To open the index click the link below
12Gr Copernicus memorial
The 12Gr value from the set of ‘buildings’ definitives depicts the statue of Nicolaus Copernicus standing in the courtyard of Krakow university. The university was closed by the Nazi administration and the Institut für Deutsche Ostarbeit (Institute for German Labour in the East) was housed in the former university library buildings. The purpose of the Institute was to undertake research into practical applications for the development of the new order in occupied Poland, including an investigation into the origins of Slavic peoples in the country.
‘Yacht issue’ stamps
The term ‘Yacht issue’ refers to postage stamps that bear the image of the Kaiser’s yacht, SMY Hohenzollern II. They were used in Germany’s colonies from 1900 and some were still valid for use up to the end of World War I. The stamps come in two formats, small for the low values and larger for the high values. The German colonies at that time were Cameroon, Caroline Islands, German East Africa, German New Guinea, German South West Africa, Kiauchau, Marianas Islands, Marshall Islands, Samoa and Togo.
10Pf postal stationery card .
This copy of a reply-paid 10Pf postal stationery card (Michel P62A) was returned from London post paid on 31 January 1908.
At the 1885 Convention of the Universal Postal Union in Lisbon prepaid postal cards with an attached reply-paid card were recognized for international mail. The addressee could write a reply on the reply half and post the card without charge.
A bit of fun
– a German President (Gustav Heinemann: Bundespräsident 1969-1974) “On Her Majesty’s Service”!
Germania 1¼M.
This copy of a Germania 1¼M (Michel 151) has a spectacular smudge at the back of the crown probably caused by a bit of foreign matter on the plate. There is a footnote in Michel regarding the 1920/21 Germania issue that there were many printing errors. The Reichsdruckerei faced many problems directly after the war not least in keeping up with the demand for the supply of Germania stamps with overprints for Allenstein, Danzig, Saargebiet & Memelgebiet so standards did slip compared with the pre-War printings.
1938 Anschluss propaganda card
Propaganda card celebrating the union of Austria with Germany in April 1938. The map depicts Austria as part of the new Greater Germany. The date at the foot of the card refers to the occasion of the ratification of the Anschluss law by Adolf Hitler during his stay in Linz, Austria.
2Z Hindenburg overprint
The first set of definitives created specifically for use in German-occupied Poland was the existing Hindenburg medallion stamps of Germany overprinted in black with new values and the inscription Deutsche Post Osten (German post in the East). Issued in December 1939, the stamps remained officially in circulation until September 1940.
5Z official stamp
The first set of adhesive stamps specially designed and printed for use in German-occupied Poland was a set of ‘officials’ issued in April 1940. As from the date of issue, the use of these stamps was in theory mandatory on official mail. However, this regulation was largely ignored by the administration and a great many mixed frankings occur.
Soldiers’ Mail
From May 1872 to 1919, most soldiers on active service were entitled to receive personal mail postage free, but all mail had to be inscribed:
"Soldatenbrief. Eigene Angelegenheit des Empfängers."
To make things easier for relatives, many labels were produced with the inscription already printed. These are from Württemberg, with a Germania frame and in similar colours to the 5 low values of the 1903/05 Official stamps, but with the word 'FREI' replacing the values, and the “Soldatenbrief” inscription replacing the ‘area codes’ & 'Official Free' wording.
A fantasy 10ct
A fantasy 10ct Alpenvorland Adria stamp taken from a set of 16 that were produced after the war. The designs and framework were based on the ‘Province Laibach’ set of 16 views of Slovenia issued in March 1945.
Occupation of Czechoslovakia
On the 15th July 1939, four months after the German Occupation of Czechoslovakia, 19 values of Czech definitives were overprinted by the German authorities “Böhmen u. Mähren’ with “Čechy a Morava” underneath. Bohemia and Moravia were the only two provinces left of the 1st Czechoslovakian Republic as the Sudetenland area had been ceded to Germany under the Munich Agreement while Slovakia and Carpatho-Ukraine had become independent upon German Occupation.
Foreign-workers’ mail
Due to a diminishing German workforce, the Nazi authorities became ever more reliant on labour from occupied territories. Thousands of workers were housed in camps across Germany. This postcard was mailed from an Ausländer-Lager (foreigners’ camp) in the Wartheland. This type of camp probably housed workers from different countries across Europe.
Catch-up flight
Registered mail carried from the Ostmark, German-occupied Austria, to New York on the liner ‘Europa’. The purple cachet signifies it was delivered by a special ‘feeder flight’ (Nachbringeflug) from Cologne to Cherbourg, which gave late mail the opportunity to catch the ship before it sailed for the USA.
Internal camp post
Residents of certain German POW camps organised their own postal systems to deliver mail around their camps. Registered Express letter from Woldenberg camp, franked with stamps designed, engraved and printed on site by prisoners.
Deutsch-Ostafrika
A registered letter sent locally within the town on 4 October 1910 franked with 4 and 15 heller stamps. The registration fee was 15 heller and the postage for usage after 15 July 1909 was 4 heller only for a local letter. The weight limit was also increased to 250 grams.
Deutsch-Ostafrika
A registered letter sent from Daressalam on 3 April 1909 to Göttingen franked with the 2½ and 20 heller ‘yacht stamps’ with watermarks. The registration fee was 15 heller and the postage for a letter up to 20 grams in weight to Germany was 7½ heller.
Deutsch-Ostafrika
A booklet pane with advertisement incorporated se-tenant with the stamps. There were three booklets and this pane comes from booklet A issued in 1911. Booklets A and B are scarce but Booklet C issued in 1913 which has se-tenant crosses is normally available.
Austrian Post Office
On the 5th April 1938, just over three weeks after the German Annexation of Austria (Anschluss), the Austrian Post Office (now German) decided on a trial overprint on four values of Austrian definitives of a swastika and new pfennig values. Although the trial printing was a success, it was then decided to abandon the idea and just use Austrian stamps until the 31st October 1938 at an exchange rate of 1pfg = 1½ groschen. All stocks of the overprinted stamps were then ordered to be destroyed.
Saar: Marian year
Three stamps: 5f red, 10f green and 15f blue were issued in the Saar on 14 August 1954 for Marian Year. December 1953 to December 1954 was called Marian Year to commemorate the centenary of the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. There were social gatherings as well as cultural and charity events. This small sheet of Christmas seals, showing the stamps, was also produced.
Undercover mail
In order to communicate with civilians in occupied territories, the British organised mail services via covert Post Office Boxes based in neutral countries, such as Portugal. This express registered letter was posted from Warsaw to Post Box 512, Lisbon; from here it was passed on to Polish forces in Great Britain.
Christmas present
By the end of 1944 German and Italian troops were cut off from the mainland and it was becoming increasingly difficult to send mail home by airmail. As a ‘Christmas present’ to the troops on the islands of Rhodes, Kos, and Leros, it was decided, for morale purposes, to overprint redundant Italian 5ct Rhodes stamps “Weihnachten 1944” in black and give each soldier two stamps for airmail use, in addition to their usual allocation of official airmail stamps.
Saarland 1.10.57 Winter Charity
On 1.1.57, just over a year after the vote to return, Saarland became the eleventh state of West Germany. However the economic transition took a little longer – so Saarland continued to use the French currency for 2½yr.
This set was one of several issued with identical designs to a set issued in West Germany, but it had different values, due to the different currencies.
Perhaps the topic of ‘mining’ was chosen to welcome the Saar’s mainly mining community ‘back to the Motherland’.
10Z buildings definitive
High value stamp, issued on 20 April 1941, from the large set of ‘buildings’ definitives issued in German-occupied Poland (General Government). It features a line engraving of old Krakow with Wavel castle in the background, which was used as the headquarters for the Nazi administration.
Land Registry fee stamp
A 1912 issue 500MK German Land Registry fee stamp. Collecting revenue stamps can be particularly rewarding as many of them such as this representation of the personification of the German Empire Germania, have the most beautiful designs.
Commercial cover to Brazil
A commercial cover from Great Britain to Brazil franked 28/- including a PUC £1. The postal rate shows that the cover and its contents must have weighed up to four ounces. The red cachet confirms carriage by German airmail and the arrival date on the reverse of 13/7/36 by Zeppelin
Inflation – July 1923
Mail from Hamburg to Berlin on the last day of tariff period. Assuming this is printed matter, then it is overpaid by 50 Marks. If it were an inland letter it would be underpaid by 190 Marks. Both the receiving office and the delivery office have accepted it as correctly paid!
Danzig 5M definitive
The first large-format Danzig coat-of-arms issue of 1 August 1921 not only added three higher values – 5, 10 & 20 – to complete the range of definitive stamps available, but thereby introduced a more elaborate design akin to the coat of arms seen on civic documents, seals and the like. The designer Max Buchholz incorporated his monogram, MB, into the bottom centre of the stamp below the ‘N’ of ‘DANZIG’.
Deutsche Nothilfe 40+35Rpf
The top value in the set of nine stamps issued on 1 November 1933 in aid of the charity Deutsche Nothilfe. The set depicts scenes from operas by Richard Wagner as designed by Prof. Alois Kolb. Arguably one of the most beautiful sets of stamps ever issued by Germany. This stamp shows Parsifal transfigured, at the end of Act 3, as he holds forth the Holy Grail in the growing light from above.
Cover from Schwerin to Eriwitz
This letter has a block of six ¼ Schilling stamps to pay the required 1½ Schilling rate. The stamps were printed in sheets. Blocks of four stamps were separated by piercing (incorrectly described as rouletting), giving a separable stamp of 1 schilling. The four components of this stamp could then be separated by cutting to provide for various postal rates
Memel – Court writ of summons
This is official correspondence form a ‘County Court’ Amtsgericht. There were special arrangements for the payment of postage and the collection of a receipt of delivery for this type of official correspondence, a Zustellungsurkunde. The sender paid on posting the cost of outward postage, the charge for the postman obtaining the receipt of delivery and the return postage for the receipt.
South America flight 1938
A cover from Istanbul to Recife in Brazil, which was carried on the fourth flight of the 'Graf Zeppelin' to South America in 1932. The cover bears a special cachet for the fourth flight and a circular routing cachet, showing that it was flown in Germany via Berlin
Commemorating Zeppelin landings
A postcard issued in 1913, which shows a zeppelin landing in front of a group of people. It was issued as the caption says 'As a souvenir of the memorable Zeppelin days' to commemorate the Zeppelin landings in various cities throughout Germany.
First Graf Zeppelin flight to
South America
A postcard sent from Friedrichshafen on the first flight to South America of the 'Graf Zeppelin. The card is franked with the two special stamps issued for this flight. The pictorial cachet for the flight shows the airship flying past Sugar Loaf Mountain and a palm tree in Rio di Janeiro.
Olympic village to New York
A complete set of the 1936 Berlin Olympic stamps used on a registered cover to New York City. The cover was posted in the Olympic village, flown to Frankfurt am Main and then carried on the airship 'Hindenburg' on its sixth flight to North America
Orient Flight around the Eastern Mediterranean
A cover franked with the complete set of the 1928 Charity stamps and carried by the 'Graf Zeppelin' on its Orient Flight around the Eastern Mediterranean. This was the first time that a pictorial cachet was used on a Zeppelin flight
1934 Christmas flight to South America
A card posted on board the 'Graf Zeppelin' on the Christmas flight of 1934 to South America. The card bears the flight cachet and a supplementary cachet indicating that the airship had flown one million kilometres between its launch in 1928 and 1934. It is signed Watch Officer, Hans von Schiller
Last flight of the Hindenburg
This tatty looking envelope with charred edges, contained in its officially sealed glassine packet, is one of the 181 items of mail, destined for New York, which were recovered from the wreck of the 'Hindenburg' following the disaster at Lakehurst,
NJ in May 1937.
1938 Anschluss commemorative
Postage stamp issued simultaneously in Austria and Germany to commemorate the 1938 Anschluss (union with Germany). It depicts German and Austrian citizens united below a Nazi banner. It was designed by Professor E. Puchinger whose initials appear at the foot of the Austrian printing.
First Anniversary of General Government
12Gr value from the set of stamps commemorating the First Anniversary of the General Government, the term used to describe German-occupied Poland. The design is based on a portrait made by the artist Otto Engelhardt-Kyffhauser of a young ethnic German immigrant, Marie Eppler, who was relocated from Galicia to repopulate the incorporated territories of Western Poland.
FRAMA ‘Automat’ machine stamps
These variable-denomination vending-machine stamps started appearing in West Germany in early 1981 and collectors soon got to work!
Missing inflation overprint
The large volume of stamps required during the hyper-inflation period lead to poor quality control with various errors slipping through. This pair of 100 Mark stamps from March 1923 was overprinted in September 1923 at 100,000 Marks. For some reason the overprint on the left stamp is almost completely missing.
1 Billion Mark stamp
During the inflation period, some stamps were produced with serrated roulettes instead of perforations. This 50 Millarden stamp was the highest value inflation stamp issued – note the column value indicator of 1 Billion Marks – in 1923 a billion was a million millions, not 1000 million as accepted today!
Stamp shortage at Olpe
During the hyper-inflation period, cash payments were allowed when stamps were not available. A handstamp was normally used to indicate payment, but some offices used labels instead. At Olpe, low-value stamps were used, hand-stamping them ‘cash paid’ and writing the amount paid on the stamp (100,000 Marks in this case).
Regional post-office overprints
During the Hyper-inflation in 1923, the Government Printing works in Berlin were unable to cope fully with the huge demand. The Reich Ministry of Posts authorised regional post offices to organise the over-printing of selected issues. Many of these over-printings can be identified from the overprint in the top margin.
Left to right:
Stettin - Large numbers
Breslau - Three thin lines
Munich - Two thin bars
625 stamps used on one letter
The shortage of stamps during the hyper-inflation period led to large amounts of low-value stamps being used to pay the postage. For this official letter, 625 stamps of the 400 Mark value were used to pay the postage of 250,000 Marks!
Top - Front
Bottom - Back
DDR 225th anniversary of the birth of Mozart (1756-1791)
German stamps can be a rich resource for thematic collectors. There are many connected with music for example.
Bundesrepublik 75th anniversary of the ‘Blue Riband’ by the passenger ship ‘SS Bremen’
This stamp was issued on 8 July 2004. The SS Bremem won the ‘Blue Riband’ for her first time in 1929, an accolade marking the record highest speed for a passenger liner crossing the Atlantic Ocean westbound in regular service. The ship is also interesting to collectors of ‘catapult’ mail.
DDR Leipzig Spring Fair
These two stamps, issued on 5 March 1950, were the last in a series of similar wonderfully detailed stamps issued in connection with the historic Leipzig trade fairs. The previous sets were issued whilst Germany was under postwar Allied occupation.
