German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 673/2, 1919-1924. Photo: Decla-Ufa-Film. Siegfried (Paul Richter) in the forest in Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (Fritz Lang, 1924).
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 253, 1919-1924. Photo: Ernst Schneider. Ally Kolberg.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 259/3, 1919-1921. Sent by mail in Germany in 1921. Photo: Becker & Maass / May Film. Mia May.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 289/3. Photo: Fern Andra Atelier. Although most Ross postcards have a white border around the photos, some have no border or a much narrower one. Fern Andra.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 635/5, 1919-1924. Photo: Union. Publicity still for Die Puppe/The Doll (Ernst Lubitsch, 1919) with Ossi Oswalda and Hermann Thimig.
Heinrich Ross
The founder of Ross Verlag, Heinrich Ross, was born in 1870 in Rokytno, Austria-Hungary, now a part of the Czech Republic. Sometime around 1905-1907, he began to work at the Rotophot postcard publishing company in Berlin. Rotophot had started around the turn of the century (1900) and had other offices throughout Europe, including London and Budapest.
In 1919, Heinrich founded the postcard company that bore his name, Ross Verlag. Originally, Ross operated as a distributor of postcards, but soon also became a publisher (Verlag). After Adolph Hitler came into power in 1933, the persecution of the Jews in Germany began. By 1937, Ross Verlag was no longer in its Jewish founder's control. Heinrich Ross was forced out by the National Socialists through their Arisierung (Aryanisation) program: no Jew could own a business. Interestingly enough, they retained the Ross Verlag name until 1941. Heinrich Ross boarded the passenger ship the S.S. St. Louis in Hamburg, Germany on 13 May 1939. The ship was bound for Cuba with 937 passengers, most of them German Jews. When they arrived at their destination, the Cuban government refused to allow the passengers to disembark. After many unsuccessful attempts, they next tried to dock in the USA. The United States government also refused them entry into the country. Both countries had immigration quotas that had already been filled. Having nowhere else to go, the S.S. St. Louis and its passengers were forced to head back to Europe. Decades later, a film was made about this dark and tragic chapter in history, The Voyage of the Damned (Stuart Rosenberg, 1976).
Heinrich Ross was allowed passage to England as a refugee. Heinrich spent three years in England, but in 1942 he boarded the passenger ship the S.S. Pacific Enterprise and crossed the Atlantic to America. He could join his family in New York. Heinrich had lost his fortune through Nazi confiscation, paying a 'flight tax' to leave, as well as the payment of his ship's passage.
Reportedly, at the age of 73, Heinrich Ross started working again in a machine shop in Chicago, up to the age of 84. In 1956, he and his son received compensation from Germany for the loss of their Berlin company in the amount of 50,000 Deutsche Marks. In 1957, at the age of 86, Heinrich Ross passed away at the Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, Illinois from a stroke and pneumonia.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 272/4, 1919-1924. Photo: Becker & Maass. Conrad Veidt.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 294/1. Photo: Alex Binder/Decla. Sascha Gura.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 369/3, 1919-1924. Photo: Alex Binder / Decla. Carola Toelle.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 403/3, 1919-1924. Photo: Rembrandt phot. Collection: Didier Hanson. Lyda Salmonova.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 407/1, 1919-1924. Photo: Rembrandt Phot. Pola Negri.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 419/3, 1919-1924. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin. Bernd Aldor.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 430/5, 1919-1924. Photo: Alex Binder. Fern Andra.
Ross Verlag
The familiar Ross Verlag logo first appeared in the early 1920s. On the front of the card were the words: Verlag "Ross" Berlin SW68. SW stands for Southwest and 68 is an area code in that region of Berlin. Mark Goffee: "Ross Verlag printed real photo postcards of the highest quality, among the finest ever published of movie stars. The company licensed thousands of images from the Hollywood studios; some of those photos may have only been distributed on these postcards. In Germany, movie stars were photographed by the best European glamour studios. Quite possibly, many of these photos were taken just for publication through Ross Verlag."
