Illégitime, nul et non avenu
/ Null und nichtig
—

The diptych Illégitime, nul et non avenu / Null und nichtig focuses on the time frame from the German occupation of France in World War II (June 1940) to the formation of the Republic of Austria (1945).

During the Nazi administration of the puppet state of Vichy (1940 to 1944), postage stamps with the effigy of the collaborationist Philippe Pétain were re-stamped with the portrait of Adolf Hitler, creating a clear symbolic discourse of subordination to the Führer. In the summer of 1944, after the liberation of France, General de Gaulle declared the Vichy Regime “illégitime, nul et non avenu” [illegitimate, null and void and without effect].

For its part, after the Soviet occupation of Vienna and the Tripartite Declaration of Moscow, the independence of Austria was proclaimed, declaring “null und nichtig” [null and void] both the Anschluss and all the measures of the National Socialist administration since March 1938. Thus, the Reich postage stamps that had been in official use in annexed Austria, with Adolf Hitler’s face on all of them, were now re-stamped with the name of the new country and with a graphic pattern concealing the effigy of the defeated Führer. This was a pragmatic post-war measure, which allowed the country to continue using a significant number of postage stamps already printed, but it was also a delicate iconoclastic gesture that explained the rise and fall of the Nazi regime.