Luftfeldpost
The German campaign to invade Russia in 1941 stretched supply lines to the limit. The only viable solution was to inaugurate an airmail service to carry letters and cards to and from the Eastern Front. Each item of mail had to carry a blue concession label that depicts the aircraft selected for the service, the sturdy JU 52.
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The year 2014 marked the 50th anniversary of the first year of operation of the Germany & Colonies Philatelic Society following the amalgamation of the Germany & Colonies Stamp Club (established 1947) and the Stockton German Study Group (1960).
The G&CPS celebrated its inaugural year in 1964 with the first Germania Posta philatelic exhibition held in Stockton.
GERMANIA MAGAZINE
The link alongside will take you to the Index to Germania vols. 1-40 (i.e. from 1964 to 2004). Please note that this is a working copy only being used in preparation for a revised edition; the entries shown in red are simply ones which have been identified for later change. The Index is in pdf format to enable rapid searching by keyword.
We have stock of many issues of Germania from the last twenty years or so but very few now of the earlier ones. Do please get in touch with the Chairman (and Publications Manager) Giles du Boulay whether you need just one issue for a particular article, or wish to build up a more comprehensive library of information on various aspects of German philately. Subject to availability, the costs to members of individual issues from volumes 1-14 are £1.00 each, from volumes 15-29 £1.25 each, from volumes 30 onwards £2.00 each. £5.00 each for non-members (subject to discount for quantity). Prices include UK postage. Non-UK extra.
Below are synopses of articles in Germania from vol. 36 (year 2000) to date, and as such can provide a measure of searchable indexing by using Ctrl + F (Find).
An Index of Book Reviews in Germania can be found by clicking the link below
Vol 36/1
SOE's Himmler "Stamp"
AM POST 1945-46: part cash/part stamped frankings (Teilbarfrankatur)
Prisoner of War camps in Germany 1914-1918
The Revenue Stamps of German East Africa:
German Inflation Stamps
"A bit of hot air and hydrogen"
Vol 36/2
Danzig in the first World War
AM POST 1945-46 Censorship
Additional GB frankings from Alexandria on mail "via Triest" and "per Overland Mail" to destinations "East of Suez"
German Warships 1895-1905
Changes in Postal Rates 1916-23
Vol 36/3
Hannover 1714-1866
Insurance Rates for Foreign Letters 1906-1921
Berlin Philharmonic Reconstruction Issue
The German Censor Office in Lyons 1943-1944
The Use of Adhesive Paper Seals by German Royal and Noble Families c.1870-1918
Vol 36/4
The Concept of German Unification
Special registered envelopes for handwritten letters from the Kaiser and Kaiserin
AM POST - Emergency and re-activated postmarks/cancellers and Registration labels
Reflections on Allied Control Council Issues: the first results of colour determination
Changes in Postal rates 1916-23
Exchange Control and Kempten Criminal Court
Natzweiler-Struthof - the smallest of the concentration camps
Vol 37/1
POW Camps in Münster in World
War I
German Cities Exhibition, Dresden
1903
The Balloons of Louis Godard
Post WWI changes in official adhesive paper seals
German East Africa 1880-1917
Norddeutscher Lloyd, Bremen, Masthead Signals
Changes in Postal Rates 1916-23
Vol 37/2
The Indian Legion of the WW2 Germany Army
The "Boxer" Uprising in China in 1900
AM POST 1945-46: POW Mail and other Camp Correspondence
Changes in Postal Rates 1916-23
Emergency Registration labels of 1946/47
German Exchange Control at Karlsruhe 1918-1924 and the French Censorship of Mail in Alsace Lorraine 1918-1919. Part 1
Caveat Emptor - a copy of Saxony Mi.Nr.1
Vol 37/3
G&CPS Visit to Germany
There are still bargains out there!
Another Facet of the Western Front in WW1
Changes in Postal Rates 1916-23
The Development of the Postal System between Saxony and the UK
German Exchange Control at Karlsruhe 1918-1924 and the French Censorship of mail in Alsace Lorraine 1918-1919
Vol 37/4
Zeppelin & Catapult Mail in the Rohrpost
Changes in Postal Rates 1916-23
German Stamp Dealers' Mail
Early Airmails of Danzig and the Baltic States
AM POST period 1945-46: Postage Due – Nachgebühr
The "Scharnhorst Provisional" of Karolinen
Vol 38/1
German Field Post Offices in Turkey, 1914-1918
The Godard Family of Balloonists
Design Features of Propaganda
Postcards
Postzweig Nachnahme: Cash on
Delivery
Receipt for 1 Dollar
The Czech Hostages in Buchenwald
Philatelic Iconoclasm: a sad discovery
Vol 38/2
Bildpostkarten - the first twenty years.
A forgery?
Changes in Postal rates 1916-23. Part 22: 5-11 November 1923.
The Dresden Kunstausstellung of 1901: some questions.
The German "Horseshoe" cancellations.
Vol 38/3
Seiner Majestät Schiff 'Danzig'.
A few more 'Horseshoe' cancels.
A View of Heligoland's Classic Philately and its Grouping.
German Issues used in British & French Colonies in Africa.
Removal of the Eagle and Swastika.
The Introduction of the Euro in Germany.
Michel No.97 (A1) Ministerdruck: News from an old Stamp.
Vol 38/4
German Army Fieldpost Service Overseas, 1992-2002
Neutral Moresnet - A Brief History of a Micro-Nation
I.G.P.O. Validation?
Machine-Franking of Commercial Zeppelin Mail to Herman Stolz
The Russians in Danzig, 1945
Vol 39/1
Who? When? Where? Why? How?
The Berlin Strassenpost
Post-War Germany 1945-46
Nazi Propaganda in Perspective
Resisters of Nazism in Germany: Part I, Communists
POSTSACHE: Official Post of German Postal Administrations
Vol 39/2
The Prussian Post in Upper Silesia
The Brandenburger Tor
Resisters of Nazism in Germany: Part II, Independents
Martin Bucer (1491-1551)
Vol 39/3
Kaiserliche Deutsche Marine Schiffspost: Different numeral types?
Resisters of Nazism in Germany: Part III, The Harnacks' Circle
A postcard tells its story...
World Heritage Sites in Germany: Part I - Religious Sites.
The Currency Reform in Germany, June 1948
Vol 39/4
Official registered envelopes for Royal hand-written letters
Resisters of Nazism in Germany: Part IV, The Conspirators
Lauenburg in Pomerania - memories of a lost homeland
Württemberg: Philatelic History to 1875
SS-GB
Also enclosed with this issue a special supplement on useful websites for German collectors.
Vol 40/1
The German Raider Pinguin
Postwar Königsberg/Kaliningrad 1945-1949
Eilnachricht and Eilauftrag cards of Dresden
Gdynia: The Polish Corridor
The Remembrance Cruise of the 'Monte Rosa'
Vol 40/2
The Free City of Danzig: Nazism and the Church
German Postcodes
Starnbergersee Schiffspost
The German Eagle
A major PLZ (post-code) and Postmark rarity - or is it?
The National Assembly in Weimar: February 1919
Vol 40/3
S.M.S. 'Dresden'; her end and her crew's fate
Stuttgart's Private City Post - and All-Round Service: Part 1- The Adhesive Stamps
Early Zeppelins
Vol 40/4
The Berlin Strassenpost revisited
German Bicycle Clubs up to 1932
Stuttgart's Private City Post - An All-Round Service
Vol 41/1
'The Postal Curiosity of the Century'
Extra, Extra! Grandson of George III dethroned!
The work of a German Wartime Censor
A suggestion followed up...over twenty years later!
Labels affixed to mail arriving in Dresden without stamps/contents
Stuttgart's Private City Post - an All-Round service: part 3
Frauentrachten - Ladies' Traditional Costumes
Vol 41/2
Stobs Camp 1914-1919
Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805)
Bodensee Schiffspost
Stuttgart's Private City Post - An All-Round service
Vol 41/3
Saarlouis - a town of several names
Changes to the frontiers of Germany 1919-1940
'Soldatenbriefe' labels to and from Dresden
Stuttgart's Private City Post - an All-Round Service
Vol 41/4
Stamp Days in Germany up to 1945; Part I 1936-40
Forged Datestamps of the Polish Post in Danzig 1925-3
From 'QEII' to the 'Hohenzollern'
Soldatenbriefe
Vol 42/1
A German P.O.W. in England 1945-48
Stamp Days in Germany up to 1945 Part II - 1941-45
Graf Zeppelin LZ127 Orient Flight 1929 and the replacement Egyptian Flight
Late 19th century official German mail
The Reichsmusikkammer in Dresden
Forced Civilian Labour: the Philemon Schoeckaert correspondence
Vol 42/2
Estonia: Local & National Issues 1941-43
The Zeppelin-Eckener Fund
Mail of German mercantile submersibles, 1916-1917
A Photograph of von Paulus
Airmail Directional Handstamps involving Berlin
Vol 42/3
World Heritage Sites in Germany Part 2 - Castles and Stately Homes
Heinrich von Stephan (1831-1897)
The German Red Cross, 1914-1918
Service Suspended - Labels on mails that could not be delivered in wartime
Deutsche Städte-Ausstellung 1903 in Dresden
Vol 42/4
Successes at Bristol
Martin Luther (1483-1546); the 450th anniversary of his death
Air mails between Germany and China to 1945
A Hungarian Study of the 1948 Buildings Series
Vol 43/1
Konstanz Exchange Control Office 1918-1924
The Story behind the Stamp: 650th Anniversary of the Golden Bull
Württemberg Postal Stationery addressed to Dr. Adolf Weil (1848-1916)
The Zeppelin-Eckener Fund
50 Years of Kinderdorf Flugpost: From Free Balloon to Zeppelin NT
A Hohenzollern Seal discovered on board ship
Zeitungsbestellung: Newspaper
Orders
Vol 43/2
World Heritage Sites in Germany:
Part 3
The Tram Post of Hamburg
Mixed Frankings in Dresden, 1945-46
Vol 43/3
World Heritage Sites in Germany: Part 4 (Historic Towns and Sites).
Gemeinnütziger Verein Stadtbriefbeförderung.
German Post Offices in China.
Danzig to German occupied Warsaw on WW1.
The Steamship 'Dresden' in the Vorpostenflotille Jade-Weser.
Vol 43/4
Bavarian Military Censor in May 1919?
The 'Bauernball' in Dresden: Some advertising Postcards and Vignettes
Kamerun: Post Office Forms
The Recent History of the Saar illustrated by its Meter Marks
Vol 44/1
'Liebesgabenpakete' - parcels sent by civilians of neutral countries to Axis civilians during WWII.
Catapult mail of the North Atlantic
German States
'Punktverrechnungskarten'
Modern German Private Posts
Vol 44/2
The Danish Brigade in Germany 1947-1949 and the Danish Command in Germany 1949-1958
'Liebesgabenpakete': an addendum
Prussia: King Frederick William IV postal stationery envelopes 1851-1860
The christening of His Majesty's Yacht 'Meteor' 25 February 1902
German East Africa: more to pay/postage due
German official census stamps 1903, 1905. Why were they used?
Acquisition of the Berliner Privatpost und Spedition in 1897
Two letters of the Franco-Prussian War
Vol 44/3
Anton Hechler: the story of a 19th-century German immigrant
A German internee in Spain during World War II
My life and times - or how the Stadtpost Collectors Group was born
Eilbrief/Eilkarte of the Berliner Verkehrs-Anstalt 'Hansa II'
An exchange control story: Importing stamps
Modern German private posts (II) - an update
Fraudulent cancellations of the inflation period
Pasewark, Danzig: Doubly date stamped card
Vol 44/4
The Story behind the Stamp: Carl Zuckmayer, Der Hauptmann von Köpenick
From Minsk to Warsaw
My favourite item: Last prewar mail from German East Africa
A tribute to Bronisław Czech
The 1925 Deutsche Nothilfe stamp booklets
A ship called Berlin
Some philatelic contrivances re the Berliner Packetfahrt.
The British Legion Volunteer Police Force: September/October 1938
Vol 45/1
The story behind the stamp: The Hanseatic League
In the absence of an official seal
German letter rates from 1.1.2009
South African occupation of German South West Africa: Adapted German postmarks
A humble Ukraine cover that inspired a collection
A German floating postbox
Camp stationery for Jehovah's Witnesses
The 1926 Deutsche Nothilfe stamp booklets
German royal mail
The end of German private posts
Expertisation of inflationals
Vol 45/2
Millions of leaflets over Dresden, 1944-45
Chambers of Commerce, Town Hall and Police certification of mail in British-occupied Rhineland 1919
The story behind the stamp: The Celtic prince of Glauberg
Saxony in 1945: the 'Sächsische Schwärzungen'
A Heligoland item
Stamps of the secret post in occupied Warsaw 1943
Some items of Dresden diplomatic mail
Expertisation regulations of the BPP
Vol 45/3
The memorial meeting of the military transport units in Dresden, 6-8 May 1922 (reproduced, in translation, from 'Infla-Berichte' 224/2006 with kind permission).
Königsberg Exchange Control Office 1918-1925: Part 1
An unusual Kamerun cover
Not worth a week's wage!
'Thank you, Albert!' - a tribute to Albert Thasler
Emil Reichardt Krippner - a biography in covers
The story behind the stamp: Heinrich Zille
An overlooked Ukraine gem from
eBay
Where is Brest-Litowsk?
Vol 45/4
There always was an England
The story behind the stamp: Carl Schurz (1829-1906), German revolutionary and American democrat
Modern German private posts (III) - 2008: an open marketplace
Private trade with Romania discouraged
Königsberg Exchange Control Office 1918-1925: Part 2
Vol 46/1
The Sudeten-German Freikorps
Occupied Belgium treated as an enemy
The story behind the stamp: the Franciscan friar Alfred Stanke
A Königsberg exchange control cover
The 1927 Deutsche Nothilfe stamp booklets
Decorative envelope for Wilhelm I & Augusta
Baron von Richthofen
International mail via Trieste 1840-1871
Postschnelldienst Berlin
Vol 46/2
Memelland ist frei! The occupation overprints of 1939
Restrictions on registered mail and the SA/SS stamps
The Anti-German 'Winox' labels
An Indian parole centre, a German pioneer aviator and a Greek bank.
The German transit camp at Friedland.
The artistic development of the Deutsche Nothilfe 1933 stamps - Scenes from Wagner.
The story behind the stamp.
