bohemia” in this case should be read as Latin rather than English.
Thanks, I was hoping you would know.
By golly, claus lives just down the road in Brühl! His picture of the Vorgebirgspark (on his site) seems pretty bare, but I didn’t even know that particular park existed where it does.
From this angle at least it’s a rather lovely dish. I’dn’t mind buying something like that.
Net, uden at være prangende (sagde Fanden – han malede sin rumpe siskengrøn).
I think so too, it’s not prangende. We had potatoes in in this evening. I’ve been feeling a bit funny about it since Claus said it might have been made by slave labour. I’m not crazy about having a green hakenkreuz on the table either. But it is a very nice dish.
“I’m not crazy about having a green hakenkreuz on the table”
I love the word hakenkreuz, and now use it for the Nazi emblem, because whenever I see a swastika, I feel an overwhelming urge to insert the missing dots.
Missing dots??
I’ve been feeling a bit funny about it since Claus said it might have been made by slave labour
On the contrary, how it was manufactured is a reason for cherishing it. Or would you prefer not to be reminded of what those people went through, just staying alive? It occurs to me I’ve been overlooking something about the old Catholic tradition of preserving the body bits of saints as holy relics, that I have otherwise mocked. Scorn, squeamishness – have we lost our nerve, as Matthew Arnold described it in Culture and Anarchy?
Not wanting to be melodramatic and all, but suppose a woman at your place for dinner realized during discussion of the dish that it was made at the factory where her father had worked, of whom she had few mementos. I imagine you would suddenly not feel funny any more, but rather something much harder to describe. At any rate you would not be sorry to have the dish, and might even offer it to her (difficult, really difficult).
It might turn out later that she was an unscrupulous antique dealer with theatrical talent, who went on to sell the dish for several hundred euros. How funny would you feel then?
If after all your conscience weighs too heavily, you can just send the dish to me. I’ll pay the postage. And for God’s sake pack it carefully!
missing dots
Grumbly Stu, I tried posting links but they didn’t take. Here are two shots of the missing dots:
There are examples of the manufacturer’s marks of Bohemia Ceramic Works at this collector’s site. In the section there on Bohemia Ceramic Works, the second mark from the left at the top of the table shows the heraldic lion, and beneath it “made in Czechoslovakia”. No mark resembling the one on your dish. Nary a word about the incorporation into the SS supply system that Claus describes.
The site says the factory is still in operation as a division of Thun Karlovarský Porcelán AS Závod Nová Role.
Stuart, next to the cathedral in Cologne is the Römisch-Germanisches Museum. Below ground level, but visible through large plate-glass windows from outside the museum, is a large Roman floor mosaic. The entire outer edge of the mosaic consists of Hakenkreuze. I can’t remember if they had dots. I may be near there this afternoon, and will take a look.
The dots are features of the Hindu swastika. Since the word is Sanskrit that’s why I make the distinction in my own mind between the Hindu swastika and the Nazi hakenkreuz.
Very interesting and well said, both Stuarts, I’m going to have to start calling you ‘Charles’ & ‘James’.
Memory hadn’t served me well about the floor mosaic. Around the outer edge is a thick line that snakes a bit inside one rectanglar area before proceeding to the next one – like small, simple labyrinths.
Outside the mosaic, in each of the two corners visible to me of the lowered area in which the mosaic lies (as at the bottom of a shallow swimming pool), I see a row of 6-8 seemingly identical decorations that may be the swastikas I remember.
It’s nothing to do with any air force, but not long ago I managed to photograph a boat seemingly from the Kriegsmarine. See here:
Against whom did the Norwegian army war-game? USSR, Sweden and….? USA? Denmark? UK?
Don’t know, dearie. Nobody asked me to play. Iceland’s always discussing its own strategic importance, perhaps it was the Icelanders.
Thinking again about ‘Charles’ & ‘James’, I wonder if Charles James Fox was named by Jacobite parents. Am I the only person in the English-speaking world who has never noticed this before? His father was a Lord Holland. He must have been. …Yes, well kind of: a look at Wikipedia shows that on his mother’s side he was directly descended from Charles II.
If we get to pick, I’d vote James, since that’s my middle name. My family has a tradition of R.J. for the men going back a few generations, but my mother insisted on Stuart. Actually she wasn’t fussed on the spelling but Dad chose that and kept the J going at least. So if the distinguishing nyms for the two Stus are open to public bidding, that’s mine.
J’y, This plate was made by second worl war’s prisoners stick in Neurohlau (Nova Role) camp. They Wera forces to do porcelaine dises.
So that would be here, now in Czechia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nov%C3%A1_Role_concentration_camp
Thank you so much for this information, Jean-Pierre.
My grand-ma was in Ravensbruck for 8 months
Oh, I’m sorry to hear it. Poor grandma.