DM 22 typewriter — Olympia Plana name variant

It's been a busy month—and then I came down with Covid (for the first time, as far as I know). Fatigue, sore throat, fever ... no fun. But I am now on the mend.

So as not to leave this blog completely unattended, I'll post some pics of a striking little typewriter that I found on safari shortly before the pandemic hit. That feels like a long time ago.

The DM 22 is a name variant of the Olympia Plana, Olympia's answer to the Hermes Baby. This ultraflat typewriter with Bakelite body and segment is very striking (far prettier than the Baby). As for its performance? Meh. The very clever control knobs for the margins and tabulator are connected to delicate wires and the mechanism often doesn't work—no exception here.

"DM" typewriters appear to have been marketed to National Socialist true believers. "DM typewriters are manufactured by one of the leading German typewriter factories at the command of the Reich specialty group for office machines in the Reich guild association of mechanical manufacturers." I think that's an approximate translation of the verbiage on this pamphlet in the collection of the Peter Mitterhofer Typewriter Museum.

I would not have a typewriter with Nazi emblems in my home, but the political connections of this typewriter are so inconspicuous (you can only see the model name in a certain light!) that I am not particularly bothered by the object. I like to think that a GI brought it back to Cincinnati after the war.

The serial number dates this typewriter to 1940 (assuming it's in the same serial sequence as the Olympia Plana).