German Post Office economies after WW1
Vol 46/3
'Punktverrechnungskarten und -stellen'
A political mischmasch: a cover from the Ukraine
Field post letter to Haifa
Problems with a Bickerdike machine
'Deutsches Reich' overprints on Bavaria used in Dresden
New Zeppelin mail forgeries
Litzmannstadt Ghetto stamp issues
Freedom of Weeze to RAF Laarbruch
Delivering stamps to German post offices in 1923
Vol 46/4
The story behind the stamp: Königin Luise von Preußen
Currency reform in Berlin
The birth of German stamp booklets
Camp Siegfried in Yaphank, New York
Sudeten crisis: a postcard from Ústí nad Labem
A not-so-usual ZKD cover from the DDR
Vol 47/1
Further aspects of 'Punktverrechnungskarten'
Interesting WWI field post authorisation handstamps: (1) 'Minen-Werfer' (2) Western GHQ field hospital
German East Africa: The Marie and the watermarked 1 Rupie
From the invention of the parcel card to the cork cancels of Danzig - and the battle for the stamps attached to them!
The birth of German stamp booklets: A new discovery
Deutsche Nothilfe order cards
Currency reform of June 1948
Air Marshall Sir Arthur Harris and the Graf Zeppelin
Export of samples of merchandise
Vol 47/2
Forgery, fakery and fraud
Where was the illustrated 'Return' cachet used?
Can you explain the apparent charge of 95 groschen on this parcel card?
Interesting WWI field post authorisation handstamps: A General Headquarters assortment.
The aftermath of World War 1 and the inflation
Service suspended in German South-West Africa
The first 2Pf postal stationery card of 1900 and postage due
Berlin 16pf with doubled black overprint
The ordinal dot is important!
The stamps of NordBrief, a modern German private post
A favourite much-gestempelt cover
Interesting WW1 field post authorisation handstamp: Artillery observation balloon crew
The story behind the stamp: Reichskanzler Otto von Bismarck
Vol 47/3
The Berlin Strassenpost
The Saar Plebiscite, 13 January 1935
The first day after the high inflation
The story behind the stamp: Heinrich von Kleist, Prinz Friedrich von Homburg
A missed birthday uncovers a sunken ship
Service suspended: First Gulf War, 1991
Bismarck mourning card
Interesting WWI field post authorisation handstamp: The Kaiser's Silver room at GHQ
The stamps of Nordbrief, a modern German private post: Part 2
Déjà-vu: The source of the Zeppelin forgeries
The Eastern Front
A Bavarian Feldpost item and its place in history
Vol 47/4
Memelland ist frei! Addendum
The Rinteln-Stadthagen Railway (1900-1937)
Trains to the Saar plebiscite
Karl Friedrich Schinkel, architect and painter
The Nazi rocket mail of 1934
Operation Hannibal: Evacuation from the East
Vol 48/1
An extraordinary item from Lichtenburg Concentration Camp
The story behind the stamp: Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Nathan der Weise
Private post going abroad
800th anniversary of the House of Wettin
A card to the Łódź ghetto
Another card to the Łódź ghetto
The Prussian court officials' name-stamps
A Punktverrechnungskarte with watermark
Vol 48/2
Portopflichtige Dienstsache: A surcharge gives rise to an odd amount of postage due
Graf Zeppelin over Ammersee in Bavaria
The postal history of German airships in WWI
BAOR: Mixed handstamps on one envelope
A used Deutsche Nothilfe order card
The NSB 'postmark' of 13 May 1940
Service suspended to Brazil in July
1919
An introduction to German WWII censorship, with some quirks, anomalies and errors: Part 1
Krippner forgeries: A plea for assistance
Vol 48/3
Colonial troops in World War I
Poste restante during the Anschluss
Confusion during the introduction of the DM
Attempted ten-times franking in the French zone
An introduction to German WWII censorship, with some quirks, anomalies and errors: Part 2
A Litzmannstadt card: forgery, fake or fantasy?
Dr Otto Nicodemus, an interesting addressee
Quisling: from patriot to traitor
Service suspended to Japan in 1948
The story behind the stamp: Friedrich der Große, König von Preußen
Vol 48/4
Analysis of a registered letter sent from Bohemia & Moravia on 10 September 1944 to Slovakia.
The Graf Zeppelin's enforced landing at Cuers
Hans Ranzoni (1896-1991), master engraver
Slesvig plebiscite postal stationery
An introduction to German WWII censorship, with some quirks, anomalies and errors: Part 3
The story behind the stamp: Emperor Otto I, called the Great
Vol 49/1
The KLV and Dresden
German racing: An expensive meal
Its thirsty work at the front
The work of the German wartime censor
An introduction to German WWII censorship, with some quirks, anomalies and errors: Part 4
Deutsche Nothilfe: Postwar facsimiles
Munich exhibitions in the 19th
century
The story behind the stamp: Friedrich Engels (1820-1895)
Catapulted both eastbound and westbound
The German Atlantic Expedition 1925-1927
Vol 49/2
German international return-to-sender labels (up to WWI)
The story behind the stamp: Friedrich Hebbel and his drama Agnes Bernauer
Bodensee Frogs
What's in a country's name? Part 1: Germany until 1945
Postage due on foreign mail in late 1919
German East Africa: The use of the 2 Mark stamp as a forerunner
Vol 49/3
Alternative names for the months
Service suspended from western Germany to Yugoslavia
Judaica uncovered 1: Fear, flight and fate - the plight of Jews in Nazi Germany
Closure of the Berlin collectors' counter in 1923
Open Philately: its international status
German racing: (i) Hoppegarten & (ii) Oleander
What's in a country's name? Part 2: Germany from 1945
Rumpler Luftverkehr
Prisoner in Ruhleben to Fiji in 1917
Vol 49/4
Speedy delivery in Württemberg
Censorship postscript: Ribbed sealing tapes and the cachets used with them
Personalised issues of the DPAG
Political awareness through the postmarks of postwar western Germany
BAOR: A lot of answers
Vol 50/1
The Heroes of the Emden?
The Inflation Period: Ranking the definitive
Censorship postscript: Chemical
swipes
Treaty of Versailles
The Bavarian Soviet Republic and a philatelic phantasy
Judaica uncovered 2: The expropriation of Jewish businesses and property in Nazi Germany
The Kulturkampf between the Prussian State and the Church: An addendum.
Vol 50/2
The cover posted on 30 October 1918 has a multiple franking of the Mi. P6 postage due stamp of the Romanian occupation.
The designs of Elisabeth von Janota-Bzowski
The story behind the stamp: The Sky Disc of Nebra
Mail detained in France during the German occupation
The 1928 Deutsche Nothilfe stamp booklets
Censorship postscript: WWII censorship in Wiesbaden - a new discovery
A Judaica postscript: Another letter to the Shanghai 'ghetto'
News from home?
Vol 50/3
Most beautiful stamp 2012
1914 - The first war year
The start of WWI: Effects on mail
services
Germany to UK in August 1914
Postal history from the early days of World War I
The last mails to leave German East Africa before the outbreak of war
The outbreak of WWI: East Prussia: Russian mail censored in Danzig
The story behind the stamp: Gottfried Schadow
Vol 50/4
The 1929 Deutsche Nothilfe stamp booklets
The Saar Plebiscite, 13 January 1935
Postal stationery wrappers of Germany: an analysis of supply and
demand
Mails from German East Africa after the outbreak of war
Judaica uncovered 3: Kindertransport to the UK, 1939
Operation Squirrel
Vol 51/1
‘Europa trauert’, 1915: An enigma
Posted on Glider Hill: Glider mail from the Wasserkuppe
German letter rates from 1 January 2015
Postage rate increases of 50 per cent. Part 1: 1 August 1916
Mail to Nassau: Error made by exchange control
An ‘old-fashioned billion’ mark cover
Rhein-Main postcard to Switzerland: redirected and returned
‘Postkrieg’ slogan in 1958
Vol 51/2
Print and handwriting in pre-1945 Germany, Part 1
Sudetendeutsche Partei propaganda stamps
Exchange rates for the Reichsmark
Ten years of EXPONET
Egon Falz, stamp engraver
German use of the Cairo-Baghdad airmail service from 1922
The development of the German domestic-rate postal card 1873-1900
Vol 51/3
Lundy ‘German occupation’ stamps
Insufficiently franked international mail
Baltic Germans
Cover to Verena Wagner
The ‘Berlin’ marginal inscriptions
1915 – The second war year
Print and handwriting in pre-1945 Germany, Part 2
Checklist of Germania volumes
1 to 50
Vol 51/4
Postcards from the 1933 Deutscher Almanach and a KdF.-Kalender
A quiet wedding in 1788
Print and handwriting in pre-1945 Germany, Part 3
The German Peasants’ War and its tragic end
Vol 52/1
German medieval sculptures and Tilman Riemenschneider
The 1925 postal stationery provisional of Dresden
German letter rates from 1 January 2016
Did you know...?
Judaica uncovered 4: Mail to and from Holocaust victims
A fictional German stamp
The Gscheidle stamp: A mistake?
German East Africa: Samples without value
Print and handwriting in pre-1945 Germany, Part 4
Greek factories appropriated for the Nazi war effort
Vol 52/2
Did you know...?
Cyrillic alphabets
‘Spätheimkehrerpost’: Mail from late-return POWs in the USSR
German occupation of Belgium and northern France 1914-1918
Marken-Sets
Vol 52/3
1916 – the third war year
Concessionary foreign rates from Germany, December 1923 to May
1945
Postal stationery cards with large
holes!
Did you know ...?
A New Year’s Day stamp exchange with the USSR
Vol 52/4
Introduction to our new website!
The first German post offices in East Africa: Lamu and Zanzibar
The war levy in 1916
The Leipzig Trial of 1933
Postage-Due on unpaid and underpaid letter mail, Part 1
A little-known youth KZ
Did you know ...?
The Crime of Katyn: a poignant reminder
Vol 53/1
Sheet margins reveal their secrets
Did you know ...?
Of the incoming and outgoing posts in Lübeck
UK ‘number’ labels for parcels from Germany
Carrier covers for zeppelin flights
Postage-Due on unpaid and underpaid letter mail, Part 2
A highly insured letter from 1924
English meanings of words commonly used in Imperial German paper seals
Vol. 53/2
Germania booklet 5
German settlements in the Americas
The Rhein-Ruhr-Hilfe
Did you know ...?
A case of scarlet fever at a KLV camp
Postage-Due on unpaid and underpaid letter mail, Part 3
Vol.53/3
Postage-Due on unpaid and underpaid letter mail, Part 4
A card to a Boer POW posted on a Rhine-area TPO
Did you know ...?
1917 – The fourth war year
News in brief
One Pole’s odyssey, 1939-41
Vol. 53/4
A notable date: 9-10 on 11.12.13 at post office 14
Postage-Due on unpaid and underpaid letter mail, Part 5
Postal stationery wrappers of Bavaria: An analysis of the supply and demand
All I wanted to do was send a postcard, or, Problems sending a postcard during the high inflation
period
Did you know...?
Vol. 54/1
A one-day wonder: The ‘Pappchinese’
German directional handstamps on the mail of WWII French POWs
Postage-Due on unpaid and underpaid letter mail, Part 6
Letter to Persia July 1914, returned to sender 1920
German East Africa revenue stamps on documents
Is this WWI Feldpost cover a philatelic fantasy?
Johann Joachim Winckelmann and Heinrich Schliemann, two German pioneers of archaeology
Did you know...?
Vol. 54/2
German Red Cross first-aider dogs
Mid-May 1945: Hitler heads still in use
Agency post and the ‘Buoys Post’ from the Azores
Postage-Due on unpaid and underpaid letter mail, Part 7
DDR fund-raising stamps with postal validity
Magdeburg-Rostock: a rare TPO postmark
Did you know...?
Vol. 54/3
1918 – The fifth war year
German airmail Cologne to Croydon 1923-24
The Crime of Katyn: yet more poignant reminders
‘They think it’s all over...’
Postage-Due on unpaid and underpaid letter mail, Part 8
Vol 54/4
The Crime of Katyn: coda to yet more poignant reminders
Postage-Due on unpaid and underpaid letter mail. Part 9
Ernst Reuter (1889-1953)
United Oxygen Works
Stamp designs by Alfred Goldammer inspired by the Berlin Airlift
Cover to Erich Meerwald
How much to send a postcard from the Protectorate to Slovakia ?
Did you know ...?
Vol 55/1
Did you know ...?
Posted on board SMS Fürst Bismarck
Bavarian return-to-sender labels
Deutsche Nothilfe: Usage of the Wagner Series
Sudeten crisis: seeking support from King and PM?
An unusual item from German East Africa
Vol 55/2
Did you know ...?
Clemens Winkler and the discovery of germanium
The Building series issued 1 September 1948
The Carl Benz Monument in
Mannheim
The first four Germania booklets,
Part 1
Mail to the lost Polish provinces, 1946-7
Vol 55/3
Polish officer prisoner-of-war camps in WWII
The first four Germania booklets,
Part 2
French WWII POW mail addressed to France ‘c/o General Post Office Via Grande-Bretagne’
The Lighthouse stamps since 2004
German letter rates from 1 July 2019
Vol 55/4
Little Popo, Togoland: A post office wrapper from Great Britain
Mail to Gdańsk, formerly Danzig, 1945
The Sorbs of Lusatia
Sachsenhausen, Neuenganne, Alderney and Mittelbau-Dora: a sad postal-history link
Official mail in German-occupied Poland Part 1: Military mail
Vol 56/1
Did you know ...?
Parcel permit stamps of West Berlin
Official mail in German-occupied Poland Part 2: Early civilian mail
Postal Advances and Cash on Delivery
The German-Austrian Postal Union (Der Deutsch-Österreichische Postverein)
The Wends go to church in costume
Radio card from Alderney in October 1944
Vol 56/2
Automated mail registration 1909-31
Postal Advances and Cash on Delivery Part 2: Cash on Delivery in the German Empire
First Day Covers – but not your usual sort
Official mail in German-occupied Poland Part 3: Do I need a stamp?
The elusive ‘carrier cover’ for the 1930 Baltic flight
The SS Tehade, Danzig – a ship which never saw water
Did you know...?
More on the Saar Head Post Office stamps
Vol 56/3
Three short stories from lockdown
A ‘busy’ card in the aftermath of the Winter War
Official mail in German-occupied Poland Part 4: Government administration
POW camp money
Exceptionally heavy airmail letter to Montevideo
The story behind the stamp: Ernst Barlach
Lufthansa or Interflug?
DDR stamp booklets with variable content
Guernsey during the German occupation
Just what constitutes very fine used
Vol 56/4
Did you know...?