The majority of the Ross Verlag cards are numbered and the numbers went up to 9997/1 and then started over again with the letter 'A'. These cards began at A 1000 and continue to around A 4096. The A numbers were issued from 1941 to 1944. During the Second World War, the Nazi publishers also started to use the name Film-Foto-Verlag.
The numbering system includes a series number, then a slash followed by a card number (for example 3112/2). The card numbers of a specific series would be of one particular actress or group of actors or a film (for example, 1028/1, 1028/2, 1028/3 and 1028/4 all show actress Lya de Putti).
Usually, a set of cards of one or more actors would be from the same film (although not always) or photographer. Around card number 1930/1 (in the year 1928), the Verlag "Ross" Berlin SW68 on the cards changed to simply "Ross" Verlag.
Ross Verlag seemed to disappear by the end of the war, but the Film-Foto-Verlag name did reappear in the early to mid-1950s for a short while. It soon changed to UFA/Film-Foto. Whether this company had any links to the original Ross is unknown.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 476/1, 1919-1924. Photo: A. Eberth, Berlin. Aud Egede-Nissen.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 481/1, 1919-1924. Photo: Atelier Balázs. Ressel Orla.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 525/3, 1919-1924. Photo: Franz Meinecke, Berlin. Harry Piel.
German Postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 531/1, 1919-1924. Photo: Alex Binder. Diana Karenne.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 539/1. Photo: May Film. Conrad Veidt was the proud and cruel Maharajah of Eschnapur in the two-part monumental film Das indische Grabmal/The Indian Tomb (Joe May, 1921-1922).
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 580/3, 1919-1924. Photo: Art Film. Asta Nielsen and Gregori Chmara in Der Absturz/Downfall (Ludwig Wolff, 1923).
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 596/3, 1925-1926. Photo: Albani Film. Collection: Didier Hanson. Marcella Albani.
Mark Goffee and Jean Ritsema
On Ross Verlag Movie Star Postcards, Mark Goffee tells the company's history, and he created checklists of the Ross postcards. Since 2016, Jean Ritsema created and maintained a very useful image archive.
For EFSP, we use these lists and archives quite often, e.g. for the dating of our Ross postcards. But there is much more to discover on this wonderful site.
Goffee presents many postcards from his own collection, and he gives a lot of facts and feats. There are for example heart shaped photos on certain Ross cards, and opera stars appeared on Ross cards in roles they were famous for.
The website also presents bloopers: a few mistakes that were made on the cards, and it shows that some cards were actually drawings.
Goffee and Ritsema offer on their website many interesting links. Check it out. Next week at EFSP, we present 25 of our favourite Ross Verlag postcards with Hollywood stars of the 1920s.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 627/2, 1919-1924. Photo: Union. Publicity still for Madame DuBarry (Ernst Lubitsch, 1919) with Pola Negri and Harry Liedtke.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 658/4. Photo: Peter Paul Felner-Film Co. Publicity still for Der Kaufmann von Venedig/The Merchant of Venice (Peter Paul Felner, 1923) with Henny Porten.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 682/3. Photo: FFG (Froehlich-Flm GmbH). Henny Porten in Mutter und Kind/Mother and Child (Carl Froehlich, 1924), co-starring Wilhelm (later William) Dieterle.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 858/4. Photo: Phoebus Film / Rembrandt. Italian actor Carlo Aldini imitates Myron's discus thrower.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 886/3, 1925-1926. Photo: Decla / Ufa. Xenia Desni.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 905/1, 1925-1926. Photo: Atelier Schneider, Berlin. Lil Dagover.
Sources: Mark Goffee and Jean Ritsema (Ross Verlag Movie Star Postcards), Luminous Lint and Wikipedia (German).
The Ross Verlag Tribute is to be continued weekly.
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