Can modern technologies defeat Nazi censorship?

Abstract

Censorship of parts of written text was and is a common practice in totalitarian regimes. It is used to destroy information not approved by the political power. Recovering the censored text is of interest for historical studies of the text. This paper raises the question, whether a censored postcard from 1942 can be made legible by applying multispectral imaging in combination with laser cleaning. In the fields of art conservation (e.g. color measurements), investigation (e.g. analysis of underdrawings in paintings), and historical document analysis, multispectral imaging techniques have been applied successfully to give visibility to information hidden to the human eye. The basic principle of laser cleaning is to transfer laser pulse energy to a contamination layer by an absorption process that leads to heating and evaporation of the layer. Partial laser cleaning of postcards is possible; dirt on the surface can be removed and the obscured pictures and writings made visible again. We applied both techniques to the postcard. The text could not be restored since the original ink seems to have suffered severe chemical damage. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.