Official mail in German-occupied Poland Part 5: Spreading propaganda
A survivor of the sinking of the battleship Bismarck
Cloud-cuckoo land? Krakau in January 1945
Directional handstamps applied to mail from Italian POWs held in Germany in WWII
German reunification
A philatelic witness to the unravelling of the DDR
Service suspende
Vol 57/1
Inscriptions on Saar stamps: some general remarks
The 3 Mark Germania booklets, Part 1
Germans in the Soviet Union: Wolga- und Volks-Deutsche
SMS Königsberg
Errors in accounting numerals
Official mail in German-occupied Poland Part 6: Maintaining law and order
Vol 57/2
News in brief
Did you know ...?
The 3 Mark Germania booklets, Part 2
19th century Berlin Private City Post: The first letter card in Germany
Insufficiently prepaid mail to an official body
A case of the wrong Sternberg
The clock postmarks of Glashütte
Judaica uncovered 5: From Swiss barracks to Cuba to Stolpersteine
Official mail in German-occupied Poland Part 7: The Post Office
Picture postcards and the German censorship regulations
Vol 57/3
German international return-to-sender labels Part 2: After World War I
150th anniversary of the Deutsches Reich and the Reichspost
German military medical services in the First World War
Did you know ...?
Vol 57/4
Did you know ...?
Burrus reprint proofs: A warning to collectors
Political instability in the German Reich 1917-1922
Germany 1946: Mail to foreign countries is allowed
Official mail in German-occupied Poland Part 8: Education and research
Vol 58/1
The imperforate issues of Baden
Official mail in German-occupied Poland Part 9: Financial services
The Germania inflation booklets, Part 1
Request to investigate delivery of a payment card
Naval zeppelin L-34: The Hartlepool raid 1916
Found in 1 Euro box: Letter to Erich Honecker
Feature:
Did you know ... ?
Vol 58/2
Bill Shepherd (1928-2022)
The USSR stabs Poland in the back
The Germania inflation booklets, Part 2
Berliner Gewerbe-Ausstellung 1896
June 1919 postcard to internment camp in Greece
Official mail in German-occupied Poland Part 10: Industry and
commerce
Damaged in train accident
German mail recovered from plane crashes
Vol. 58/3
Did you know ...?
A complete colour guide to the stamps of Prussia, Part 1
1888: ‘The year of three Kaisers’ and the Neue Berlin Omnibus and Packetfahrt AG
The Schaumburg-Lippe ‘Frei lt. Avers.’ labels
How to please a soldier
To hyperinflation and beyond
Two-colour postmark in Heidelberg in 1948
For the beginner: An introduction to German colonial philately, Part 1
Political support for Guatemala not allowed
Judaica uncovered 6: From Bolivia to Köln – a sad WWII story uncovered
Unrecorded censor activity ?
Vol. 58/4
A complete colour guide to the
stamps of Prussia, Part 2
For the beginner: An introduction
to German colonial philately, Part 2
Analysis of a ‘Post-Insinuations-Document Dokument’
German perfins
A Belgian worker’s letter, 1 May 1943
Still pleasing soldiers
A complex WWII cover
The British Red Cross in Lisbon
The experimental MiNr. ATM 10
Vol. 59/1
Service suspended: To Russia via Germany
A tale of two islands
For the beginner: An introduction to German colonial philately, Part 3
German machine meter marks, Part 1
A very high amount of postageue
Vol. 59/2
Did you know...?
Another misspelt name on a DDR stamp: Käthe Tucholia
Optical illusions
De-Nazification: The longed-for ‘Persil card’
The German hyperinflation
Part 1: August 1916 to December 1922
Restrictions on mail services during the French recovery of Alsace-Lorraine and occupation of the Rhineland 1918 to 1925
Germania overprints (in)valid
German machine meter marks, Part 2
Vol. 59/3
The very early U.S. No. 371 and 372 censor cachets used in the Occupied Rhineland in 1918-1919
The use of gold francs by the German parcel service from 1 February 1920 to 30 September 1925, Part 1
The German hyperinflation
Part 2: January to August 1923
Two places called Jungholz
German machine meter marks, Part 3
Did you know ...?
Vol. 59/4
Judaika uncovered 7: Return of a deceased prisoner’s effects
The use of gold francs by the German parcel service from 1 February 1920 to 30 September 1925, Part 2
The German hyperinflation
Part 3: September to December 1923
German machine meter marks, Part 4
The German Social Party
A souvenir of the 1921 Upper-Silesia plebiscite
Vol. 60/1
1924 Deutsche Nothilfe and the ‘St. Elisabeth’s Acts of Mercy’ frescos by Moritz von Schwind
German machine meter marks, Part 5
Bertolt Brecht and ‘The Life of Galileo’
Use of Weimar stamps in the Third Reich
Vol. 60/2
German machine meter marks, Part 6
Six stamp-issuing administrations in 1949
The Deutsches Krieger-Kurhaus (German war veterans’ clinic) in Davos-Dorf, Switzerland
The Association for Germans Abroad 1908 to 1933
Supply of used Post Office postal stationery wrappers of Germany & post offices abroad
Vol. 60/3
German international return-to-sender labels, Part 3: After World War II
German machine meter marks, Part 7
Why do you collect?
answers questions surrounding one of the most intriguing of SOE's projects, the production and use of a stamp bearing Himmler's head instead of Hitler's...
examines covers bearing combinations of AM POST stamps and Gebühr bezahlt markings...
some information to help write up your collection...
invaluable detailed usage and printing information with colour illustrations of these very rare stamps.
a good survey of the various stamp issues from 1921 to 1924, the "Rhineland Republic" stamps, varieties, marginal markings...
two Danzig flight cards compared...
various patriotic cards, censored, prisoner of war, military hospital marks on cober and cards illustrated...
detailed survey of censorship markings of the Bristish and American Zones...
article reproduced from "Postal History" with thanks, colour illustrations...
colour illustrations and background information on some very attractive postcards...
16th part of a long series of articles examining covers and cards from the period in quantity...
Study covering the Joint Sovereignty, military mails, disinfected mail and postal cancels. Profusely illustrated.
Adds new information to published sources - explains background to the rates, the effects of wartime and the early inflationary period and the make-up of frankings on four example insured letters.
The story behind this stamp issue in 1950.
In depth study covering the censor office's activities, mail with Switzerland and Italy, markings applied to mail, the temporary "Dienststelle", definitive and transit hand-stamps, the sealing strips, secret writing tests and the readers' marks.
Article on a little known and unusual subject - poses interesting questions - with many illustrations of rarely seen material.
Some commemorative stamps and their historical background. Covers the period from 1848 to 1989 - very interesting and many good illustrations.
A subject given little attention in postal history publications. The author illustrates and describes three different types of special envelope and seeks more information.
illustrated and detailed study of this aspect of the AM POST issues and the Anglo-American zone.
research to determine the colours of the different colour shades of the stamps of the series issued by the Allied Control Council.
Part 17 of this long running series of articles; this part deals with the period 20-30 September 1923. Many illustrations.
Study of an unusual cover.
A history of this perhaps relatively unknown but infamous camp illustrating a rare printed postcard from a Luxembourger inmate with the comparatively low number of 976.
Detailed information about the three camps which housed some 90,000 POWs. Many photos of the camps, and illustrations of letters and cards to and from the camps including a most interesting letter from the Rennbahn camp after the war when kept open as a Heimkehrlager.
Some cards and some questions including several Louis Godard balloon cards. The author seeks more information.
More balloons! Leipzig and Munich exhibitions. How to tell the genuinely carried cards.
It's surprising how much there is to paper seals - so often ignored on the backs of covers.
Notes of a display given at the Royal Philatelic Society on 11 January 2001 with superb colour illustrations of some extremely scarce items.
More lovely colour illustrations of the beautiful series of NDL cards - a quick course in reading naval signals! [For a detailed postal history of the NDL see the monograph advertised on this web site!]
Part 18! Covers the period 1-9 October 1923.
From the end of 1932 until the end of the war about three thousand Indians fought in the German Army. This article tells the story of Sabbas Chandra Bose and the development of the Division Brandenburg. Information and illustrations of Indian Legion Field Post and the "Azad Hind" stamps.
A short background history with two interesting German consular seal items about which the author has some questions which he hopes members may be able to answer.
A selection of cards and covers to POWs in American, British and other camps abroad sent through the civilian postal system.
Part 19 covering the period 10-19 October 1923.
A study of the various ways in which people dealt with the lack of registration labels due to the shortages of materials immediately after WWII. Sixteen covers illustrated in colour.
The story of the mail through the Karlsruhe exchange control office is inextricably linked to the story of the French attitude to Germany after WWI and the French censorship of mail in Alsace Lorraine in 1918-1919. A comprehensive and well-presented study of mail inspection procedures, the cachets, labels and wax seals.
One stamp made from two originals! A cautionary
tale.
One of the benefits of belonging to the Society....
Just shows you how having some specialised knowledge can lead to discoveries in dealers' boxes!
Mail from occupied Belgium to the USA.
Part 20, covering the period 20-31 October 1923.
A detailed study of the mail from 1700 to 1867 with full, chronological information on routes and rates by arrangement (1) of the Reichspost via the Netherlands (2) with Thurn and Taxis (3) with the Prussian post via Hamburg (4) with the Prussian Post via the Netherlands and later via Belgium and (5) by agency of the Prussian Post. Numerous entire letters and covers described and illustrated, many in colour.
The second part of this specialised study including analysis of routes of mail inspected at Karlsruhe, labels, cachets, inspectors' numeral cachets and wax seals.
What a combination! Some very choice items described and illustrated. By studying the Berlin or Vienna transit marks on your Zeppelin covers, you may discover a Rohrpost connection!
Part 21: 1-4 November 1923. The author won the "Literature Award" at Germania Posta XV for this prodigious series of articles in Germania.
An interesting selection of covers and cards on this subject was displayed at Germania Posta XV. The material is offered here to readers with a few extra notes.
Fifteen colour illustrations of airmail cards and covers carried during the 1920s from Danzig, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Memel. A nice hand-drawn map and explanations of the franking’s and transit marks complete the picture!
Postage due covers are usually full of interest - those of this period are no exception. The author shares his considerable knowledge of the period immediately after WWII, describing unpaid or underpaid official, private and commercial mail.
A great rarity of German colonial philately, seldom seen either on piece or on a complete card.
An overview of German military activities in the Ottoman Empire - illustrating and explaining many covers sorted in field and base Post Offices as well as on board SMS "Goeben", "Loreley" and "General" moored off Constantinople.
Three generations of the Godard family constructed, piloted and demonstrated balloons in the 19th century. Ballooning was clearly in their blood! During the Prussian siege of Paris 1870/1 four members of the family flew Ballons-montés.
A fascinating look at the powerful graphical messages delivered by postcards of the Third Reich and how this brutal regime sought domination and control through the insidious propaganda of these cleverly designed cards. Many of the cards described are illustrated in full colour.
article will really help you understand cash on delivery mail items between 1900 and 1923 - these being recognisable by either a mauve square label (until 1906) or an orange triangular label (after 1906). The service, fees and rates are all explained, with a useful rates table. 13 cards and covers are illustrated in full colour with analysis.
A curious cover sent in 1921 from Indianapolis to Bavaria. The author tries to unravel the mystery of the markings relating to its original contents - a one dollar note. Can you shed more light on this?
Items of mail from these hostages are not common. They will interest collectors of Czech material as well as German. Background information is given as well as details of the regulations relating to the sending and receipt of mail.
The author sets out the "evidence which destroyed an icon of Heligoland's philately".
The story of the development of the cards in design and print during the first twenty years of their use. A first trial printing and the various issues are illustrated with many examples.
A possible attempt to "improve" an exchange control cover from the Danzig area, 1920. The author seeks help in confirming whether the exchange control label is genuine.
The material used in this survey shows just how well the German Post Offices coped with the great difficulties of keeping pace with the astronomical inflation.
Beautiful colour illustrations of a number of cards, often humorous, produced for the Art Exhibition held in the city between 20 April and 20 October 1901. The author welcomes further information.
The story behind the introduction of these distinctive cancellations and their eventual use in forty-one towns. Many illustrations of the cancellations used on covers and cards, some quite rare.
For the enthusiastic collector wishing to add a few items from this 'namesake' warship to a specialised Danzig collection! Information on the analysis and writing up of items of mail sent to or from S.M.S. 'Danzig', or indeed any other WW1 German naval
ship.
A supplement to the article in the May 2002 issue adding illustrations of the cancels from Colmar and Mühlhausen, Oberndorf and Pollnow.
A comprehensive article reproduced from Philatelie, translated into English by one of the Society's members. An attempt is made both to portray Heligoland's postal history from the early 18th century to the period of British postal administration ending 9 August 1890, and to group it logically, providing a framework for subsequent study. Illustrated with pre-stamp entries and stamped letters from 1702 to 1866
Information on, and illustrations of, 1880/90s mail from German merchants in the Gold Coast and other places to Germany via Woermann steamers franked with German stamps in contravention of UPU regulations.
Colour illustrations of 1945-47 pre-printed envelopes showing the efforts made, and indeed the lack of effort, to remove symbols of the Third Reich from items going through the post, as decreed by the Allied Forces in Germany in 1945.
Philately is alive and well in Germany!! Even the introduction of the Euro can provide interest for collectors.
The author calls into question the attribution of this sought after stamp as a so-called "Ministerdruck" (a stamp produced for presentation for official purposes).
The first of several major articles derived from superb displays at 'Heide Posta' at Fallingbostel in August, to appear in Germania over the next few issues.This article demonstrates how quality philatelic interest can be found in modern (post-war!) covers from Germany. It sets out to show the participation of the Bundeswehr in international humanitarian operations overseas in recent years.
This article is an object lesson in how to extract maximum philatelic interest from the study of a small area (just 344 hectares), a dispute between two great powers (the Netherlands and Prussia in this case), and a dash of political horse-trading (the Congress of Vienna 1815)! Super colour illustrations!
Intrigued? So is the author! Not intrigued? Write to the author!
Not all Zeppelin mail is philatelic! The author provides some tests and clues for determining commercial Zeppelin mail.
An exciting discovery of a card probably sent home from a Russian soldier in Danzig in 1945. The author has not seen another in some 25 years of collecting Danzig. More information is sought.
Written in fond memory of a close friend and perhaps an unusual introduction to philately. The author believes, that he, in 1948, was the first English schoolboy to live with a German family and attend a German school since before the war. His reminiscences make for fascinating reading, with useful background information on "INSELPOST" stamps.
What a joy to read! One cannot help feeling, when reading this superbly written article by the author of the Society's latest monograph on the Berlin Rohrpost, that a horse-drawn Travelling Post Office system, such as the Strassenpost in 1890s Berlin, is just what the Royal Mail should introduce in London today!
A helpful expansion on an article from the August 2002 issue of Germania about the removal of the eagle and swastika.
