Germany
Historic plates
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| Pre-1945 Plates | |
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1906-1945 normal series plates. IIB = Oberbayern (Upper Bavaria). VH = Hessen (code used 1938-1945) For pre-1945 plates issued in Austria during the German occupation, see the Austria page. |
| 1906-1945 trade plate L = Lippe Trade plates had serial numbers starting with 0. Usually, all the characters were red, but this rather early plate has only the letter in red, the numbers in black. |
| 1945-1956 Plates | |
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1947 front motorcycle plate. Red color = French Zone, BD = Süd-Baden, 36 = Überlingen. |
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1945-1947 motorcycle plate. White color = Soviet zone, TF = Thüringen Freistaat. On these plates, the letters TF were embossed, while the serial number was painted. |
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1947-1956 West Berlin plate, KB = Kommandatura Berlin. |
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1948-1956 normal series motorcycle and car plates.
FB = French Zone Baden
In 1948 uniform black plates were introduced in all four zones. Only Berlin (East and West) kept its white plates. The new plates had a letter for the occupation zone above a letter denoting the province. Initially, all had the year 48 in small digits at bottom center. This was soon discontinued in the Western zones, but in the Soviet Zone the small 48 remained throughout all the years. Issuance of these plates ceased in 1953 in East Germany and in 1956 in West Germany. In the West, the black plates were phased out by 1958. |
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