Also, more thought-provoking detail following on from the article in the February 2002 issue of Germania about design features of propaganda postcards.
It is intended that future parts of this series will cover German resistance by other than members of the German Communist Party. This part provides helpful background information, to the stamps commemorating communist resisters issued in the Russian occupied area of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Berlin, and the DDR with beautiful colour illustrations of the stamps.
This is a major article on the subject - profusely illustrated in both colour and black and white with clear explanation of examples from 1724 up to the present day; from Prussia, Bavaria, Hanover, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Westphalia, Saxony, the Kaiserliche DR /Deutsche Reichspost, up to Allied Occupation and recent usages. Essential reading.
In another of the major articles derived from exhibits at Fallingbostel last year, we are treated to a range of superb postal history items from various towns in Upper Silesia, with illustrations of the town arms and chronological and other details of the introduction of the Prussian postal administration and handstamps following the Truce of Breslau in 1742. The explanations of postal markings on weights and rates will also be helpful to the wider study of the Prussian Post.
During the dark days of the Wall, the Tor characterised the division of Germany, but in 1989 it became a powerful symbol of the unification of Germany and, by extension, of unification everywhere. The article, illustrated in colour, is based on a thematic display and includes an early telegram and several Rohrpost cards from the office at the Tor, special handstamps, meter cancellations, postal history and stamps (of particular note are DDR and Berlin trial issues).
Part I (Germania Vol.39 No.1) described anti-Nazi resisters whose activities were prescribed by their political party, the KPD; the present article describes those who based their resistance on the prompting of their own consciences. A thought-provoking study illustrated with stamps from the DDR, Deutsche Bundespost, Berlin and France.
The death of Martin Bucer (often anglicised to Butzer) a German Protestant reformer who ended his days as a Professor at the University of Cambridge, was commemorated by the issue of a special stamp in February 2001. Most interestingly we are shown illustrations of the competing design entries for that stamp including the selected design.
Taking S.M.S. Dresden as an example the author illustrates differences in the numerals on ostensibly the same MSP postmarks thus questioning the received wisdom that only one such canceller was issued at a time per ship.
The title of this Part relates to a large group of friends and relatives of the married couple Dr. Arevid Harnack and Dr. Mildred Harnack, who opposed Nazism for a decade until their detection. Short biographies of some of the principals in the Circle are first given, then the climax of the Circle's activities during the fateful years 1940-1942 is described.
A translation of an article which first appeared in Philatelie 278. The Gruss aus Eberswalde postcard tells its own tale from first sending on 28 January 1895, its journey by mail-coach and sea, shipwreck and rescue and eventual delivery to Washington D.C. after 47 days rather than the then usual two weeks. A gentle and charming lesson in interpreting the many clues offered by an unassuming postcard.
This article, being another of the superb exhibits derived from Fallingbostel in 2002, illustrated and describes stamps and postmarks relating to the German UNESCO Commission, Lorsch, Reichenau, Aachen, Hildesheim, Speyer, Maulbronn and Cologne.
Again from Fallingbostel, a major and detailed article on the basis and effects of the currency reform profusely illustrated largely in colour. Full explanations of the franking’s are given for each of the covers shown.
An interim report following up the author's article in the November 2000 issue on the same topic. More information is still needed.
The names of some of the ill-fated conspirators who attempted to rid the world of Hitler come readily to mind: Stauffenberg, Bonhoeffer, Beck - there were many others, perhaps less well-known, whose stories are also told in Part IV of this fascinating article and who are commemorated on illustrated German stamps.
Postcards from Lauenburg, all illustrated in colour, from a charming and beautifully put together 'Heimat' collection in which the material speaks for itself and which may serve as a useful example to others seeking to do the same for their hometown, wherever it may be situated.
An article, written by the late and much missed Franceska Rapkin, reproduced from the 'American Philatelist' on the occasion of the 150th year of the introduction of postage stamps into the postal service of Württemberg.
The author introduces this article by saying that "German philatelic fun begins where the Michel catalogue stops"! Now is your chance to find out about a booklet of 'Hitler stamps' produced in the 1970s with a holiday advertisement for Bournemouth interleaving the sheets! Then there is the postcard inscribed "Siegesparade in London, 20. April 1941" - intrigued? Enjoy the article!
The auxiliary cruiser Pinguin, a converted freighter, was a successful 'raider' operating mainly in Indian Ocean. Her fascinating story is told here, in brief, in an article which first appeared in "Postal History", the Journal of the Postal History Society, reproduced with their kind permission. A small selection of Feldpost covers from the ship before she set off on her wartime mission in June 1940 are shown.
Until 1946, the Germans remaining in the renamed Kaliningrad Oblast had virtually no contact with the outside world. There was no postal service and the only way to send or receive mail to and from Germany was to have it smuggled across the Russian-Polish border. Interesting details are given here of such clandestine mail along with an appeal for more information from readers.
These special 'express service' cards were used in wartime Germany following the heavy air raids. Eilnachricht cards with red frames for civilian addresses and with green frames for fieldpost addresses were used by survivors to send urgent news, of either a lucky escape or sad loss of life or home. Eilauftrag cards with a violet frame were used to check whether a mail address was still correct. Besides the official stationery there are many privately made cards - various examples of both categories, from the Dresden area, are illustrated in colour and described.
By means of some very interesting postcards and covers, illustrated in colour, the author briefly tells the story of the transformation of the fishing village Gdingen into the modern port of Gdynia in the 1920/30s, its occupation and further change of name to Gotenhafen in 1939 and its reversion to the Polish name of Gdynia in 1945.
After the first world war the anniversaries of three major naval battles were often marked by simple wreath laying ceremonies performed by passing German warships. On at least one occasion, however, a special cruise was arranged to enable relatives, friends and former comrades of the German seamen who had lost their lives to pay their own tributes. The liner 'Monte Rosa' was chartered in the late summer of 1933 by Nazi Party groups in Hamburg in conjunction with the local newspaper Hamburger Tageblatt. Examples are shown here of various photo postcards, special handstamps and on board cachets used in connection with the somewhat sombre cruise.
A fairly ordinary looking official letter from the Danzig Court on 10.5.1939 tells a story of human suffering...
The story of the first nationwide postcode system (postleitzahl) - how it was introduced by Nazi Germany in 1941 to apply to small parcels but was later extended to cover all mail. The system, its further development and its post-war successors are explained with illustrations in this most useful article.
The postal service by steamer on the Lake of Starnberg was introduced in 1851 and continued until 1929. The wealth of beautiful cards illustrated in full colour show just how one can bring fun and interest and perhaps a little romance to your collection...
The author examines the evolving image of the eagle as depicted in German postage stamps. The changes in design are not simply a case of stylistic variation: they reflect changes in German society. Many superb colour illustrations.
A rare postmark find caused much excitement when found in a dealer's box - but it turns out to be a blatant forgery - the author seeks more information and comments.
After the turmoil of the revolutionary uprising in post-WW1 Germany, elections were held for a National Assembly, which was celebrated by a new series of postage stamps - the design of these was thrown open to public competition and was greeted with an enthusiastic response. The varying prize designs are illustrated.
The author gives a resumé of the German warship's first world war service and recounts how she was attacked in March 1915 by H.M.S. 'Glasgow' whilst at anchor, and not seaworthy, in neutral Chilean waters. The ship was scuttled. The article contains illustrations and descriptions of many letters and cards to and from the ship, and surviving crew. A fascinating study.
This invaluable in-depth study of the Stuttgart City Post is essential reading for all those interested in the German City Posts - a collecting area which has an enthusiastic following represented by the Society's associated "Stadtpost" collectors' group, details of which appear in the front of Germania. The article is superbly illustrated in colour throughout - may of the items are extremely rare.
The author shares with us here a large selection from his wonderful collection of early Zeppelin postal items and memorabilia - most of which are illustrated in colour. We are given a wealth of background information and technical details of many of the airships from LZ1 to LZ120. An outstanding 29 page article!
A follow up to the article in the February 2003 issue featuring a Rohrpost card which had passed through the Strassenpost, illustrations of various Strassenpost items and a plan showing the sites of the delivery post offices at the inception of the service (1.11.1889) and at its closure.
Apparently the popularity of cycling, particularly by ladies, excited some comment in the 1890s! The clubs flourished as can be seen by the enormous range of beautifully designed souvenir postcards, vignettes, and other material - many of which are superbly illustrated in colour. A delightful collection which may inspire you to 'get on your bike' to the nearest postcard fair to look for some cards for yourself.
Continuing on from the article in the previous issue - this part deals in depth with the Stamp imprinted stationery. Normal postcards, the Jubilee issue and postcards with advertisements on the front are all covered, mainly illustrated in colour.
A "12.12.12" card with a "12.12.12.12" postmark!
Two letters from Hanover posted on the same day (16 October 1866), one showing usage of the postage stamps of Hanover during the period of grace before they were phased out and the other bearing the new Prussian franking.
A thought-provoking summary of a personal account of work in a wartime postal censor station.
An interesting letter from Korv. Kapt. Crüsemann (fully translated) whose seminal work on the Marine Schiffspost was translated in sections in Germania Vol.17/18.
An outline study of these labels calling for further research.
The series continues with more information, with many illustrations, on the stamp imprinted stationery - featuring postcards with advertising on the reverse and postcards printed to private order.
A superb study of the attractive 1935 Frauentrachten charity stamps - the stamps, both individual and in booklet panes, and their usage on covers and cards are fully illustrated in colour. The article gives details of the design and costumes as well as historical background.
Postal history of the British military camp near Hawick which was used as an Internment and POW camp from 1914 to 1919. This fascinating study includes photos of the camp and prisoners, as well as many illustrations of postmarks, censor marks, postcards, letters, and the special wrappers for sending out the camp newspaper 'Stobsiade'.
In this 200th anniversary year, some notes on Schiller's life and a look at his drama 'Kabale und Liebe'.
A selection of beautiful postcards, illustrated in colour, telling the remarkable story of the ship posts on the Bodensee. Five countries, each with their own postal authority, controlled the waters of the lake. Between 1897 and 1900 it was regarded as 'fun' by holiday makers to make up combination covers with one stamp from each of the five States.
Part 4 of this detailed study deals further with the Stamp-imprinted stationery. Normal, 'Jubilee' (the Silver Jubilee of King Karl), and privately ordered envelopes are illustrated and described in
profusion.
The history and changing names of the town reflected by its different postmarks: Saare-Louis, Sarre Libre, Saarlouis, Saarlautern.
The many changes in the territorial frontiers of Germany following World War I are described and illustrated with a selection of stamps and 'mourning labels' from amongst others Eupen-Malmédy, Luxemburg, Elsaß, Saar, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Posen, Danzig, Memel and Schleswig-Holstein.
Although the many postcards and covers illustrated in colour in this article relate specifically to the Dresden area, special 'Soldatenbriefe' labels were used throughout Germany during the decades leading up to the first World War. The origin and use of these labels are explained.
The concluding part (no.5) to a stimulating series of articles on one of the most successful of the German private post organisations. This part deals with Letter cards included those printed to private order, folded letter sheets, wrappers, postage due envelopes, postal stationery for money transfers and forms.
The author describes and illustrates the special cancels, stamps and cards used on the 'Stamp Days' held from 1936, on the first Sunday after 7 January, the anniversary of the birth of Heinrich von Stephan.
A comprehensive summary by an accredited expert of the Polish Philatelic Union (PZF) of all known forged datestamps, illustrated and described, whether they be copies of genuine datestamps or completely spurious ones.
As a counterweight to the collecting of the 'yacht stamps' the author explores an unusual aspect of German colonial postal history: a look at letters and cards sent into the colonies. Many of the illustrations are in colour including some lovely cards to Shanghai, Deutsch Neu Guinea, Swakopmund and Apia in Samoa.
Throughout the whole of Germany from May 1872, soldiers on active service up to the rank of sergeant, or its equivalent, were entitled to receive personal mail free of postage. Such mail was to be inscribed 'Soldatenbrief. Eigene Angelegenheit des Empfängers'. The article, illustrated in colour, provides a comprehensive look at such mail, and the many types of privately produced labels containing the required inscription.
The author analyses twenty-five pieces of P.O.W. mail relating to the detention of a German gunner in Butterwick and other camps in Yorkshire. A fascinating story emerges.
More special cancels, stamps and postcards illustrating each 'Tag der Briefmarke'.
The original flight plan for the 1929 flight was to include a flight over Egypt landing at Cairo, but at the last minute the itinerary had to be changed for political reasons. The revised arrangements, cachets etc are described and profusely illustrated in colour.
In this article the author explains and illustrates the use of portopflichtige and frei and related terms on 19th century official mail.
A look at some aspects of anti-Semitism particularly the use of an unusually large cachet on mail from the Reichsmusikkammer.
An article shared with the Belgium Study Circle looking at details, particularly censorship, of a correspondence comprising thirty items sent in 1916 and 1917.
A first-hand account by a German Signals Officer who was assigned to the task of making the Estonian telecommunications system operative once more following the retreat of the Russians. In undertaking this task he also took a special interest in the parallel 'resurrection' of the letter delivery service, taking detailed notes of all happenings that could possibly be of philatelic interest.
The story behind the fund launched by Dr. Hugo Eckener which raised 2.5 million Reichsmarks and without which the 'Graf Zeppelin' LZ127 airship would never have been built. The article describes and illustrates the special labels which were designed to be affixed to mail, the publicity postmarks and special postcards, advertising material and a special bronze plaque.
A major article giving the background to the building of the unarmed blockade-running submarines 'Deutschland' and 'Bremen'. Details of the two voyages to and from the USA by the 'Deutschland' are given with many illustrations, many in colour, of the associated postal material including the adhesive stamps for supplementary charges, the cachets and Zurück markings.
A photograph that purports to be a genuine Hoffmann, official picture of von Paulus who was promoted Field Marshal immediately prior to the surrender of the German VIth Army at Stalingrad. But the photograph raises some intriguing questions...
The author illustrates what appears to be the remarkably few airmail directional handstamps relating to Berlin he has found, compared to other major airports, and seeks information on other handstamps that readers may be aware of.
This article follows on from the one in Vol.39/3. It provides information, with illustrations from stamps and postal stationery on (i) the Wartburg and the Contest of the Singers, (ii) the Wurzburg Residence, (iii) Rococco - The Augustus and Falkenlust Castles in Bruhl, (iv) Prussian Arcadian Castles and Parks in Potsdam and Berlin, and (v)the Period of Enlightenment - Dessau and Worlitz - the
Gardens
A concise biography of the organiser of the German postal system with illustrations of his birthplace, the Royal Prussian Post Office in Stolp where he started his postal career, autograph documents and other items as well as a splendid colour picture of von Stephan in his State dress.
Although collectable items are available from before 1914, the onset of the First World war opened the floodgates for Red Cross material. Some superb items are researched and illustrated, many in full colour, under the headings 'Publicity and Fund Raising', 'German Red Cross Hospital Trains', 'Red Cross Hospitals', 'First Aid Columns' and 'Prisoner of War Enquiries'.
The wartime periods covered are WW1, WW2 and post-WW2. Some most interesting covers are examined, with labels translated and explained under such headings as (WW1) 'occupied Germany', 'mail to neutral countries', 'after the Armistice'; (WW2) 'The closure of the LATI route'; (post WW2) 'The position of Yugoslavia'. 'Poland', 'Mail to Austria 1948' and 'The Gulf War 1991'.
This article focuses on the so-called 'Roland' cards, many of striking design and colour, which were issued at the time of the exhibition.
The author shares with other members four interesting post WW2 zones covers addressed to the Austrian Delegation in Hannover which he found at the stamp fair associated with our AGM weekend in Bristol in October. Another good reason to come to our annual get-togethers.
The article includes selections from an exhibit relating to the stamp issued in 1996 commemorating the 450th anniversary of Luther's death. Background information on Luther is given as well as illustrations of, and commentary on, the competitive designs for the stamp, the selected design and the many ways in which the selected designs are marketed by the German Post Office.
From a superb one-frame exhibit given at our AGM weekend in Bristol - seventeen covers, each of great interest, are illustrated in full colour showing the different routes to China. The postage rates and routes are all succinctly explained. The study covers routes via Moscow and Siberia, via India, and South America carried by German, British, Dutch and French airmail and partly by Zeppelin.
A selection of eight pages of illustrations of varieties which speak for themselves as the effort that has been put into the drawings makes the pictures self-explanatory - which is as well as the descriptions are all written up in Hungarian!
A further instalment of detailed analysis of cachets and labels following the law of 15 November 1918 which stopped the military censorship and instituted the exchange control.
The stamp in question was issued in 2006. In 1356 the oral tradition of the election of the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire by seven electors was written down in the document that is called 'The Golden Bull' with far-reaching consequences, as explained.
Prof. Dr Weil is one of the many once celebrated, now largely forgotten, medical discoverers. The author uses a collection of letters which were addressed to Weil in Heidelberg and Stuttgart as a student, later as a doctor, to illustrate postmarks and routes of the period. The letters date from 1867 to 1875.
Following an article written for Germania in May 2006, the author describes and illustrates a set of ZE postcards previously unknown to him.
An article written by Herr Wolfgang von Zeppelin about the activities of a small Society which works tirelessly and quietly for children in need. Many interesting cards and covers have been produced in support of this cause. Many collectors regard the collecting theme 'Zeppelin NT' as a logical development of classical Zeppelin mail. To accompany the article a comprehensive selection of modern Zeppelin NT Kinderppost mail is illustrated in colour.
The author describes how by showing a treasured 'S.M.S. Danzig' cover in his collection at a Society display, he learned that it had been sent by Prince Adalbert, the third son of Kaiser Wilhelm II.
The author presents a small collection of these proforma cards all with souvenir postmarks in the hope that more light can be shed on this under-researched facet of German philately.
This part gives background information, illustrated with stamps, special cancels and covers on: the Berlin Museum Island, the 'Bauhaus' in Weimar and Dessau, the Volklingen Ironworks, Trier, Quedlinburg and Goslar.
During the period 1922-43 people were permitted to post their letters into post boxes on the tram cars in Hamburg. This detailed article includes a map of the tram routes, a tabulation of tram post cancels, colour illustrations of ordinary, express and foreign covers, and postal rates. The end of the tram post in 1943 is described as well as its short reintroduction between 1949 and 1958.
A fine and unusual selection of covers of Russian Zone provisionals, illustrated in colour, reflect the turbulent post-war period. They include AM Post frankings accepted and not accepted, mixed frankings, censor marks, COD and registered mail with Provinz Sachsen, Mecklenburg Vorpommern, Berlin, Thüringen frankings and Großräschen, Stadt Niesky, Plauen and Spremberg locals.
The series continues with stamps and special cancels illustrating the glories of the Hanseatic towns of Lübeck, Stralsund and Wismar; the 'Franconian Rome' - Bamberg; the town of poets and philosophers - Weimar; 65 Kilometres of World Heritage - the Upper Middle Rhine and 'The Window on the History of the Earth' Grube Messel.
Quite extraordinarily, two private postal companies with the identical name, as above, were founded in the city of Dresden in September 1911. This fascinating article begins to unravel the mystery.
This is not an article as such but nineteen pages scanned in colour from an exhibit - it includes stamps, cancels and covers of various categories including forerunners, 'Boxer Rebellion', Marine Schiffspost and Fieldpost.
A one-pager illustrating a commercial card sent from Danzig to Warsaw on 1.9.1916. It was censored in Posen, and had a local stamp affixed for delivery direct the addressee.
This small vessel, along with others, was requisitioned for use in the war as a supply ship and mail distributor in the estuary of the rivers Jade and Weser. She was issued with an unusual wartime cachet.
The author seeks help on understanding two envelopes and where the censorship was done. The article includes a useful summary of postwar political events in Bavaria.
The attractively designed cards and vignettes were designed by pupils, and possibly one or two teachers, of the Dresden Art Academy - only a few passed through the post but they clearly represent an interesting facet of the social history of Dresden in the early twentieth century.
Illustrated and described are a number used forms connected with the period when Kamerun was part of the German colonial empire; the range covered includes certificates of posting, forms used to collect charges due, packet cards, a notice of inability to deliver a parcel, a list of parcels received from abroad, an international money form, 'Postsache' envelopes, and a 'Rückschein' acknowledgement form.
Mater marks play an important part in German philately. This article provides a most attractive and unusual way of illustrating the history of a particular territory. Numerous examples are shown of Francotyp manufacturer's record cards giving specimen impressions of the meter marks and recording changes made to them, often made as a result of the changing administration. Such cards are rarely seen and effectively are the primary source record for information on the period of use of the marks in question. Advertisements for the Francotyp and Komusina machines are appended to the article.
The author has found little background research material but has put together what facts are known alongside illustrations of a number of cards from his collection. The pre-printed cards were intended for the recipient of the gift parcel to complete, sign and return. Three of the cards came through an organisation called DEHAWI in Lisbon with parcel recipients in Pforzheim, Sackingen and Vienna. There are Scandinavian activities as well: parcels were sent to Denmark, Norway and Finland from Swiss senders.
The article covers a range of postal items illustrating the development of the service during its period of operation from 1925 to 1935. These include examples of first and last flights, multiple flights, mail from crew members, instructional marks for cancelled or unavailable flights and a selection of foreign acceptances as Treaty States mail.
After the Austro-German Postal Union came into being in April 1850, the many German States began to introduce postage stamps and printed stationery. The article includes colour illustrations of the first issues of Bavaria, Saxony, Prussia, Schleswig Holstein, Hanover, Brunswick, Oldenburg, Bremen, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Hamburg, Lübeck, Württemberg, Baden and Thurn & Taxis with comments on their background and design.
Another little known facet of of WWII postal history is revealed, but only to a limited extent, as once again the author has found no background literature to explain the use of these pre-printed cards. Those illustrated sent by clothing manufacturers list the contents of orders and their 'points' scores. More information is needed.
This article first appeared in Vol.47/2 of 'The Cinderella Philatelist'. The author, a long-time collector of classic German Private Postal material, sets out an overview of what is, in reality, a complex postal service privatisation process, and the resulting stamp/label/vignette issues of the modern day private companies in Germany. A detailed table of service dates and issues by town is
provided.
In 1947 a contingent of some 4000 Danish troops was stationed, at first, in East Friesland. Postal arrangements for Den Danske Brigade are described in detail (postal rates, cancels etc) as well as for the Danish Command created in 1949.
Better colour illustrations are given of items referred to in Vol. 44/1
Prussia was the first German State to issue postal stationery, an idea 'borrowed' from the contemporary British postal stationery. This article examines the Prussian 1851/2/3/5 issues in detail.
The yacht had been built on Shooters Island, New York. She was christened by the daughter of US President Theodore Roosevelt. The event was a significant boost to German-American relations and was celebrated accordingly. Four postcard publishers of the time issued special cards, of sophisticated design - as illustrated in colour.
There is little in the literature about postage due of GEA. This article fills the gap!
The author shows how certain Dienstmarken were in fact used as official post office census labels and examines their usage and the need for them.
The Berliner Privatpost und Spedition A.G. proved to be such a serious competitor to the Berliner Packetfahrt A.G., that in June 1897 the latter acquired their business. Various postal items are illustrated from the time of the transfer.
The two letters in question were sent home to Bonn by a Militärarzt (Medical Officer) Dr. Wilhelm Lange who at the time was attached to the 2nd battalion of infantry regiment No.80. The first letter was sent on 11 August 1870 from Clermont-en-Argonne, the second on 23 September from the outskirts of Paris.
An adaptation of a gold medal exhibit telling the story of the pioneering life of Anton Hechler who emigrated from Darmstadt in 1871 to the USA. The story is told through covers, postcards and memorabilia.
The author reveals the story behind a doubly censored cover, dated 1 March 1944, addressed to a seaman on board the German ship M.S. Nord-Atlantic which had been heavily bombed but managed to reach the Spanish naval port of El Ferrol del Caudillo.
This article first appeared in the 100th edition of 'Stadtpost', the journal of The Stadtpost Collectors Group. Peter Rogers celebrated this centenary as Editor by showing a selection of his favourite covers and cards.
The author explains that genuinely used material from the short-lived 'Hansa II' is arguably the scarcest of all the German Town Posts and then goes on to show a card uprated for express delivery and two express letters!
This article first appeared in the June 2008 issue of 'Czechout', the journal of the Czechoslovak Philatelic Society of Great Britain. A letter containing stamps was sent on 28 June 1921 from Moravia to Stade-Campe, near Hamburg. The letter was opened by an inspector at Dresden Postal Supervision Office who then sent a postcard to the addressee requesting that he obtains an import licence. This was not produced within the given time, so the letter and contents were impounded. But the card and cover were eventually linked together again.
The author recounts how in the rapidly developing market of modern day German private posts, "there have been many company takeovers, consolidations, alliances and closures, all tempered with a touch of political intrigue which far outshines the efforts of Machiavelli."
Valuable background and sound advice which may help readers avoid pitfalls and disappointment.
Just why was the postcard illustrated date stamped on 19 March 1943 twice, seemingly twelve hours apart? two possible explanations are given - but readers may be able to think of another.
Zuckmayer's play is based on real events that took place in Imperial Berlin before the First World War. It is very popular as a play and has been filmed twice. The main event in the play created a new word 'Köpenickiade', meaning an unusual, determined and courageous action.
A censored USSR postal stationery envelope bought cheaply on eBay, turns out to be a scarce and poignant example of mail sent on 21.5.1941 into the Warsaw ghetto by a sender whose address was given as The Jewish theatre c/o State Polish Theatre in the Bielorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.
The author explains how a postal stationery card sent from Tabora to Nuremberg on 13.7.1914 could only have been carried on the last pre-WW1 voyage of the Rhenania from Dar-es-Salaam, even though it lacks the tell-tale German arrival and transit datestamps.
One of the heroes of the Second World War well known to many Poles is Bronisław Czech, an Olympic skier, who used his mountaineering skills in the illegal smuggling of wanted men out of German occupied territory. He was caught and sent to Auschwitz - the German authorities made him an offer that he be Germanised and ski for the Fatherland - but he refused outright. Czech was consequently cruelly mistreated and died in the camp in June 1944. It is a moving story with letters of his from Auschwitz, including one superbly illustrated by him.
This promises to be the first in a series of articles dealing with the Nothilfe charity stamp booklets which appeared from 1925 to 1935. With the aid of diagrams and colour illustrations, the author provides a detailed study of the make-up of the booklets.
The author describes how Berlin has been the centre of his collecting activity for nearly 40 years and how the finding of a postcard showing the sinking of the Berlin in the early part of the 20th century led to further discoveries and the putting together of a fascinating display.
Following the demise of the Berliner Verkehrs-Anstalt 'Hansa I' on 19.11.1886, and the subsequent acquisition of parts of its business by the Berliner Packetfahrt, some spectacular frankings of 'Hansa I' stamps with Packetfahrt cancels were contrived.
The author found an envelope addressed to the British Legion Volunteer Police Force from Denmark. It was marked 'DISBANDED' and returned to Denmark. Subsequent research
revealed its connection with the story of the
volunteer force at the height of the Sudetenland crisis of 1938.
The 'Hansa' stamp in question was issued in 2006, depicting a 'Kogge' (Hanseatic ship). The story of the Hanseatic League is told concisely - from its 13th century beginnings to its 15th century decay.
One possibility foreseen by the meticulous German administration at the end of the 19th century was that official mail sent without an official seal needed to be authorised in an alternative way. Such mail was either endorsed by hand or with a handstamp 'In Ermangelung eines Dienstsiegels'.
A useful table originally published in 'Michel Rundschau 12/2008'
With the outbreak of WW1 the German colony was invaded by vastly superior, South African-led forces who established military post offices as they occupied the territory. From the latter half of 1915, post offices were gradually re-established as civilian post offices. This article studies the adapted German postmarks used.
The author explains how a chance acquisition of a wartime cover awakened an interest in postal history which has never subsided...why not write your own account of how you started collecting?
This article first appeared in Vol.62/1 of 'TPO', the journal of the TPO & Seapost Society, and is reproduced with their kind permission. It has been possible since 1964 for sailors on Steinhuder Meer near Hanover, to post mail in an officially recognised floating postbox in the middle of the lake.
A rare example of special postal stationery for 'Bibelforscher' at Sachsenhausen is 'witness' itself to a sad chapter in history.
The second in a series of detailed studies with full colour illustrations.
Some scarce covers from the 19th century German royalty illustrate the principles of German royal mail.
The demise of the private posts came into effect on 1 April 1900. On the same day the Reichspost introduced a new local postcard rate of 2 pfennigs. This gave rise to some interesting postal usages, as briefly examined in this article.
A follow-up to the article in Vol 44/3 which may be of interest those who want to have inflation material expertised. The information is also applicable to other material.
The core of this short article is adapted from an article by Dr. Christian Hermann for the Military Historical Museum of the Bundeswehr in Dresden. It includes a detailed tabulation of the various leaflets dropped over Dresden and several are illustrated.
The British Occupation Authorities' civil mail regulations are described. A good selection of cover and cards are shown, illustrating the various cachets used by the Chambers of Commerce, Town Halls and Police in the Rhineland.
A 144c stamp, Michel 2436, was issued by Germany on 3.1.2005 illustrating the Keltenfürst vom Glauberg. The article tells the story of the remarkable discovery of a 5th century BC life-size statue of a Celtic warrior.
At the end of the war large quantities of Hitler stamps were found stored in many post offices in Saxony. These came into use in May 1945 with obliterations from corks, ink-bottle stoppers and by other methods. The article surveys their usage with colour illustrations of covers, postal stationery and parcel cards.
The registered 10Pf postal stationery envelope from Heligoland in 1879 described is particularly interesting as it is sealed with a blue German-style British Post Office seal.
Reproduced by kind permission of the author and editor of 'The Cinderella Philatelist', the article tells the remarkable story of the sheets of postage stamps used by the 'Sword and Plough' resistance organisation. A number of sheets of the stamps were discovered by the Wehrmacht after the Warsaw Uprising.
The items shown represent the remainder of a 'Dresden Diplomatic mail' collection. They are from the General Consulate of the Czechoslovak Republic between the wars.
A useful English translation of the key regulations.
A special postmark and set of six souvenir cards commemorated this meeting. The cards, which are illustrated, are rarely found. Details are given of some of the units involved.
One of a series of occasional, detailed and painstakingly researched articles on the subject of German Exchange Control 1918 to 1925.
The registered cover, sent from Kamerun to Lagos on 17.10.1900, was franked with a block of 15 25Pf stamps - it is therefore heavily overfranked but does not appear to be 'philatelic', but what other explanation could there be?
In 1891 a certain David Cohn of Berlin posted a registered packet to Italy but the Italian post office reassessed the weight and levied postage due equivalent to an average weekly wage - not surprisingly the packet was refused!
A crew member of the Graf Zeppelin, one Albert Thasler, was also a collector of Zeppelin mail. Over the years he attempted to arrange mail from unusual, even exotic, places to be flown on board the airship. Two such are illustrated.
Herr Krippner designed and hand painted 'patriotic' covers - he was also convicted of forging stamp cancellations - his story is as colourful as his covers of which, to date, 144 have been identified.
Zille (1858-1929) was a painter, photographer and graphic artist, whose drawings often are accompanied by appropriate texts in the Berlin dialect. Five different stamps are illustrated which pay tribute to this remarkable man.
This is a real object lesson in the virtues of knowing your postal history! The author recognized many unusual features of a cover sent from the Ukraine to Brest-Litowsk in 1944 which added up to make it a very scarce and valuable item - and he secured it for a fiver! Read and learn.
If you didn't find out from the previous article, then you will now! A 1944 parcel card from Minsk prompts the author to trace the history of the place.
Did you know there is a place in Germany called England? Read and learn!
The author gives a fascinated potted biography of Schurz, including his recollections of meeting Karl Marx in Cologne, and an account of how he saved a man from execution when a major general in the American civil war.
This is the concluding article in a trilogy recording the transition of the German postal service from a state monopoly to an open privatised business sector. The first two parts appeared in the February and August 2008 issues of Germania.
The author describes a letter to Bucharest posted on 31 August 1915, censored in Breslau and returned to sender.
This part covers 'Return to sender' markings, wax seals and manuscript markings, and Post Office cachets in detail. Two useful appendices cover (i) the historical context of conflicts surrounding East Prussia 1918-1923 and (ii) routing instructions for Königsberg Postal Supervision Office.
This article not only provides a great deal of information but also indicates where more can be found. The illustrations include photo cards of Henlein, Hitler and the Freikorps, a document dated 26.9.1938 giving the organisation and strength of the Sudetendeutsches Freikorps, and a letter (with translation) of the same date seeking recruits. Also shown are Freikorps mail and cachets.
A cover, sent on 9.1.1915, with various cachets, demonstrates that German-occupied Belgium was treated as an enemy country for the purpose of civilian communications from Germany.
In fact two stamps are shown, both French - (i) Stanke was at one time a German army chaplain at the Bordiot prison at Bourges, France. At the risk of his own life, he actively helped the Résistance. (ii) Another German chaplain, Abbé Franz Stock, was also honoured by the French PTT, in 1998, for his courage and moral integrity.
Further to the article in the last issue, a COD letter sent from Memel on 16.1922 is analysed in great detail.
The carton of the booklet cover comes in two thicknesses - 190,218 of which were sold. Two variants of the booklet pane are described and illustrated, according to the perforation in the margin. Full information on the booklet sheet is also given.
The author seeks information on a decorative envelope, with no space on its face for address or postage stamp - perhaps produced to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the royal wedding in 1854, or possibly the 40th in 1869.
A cover signed by the great-nephew of the famous 'Red Baron'.
Some choice covers with German connections, selected from a display given at the Royal Philatelic Society London on 27.11.2009, are illustrated and described. These include beauties from Sudan to Württemberg 1846, Saxony to China 1860, and North German Confederation to New Zealand 1868.
Due to the extensive wartime damage to the Rohrpost network in Berlin and East/West split, a new rapid postal system was designed and began to operate on 1.3.1949 - it was one of the most unusual postal systems ever devised. Many covers are illustrated and the network and tariffs are
described.
The head of the Memel German 'police service' confiscated a quantity of Lithuanian stamps and had them overprinted and put on sale on 23 March 1939. The incoming official Reichspost team took a dim view of such 'private labels'. It's an intriguing
story.
(Reprinted from the 'German Postal Specialist March 2010, with kind permission of the GPS) The purpose of the article is to acquaint readers with the restrictions placed by the Reichspost on registered mail in the later phases of WW2, rather than to further the debate about SA/SS covers.
One of the more interesting examples of 'patriotic' anti-German propaganda labels from WW1 are those, believed to be four in number, produced for the firm of Winox Ltd. The labels are illustrated and the designs are described.
The curious story of a PoW card to Greece that arrived with over a year's delay. The author's assiduous research reveals the life and work of Antonius Raab, a man of talent, principle, idealism and ingenuity.
The motifs on two commemorative covers produced by the G&CPS in 1967 reveal not only a great deal about the refugee/PoW camp but also about the early history of the Federal Republic.
An in-depth study of Professor Alois Kolb's original designs, and the Reichsdruckerei-produced essays and proofs held by the Museumsstiftung Post und Telekommunikation, Archiv für Philatelie, Bonn, showing the evolution of the accepted designs, and those rejected along the way.
The author uncovers the swashbuckling life of Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben.
Germany's economy was in tatters - even the Post Office had to be, and seen to be, economical. Money was saved by using up outdated adhesive paper seals, and postal stationery cards and by manpower savings.
This follow-up article responds to the appeal for more information in Vol. 44 No. 1 on these little known cards and the system behind them.
The cover was bought cheaply on eBay and turns out, after a bit of detective work, to feature elements of Polish, German, German-Ukranian and Russian political or postal history.
A musketeer from the 2nd Company, 3rd Battalion of the Großherzoglich Mecklenburgisches Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 90 writes to probably his father in August 1917. The regiment had been involved in heavy fighting against the British in Flanders.
On 8 May 1900, a vertical pair of stamps on a letter caused no end of problems for the Berlin post office as they tried to cancel both stamps through the machine.
The overprinted stamps Mi. 119-138 were valid throughout the German Reich from 6 April 1920 to 30 September 1923. The author has put together a good selection of covers showing different usages of the stamps from Dresden.
This article first appeared in a special issue for IBRA 2009 of the 'Zeppelin Post Joyrnal' (Vol. 3, No.2). It exposes a number of dangerous forgeries of 'exotic' Zeppelin mail, and provides guidance on identifying them as forgeries.
This article provides background to the postal service established in the Ghetto from March 1940. Two issues of stamps were produced featuring Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski. the Elder of the
Jews.
In 1974 RAF Laarbruch was granted the Freedom of Weeze, near the Dutch border. A cover described here commemorates the first military unit in Germany to receive such an honour.
A wrapper for a package of stamps delivered from the Reichsdruckerei gives an insight into the method used for the distribution of stamps to post offices in the 1920s.
2010 marks the bicentenary of the death of Queen Luise. She has been held in high esteem in Germany over the past two centuries for the way she tried to intercede with Napoleon at Tilsit on behalf of Prussia.
The reform is neatly illustrated by an instructive cover posted in Berlin on 24 June 1948 when for just one-day West Berlin was the only place in Germany with the Reichsmark still circulating.
The first German stamp booklet was released on 1 November 1910. The author's extensive research reveals the fascinating detail behind its development and issue. Experimental and sample booklets from various archives are illustrated along with examples of the first booklet.
Postcards marking events for the 'Friends of New Germany' and the 'German American Bund' reveal unpleasant ideological activities in 1930s New York.
A postcard written two days prior to the occupation of Aussig on 9 October 1938 provides a sad reminder of the dark days of the annexation of the Sudetenland.
The clear cachets and postmarks on a cover of 14.8.1961 reveal regulations regarding the use of used Zentraler Kurierdienst covers and their contents, Landpost addresses and a lot more
besides.
A further follow up on the article published in Vol. 44/1 with more information in 46/3.
In two short articles, the author explains the authorisation process for Feldpost, illustrating examples of handstamps, one including the abbreviation 'S.B.' for 'Soldaten-Brief' and a picture of a German trench mortar (Minen-Werfer), as well as a picture postcard of Kriegslazarett 1/VIII Mädchenschüle Gr. Hauptquartier, Westen incorporating a portrait of the MO in charge.
On 9 January 1916 a small steamer left Wilhelmshaven harbour with a cargo of supplies for the beleaguered forces in East Africa. Apart from armaments the ship was also carrying fresh supplies of postage stamps including the 1 Rupie on watermarked paper. Only 50 out of a probable 400 of the stamps have been recorded as still extant to date.
This article first appeared in 'The Danzig Philatelist' No. 13 Jan-Mar 2010, based in turn on one published in German in 2005 as 'Literatur No.849', by the Arge Danzig. The title is self-explanatory. The extraordinary story of the 'battle' emerges from a number of late 19th and early 20th century philatelic journals.
An unmounted mint pane of six 10Pf from the first experimental booklet of 1900 has just been discovered - there could be more.
To aid the ordering by post of charity postage stamps, booklets and cards special order forms were produced which incorporated pictures of the stamps. The author illustrates and describes a number of these.
Several covers and cards are described and illustrated which are not only philatelically illustrating but have political or historical significance.
An extraordinary account of Harris flying the Graf Zeppelin on a round trip from Cairo in 1931.
An unusual feature of the German Exchange Control was that samples of merchandise could be taken to a Customs Office attached to a post office to have the contents checked. Two examples of postal sendings of such samples from 1920 and 1922 are given with explanations of the postal charges, markings and routings.
A short introduction to what to look out for and be aware of.
A postcard sent from Berlin in 1919 to Beaumarais in the Saar was returned as 'not permitted' - the return cachet begs various questions.
A self-answered query reprinted from the journal of the Austrian PS about a parcel card sent from Vienna to St. Ruprecht bei Klagenfurt in 1938.
Somebody amused himself at GHQ by misusing authorising handstamps!
The onset of the inflation is illustrated by a postcard from a hotelier, a banknote-dealer's price list, a wholesaler's notification of price increases and a circular notifying a cool 179,900% price hike!
A letter from Burg addressed to the Pomona Diamond Mines Co attracts two strikes of a cachet "Zurück wegen Kriegszustand" (Return because of war situation).
Detective work reveals that the card was made available for sale on 29 March 1900 not 1 April as stated in Michel. Local postage and postal due rates are explained in detail.
A sad story is revealed about the discovery of this error (Mi. 7DD) in 1948.
There is no longer any excuse for getting this
wrong!
NordBrief was established on 1 May 2005 as a subsidiary of the regional newspaper Kieler Nachrichten based in Kiel. A mail service has been available to private customers since 14 February 2007 along with the first issue of stamps which are illustrated with their subjects explained.
A letter sent from Italy to Germany in WWII attracted 12 different handstamps!
An (authorising) letter handstamp reading "BALLON-ABWEHR-KANONEN-ZUG 154" (Defence Guns Balloon Crew 154) on a postcard written by a German soldier allocated one of the most dangerous tasks.
The author paints a portrait of the 'Iron Chancellor', arguably the most significant figure in the history of Germany and certainly its chief architect.
An image from the Deutsches Post-Archiv of the interior of a coach used by the Berlin Strassenpost
A card written on one of the special trains organised for Germans to travel to the Saar during the voting process.
The author gives a flavour of the fun that can be had with Dezemberbriefe, as letters from December 1923 are termed.
A DDR miniature sheet issued on 18 Oct 1977 marked the bicentenary of the birth of Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811). The sheet also shows Prinz Friedrich von Homburg with his laurel wreath. The author provides the historical background.
An 1894 postal stationery card from Hamburg to Darlington stimulates research which reveals a story of a ship saved by being sunk whilst on fire.
This letter shows how recent events can make for collectable postal history - an airmail letter posted in Germany for Kuwait in February 1991 was returned to sender with a label attached that reads (in translation) 'Airmail service to Iraq and Kuwait temporarily suspended. Re-presentation problematic for the time being'.
A full colour picture postcard produced especially to mourn the death of Bismarck on 30 July 1898 posted from Friedrichsruh, his home village, on 3 August 1898, just four days later!
A field post stamp reveals the vanity of the Kaiser.
Following on from the first part of the article in the May 2011 issue (47/2) of Germania, the story the private post in 2008/9 is developed with
illustrations of their issues of stamps and
postmarks.
This article first appeared in the Zeppelin Post Journal Vol.3 No.5, Winter 2009 and is reproduced by by kind permission of the author and editor, Dieter Leder. It follows on from the special edition of forgeries previously published and reprinted in the August 2010 issue (46/3) of Germania.
22 June 2011 marks the 70th anniversary of the German attack on the Soviet Union. The story of that bloody campaign is told through field post letters and propaganda cards.
The item in question is a field post letter addressed to Nürnberg bearing a clear strike of a standard half- circle Bavarian "Relais I" stamp dated "11/2" [1871].
This follows on from an article in Vol. 46/2 to provide much greater detail on the overprint plate varieties of these stamps and other information on postmarks.
This comprehensive, profusely illustrated article has been translated from one that first appeared in Der Fiskal-Philatelist: Rundbrief Nr.49 of the ArGe Fiskalphilatelie e.V. in 2010 which we are grateful for permission to publish. The article aims to examine the use of railway freight and revenue stamps based on the example of a small north German private railway.
Nice illustrations of the front page and centre map of a railway timetable for the event, and a special postcard for the German railways.
Various stamp issues are used to illustrate this short biography.
This comprehensive, profusely illustrated article attempts to shed some light on the story behind the launch of a rocket in January 1934 by Gerhard Zucker carrying 'rocket mail'. Detail on the production and usage of the associated special stamps and mail is also provided.
The remarkable story of the Luftwaffe unit still operational forty days after the end of the Second World War in Europe.
A prisoner writes on 7 November 1933 to the voting office of his home town to request his voting papers - there was by then only one party to vote for, namely the Nazis!
Taking two stamps depicting Lessing (1729-1781) as his starting point the author points out the far-reaching implications of Lessing's work. He is described as a fighter for humanity and religious tolerance.
Seven covers illustrate some of the ever-changing contractual alliances of PIN Berlin with global logistics companies.
The 800th anniversay in 1889 was marked by an issue of Jubilee stamps by the private-post company Dresdner Verkehrs-Anstalt Hansa. The stamps, including trial prints, and their usage are described and illustrated. Examples of the associated jubilee postal stationery are also shown.
An unusual Norwegian postal stationery card addressed in 1944 to Litzmannstadt with an attached advice of receipt card reveals a poignant story.
A postal stationery card sent from Berlin in 1942 to the Ältesten der Juden Herrn Chaïm Rumkowski also carried a poignant plea for information about loved ones.
A synopsis of an article which appeared in DBZ in 1993 about the so-called 'Preußischen Justiz-Beamtenstempel' explains their usage and period of use with examples from the translator's Danzig collection.
A postcript to articles appearing in earlier issues of Germania (see 47/1, 46/3 and 44/1 above).
Portopflichtige Dienstsache is official mail where the recipient is required to pay postage due at standard postage rate. From 6 May 1920 to 28 February 1923 a surcharge was imposed.
The author shows a favourite item from his collection.
A number of Feldpost items are described and illustrated including a S.B. (Soldatenbrief) card returned to sender, a Marinesache letter (Naval official matter), a card from army airship Z XII, and a letter from naval airship L. 41.
In seeking help in understanding a cover with two British cachets and a German postmark, the author provides some useful background information on the organisation of British Army Of the Rhine postal services.
The card shows that the Deutsche Nothilfe order cards must have been distributed well in advance and that the stamps themselves must also have been distributed to important charities in advance of the issue date.
The author illustrates an admission ticket to a public meeting in Lunteren on 22 June 1940 arranged by the Dutch Nazis.
A letter posted in Hamburg on 21 July 1919 to Porto Alegre in Brazil was sent back marked "Zurück/Keine Beförderungsgelegenheit" (Return/No opportunity of forwarding).
This detailed and profusely illustrated guide to WWII censorship shows where foreign mail to/from Germany (including Feldpost mail) was routed for censorship, how transit mail was treated, what the various censor marks signify and a great deal more.
A preliminary call for scans of material from the hand of the forger Emil Reinhard Krippner who was selling them between 1885 and 1890 when he was jailed.
A selection of pictorial postcards and the some of the messages on them reveal German attitudes towards black African soldiers.
A number of interesting points emerge from a postcard sent Postlagernd (poste restante) on 22 June 1938 to Gmunden.
A cover sent on 21.6.48 from Köln is endorsed "1. Kastenlehrung" (= first collection, or emptying of the box) to show acceptance of its franking with old Rpf stamps at face value.
Was ten-times franking allowed in the three provinces of the French zone? The simple answer is: Officially it wasn't (but it was sometimes tolerated).
This part deals with (i) early censorship of letters in September to November 1939 and (ii) express censorship for companies with regular correspondents abroad.
A curious unaddressed card with a 10Pf Judenpost stamp, a slogan cancel, and a handstamp of the central Jewish Historical Commission in Poland documents real events.
Two letters from the author's collection prompt him to research the addressee who turns out to have been a pharmacist, an international football player and an eminent German philatelist.
The life and times of Vidkun Quisling are told through Norwegian stamps, postcards and propaganda items.
A letter posted in Kreiensen in Lower Saxony on 13 May 1948 has a label attached saying "zurück kein Postverkehr" (return, no postal service). The author gives a short account of the suspension of mail services to various countries after WWII.
Details of the lives and times, particularly during the Silesian Wars in the 1740/50s, of both Friedrich and Empress Maria Theresia of Austria are illustrated by a number of stamps.
Service suspended to Slovakia in 1944: Slovak National Uprising
The story of the only occasion upon which, in the zeppelin's nine-year life, a flight had to be
abandoned due to a structural or mechanical
failure.
(Reprinted by kind permission of the author and the editor of Stamp & Coin Mart magazine). The engraver's art is demonstaretd in the German 1941 Mozart and 1943 Vienna Grand Prix stamps, the Austrian Costumes set of 1948 and Princess Gina on a 1990 stamp from Liechtenstein.
(Reprinted by kind permission of the author and the editor of The London Philatelist). The 20Pf black-print postcard: a case where a minister's wife made philatelic history!
This part deals with (i) items referred by one censorship office to another for specialist censoring and (ii) double censorship, real and pretend censorship.
The stamp in question was issued by Germany on 9 August 2012, the 11th centenary of the birth of Emperor Otto I.
The article provides details of the wartime Kinderlandvershickung scheme for the sending of children to the countryside, reception and transit camps in Dresden and examples of letters home from children.
In 1945 a racehorse worth millions is abandoned to its fate.
A Lieutenant writes from the Russian front in October 1917 to his favourite brewery asking for reinforcements!
Information from the internet on the difficulties some censors fin WWII faced not least in reconciling the propaganda they were fed with the awful facts revealed in letters from slave-labourers.
This part deals with (i) items submitted to and censored by the wrong office, (ii) picture postcards, allowed and disallowed, (iii) apparent, not actual, censorship of inland mail, (iv) returned mail and (v) coping with and dodging the censor to communicate with enemy countries.
The author illustrates and explains what he knows about the post-war facsimiles of the 50pf stamps of the 1928 and1929 series, but appeals for more information on their origin.
A look at some attractive vignettes and postcards for the 12th Congress of the German Touring Club and the Union of Cycling Tourists in 1897 and for the 2nd Powered Machinery Exhibition in 1898.
A number of DDR stamps commemorating Engels prompt this thumbnail sketch of his life and work.
A superb item of business correspondence is sent by the quickest route to New York involving the catapult services from both the SS Europa and Bremen.
A converted auxiliary gunboat was used to make scientific tests and observations on crossings of the Atlantic Ocean. Postcards from members of the crew illustrate the story.
The article traces the development of the treatment of returned international letters from the late 19th century to the early 1920s including from the German colonies and post offices abroad.
2013 marks the bicentenary of the writer Christian Friedrich Hebbel.
A number of the popular 'musical frogs' cards are illustrated and described ranging from earlier Gruss aus types through to the 1980s.
Many changes were made over the years in the way the inscription identifying that German stamps were indeed from Germany as seen here with illustrations of some fifty stamps.
A postcard sent from Rottweil 31 December 1919 to Zurich was franked with two 10Pf German National Assembly stamps which were not valid for international use. 23 centimes postage due was raised - the complexities of calculating this are explained.
Stocks of the 2M (Mi. 37e) were supplied to the first postal agencies in GEA at the earliest in Jan. 1891. Detailed information on the use of different shades of the stamp used in GEA is provided. Various parcel cards are illustrated.
A useful table reproduced with kind permission from the journal of the Austrian Philatelic Society.
As seen on a card sent on 7 January 1947 from Osnabrück, in the British zone, to Ljubljana.
Through letters and documents the author tells us much more than what the textbooks can tell us. They offer insights into the torment that individuals lived through and all too often eventually died
from.
In the absence of sight of any official notice regarding the exact period of closure of the Versandstelle für Sammlermarken at the height of the inflation, the author tracks the relevant dates from eight items.
A concise explanation of this exhibition class.
Two articles for horse-racing enthusiasts.
The article continues with stamps from the occupation zones, the German Democratic Republic, West Berlin, and the German Federal Republic.
The author shows that there is often an interesting story behind a cheap slogan postmark.
The analysis of a postcard sent from a prison in Berlin to Fiji reveals the extraordinary story of Wallace Ellison, a British prisoner-of-war.
A card sent on 21 September 1900 from Besigheim to neighbouring Bietigheim arrives within an hour!
This very detailed study reveals new information not recorded in the handbooks and catalogues by Horst Landsmann and Karl-Heinz Riemer.
The Deutsche Bundespost was fully privatised from the beginning of 1998 and renamed Deutsche Post Aktiengesellschaft (DPAG). One result has been the growth in personalised stamps and postal
stationery.
After WWII the authorities in Germany used slogan postmarks as one way of inculcating a sense of belonging, participation and purpose. Many are illustrated with translations of the slogans.
This article follows on from one in Vol. 48/2. The method of transportation and distribution of British mail is examined as well as the regulations for free franking.
A postal stationery card with a postmark 'Weltreise Kreuzer Emden' dated 7 Oct. 1929 prompts some interesting research.
A significant reworking of an article published in Germania Vol 2/1 (June 1965). By listing the stamps in strict order of issue and considering what postal services they were used for, some remarkable facts emerge.
Examples of 'swiped' WW2 mail are shown and described from France to Denmark, Frankfurt to Sweden, USA POW to Germany, a Gemeinschaftslager to Paris, and a printed matter letter from Berlin to Holland.
A set of the so-called 'mourning stamps' for Germany's lost territories is superimposed on a map to show where those territories were located.
The story behind a 10pf Bavarian stamp overprinted 'Räte= Republik Baiern'.
Continuation of an article started in Vol 49/3. A number of covers are described and shown which bear witness to the legalised theft of Jewish property.
This article amends some points made in an article on Reichskanzler Otto von Bismarck published in Vol. 47/2.
A most remarkable cover from the Military Administration in Romania
Die Janota', as she was known, died on 15 August 2012 at the grand old age of 99. She is known to philatelists as the designer of 38 stamps for the Federal Republic, all of which are illustrated with brief details.
The 55pf stamp honouring Die Himmelsscheibe von Nebra was issued on 9 October 2008. The disc is the oldest known human representation of the
cosmos.
This article first appeared in Philotelia 675 of the Hellenic Philotelic Society. It tells the remarkable story one of the first of many acts of French resistance when, in June 1940, the administration of the Paris post office hid from the Germans a large quantity of mail destined for Britain.
A detailed study of the booklets and booklet sheets. Doubt is dispelled about which is the top and which is the bottom of the sheets!
Three horizontal dashes in the censor's stamp reveal the existence of a hitherto unknown censorship sub-office.
A remarkable letter written in English on 26 November 1940 by an elderly Jewish in Berlin to Shanghai. The final paragraph daringly conveys
up-to-date inside information from the Warsaw ghetto.
The article describes an express cover sent on 4 September 1941 from Littoria Scalo in Italy to a work camp in Heerte über Wolfenbüttel, temporary home to one of the almost 500,000 Italian workers who voluntarily went to Germany in the period 1938-43, lured by the prospects of significantly higher wages on offer.
'Fiftieth Anniversary Issue'
An illustration of the 'Dresden Madonna' miniature sheet voted the most beautiful European stamp in 2012.
(Reprinted by kind permission from the 'Collectors Club Philatelist 93/2 - March-April 2014). An historical account of the origins of the conflict and early action illustrated by postcards.
Three German proclamations (Bekanntmachung
Nr. 1, 2, 3) are illustrated with a number of interesting mail items which were affected by the restrictions on mail the proclamations dealt with. For example, sealed letters and parcels were no longer accepted and restrictions were introduced
on foreign mail.
A look at two interesting letters sent through the United States Embassy in London.
The varied selection of cards and covers described and illustrated include: a letter posted in Britain on 3 August 1914 addressed to Frankfurt which was delivered after examination; examples of censored, delayed and captured mail; propaganda and PoW mail.
Two rare items are examined: a registered (philatelic) postcard from Moschi posted 10 July 1914, carried on the Rhenania, the last German ship to sail for Europe before the outbreak of the war; a commercial registered letter sent from Musoma on Lake Victoria posted on 29 July 1914 addressed to and eventually delivered in London in September.
From circumstantial evidence it can be deduced that some mail from Russia and Finland was seized on 31 July 1914 at Eydtkuhnen railway station. The mail was sent to Danzig for censorship and that for enemy countries was not delivered until after the war. Once war was declared Russian mail for Germany was routed via Tornio (Finland) and Sweden also censored in Danzig.
A number of stamps are illustrated depicting the work of the master sculptor notably his impressive and symbolic Quadriga atop the Brandenburg Gate.
Detailed information on the make-up of the booklets and booklet sheets.
A chance find sheds light on the special plebiscite day slogan postmark.
A detailed survey of wrappers for Germany, German Post Offices in Morocco, North German Postal District, German eastern Command, and some of the 1880s/90s private posts.
With the outbreak of war German East Africa found itself isolated. A route for the mails via Lindi, Moçambique, Lisbon and the Netherlands was set up.
Continuation of an article started in Vol. 49/3 – two postcards serve as a poignant memorial to those unfortunates whom events prevented from escaping Nazi persecution.
Researching a slogan postmark uncovers details of Aktion Eichhörnchen in 1961 should World War III break out!
A Feldpostkarte depicts a scene of utter desolation. Is it an anti-war card or one so nationalistic that it is saying the war must be won even if Europe is destroyed in the process, or is it one pretending to be the other?
A variety of postcards, maps, stamps, special
cancels tell the story of this popular tourist destination since the 19th century thanks to its natural beauty, which has also long attracted the attention of German and European aviation pioneers.
A table of rates derived from information published by Deutsche Post DHL.
On both 1 August 1916 and 1 August 1927 letter and postcard rates were increased by 50% but different approaches were taken on each occasion. Part 1 of this major article examines amongst other things the 2½Pf war postal levy which came into effect on 1 August and its effect on stamps and postal stationery.
Two covers are illustrated showing mistakes made by the Hamburg post office and exchange control inspectors in 1919/20.
In the UK a ‘billion’ used to mean one million million. The franking of over a billion marks on a large express airmail cover sent from Hamburg to Manchester on 24 November 1923 was a mere 20,000 million marks underfranked.
A 10Pf stamp placed carefully over a 5Pf stamp, an eight-day journey from Mainz to Grindelwald, a change of address, an ‘Unbekannt’ label...
A handstamp reading ‘Für Frieden, Einheit und ein glückliches Leben’ was applied to a letter from the BRD to the DDR to counter the implicit message in the postage stamp.
In this first part the period before 1933 is examined – described as the period of free choice and coexistence. Different printing styles in stamps, postcards and postal stationery are examined in depth.
Two SdP propaganda stamps were added to the franking on a postcard sent on 3 October 1938 from Friedland in Böhmen the day after the town had been occupied by Germany. The author seeks more information.
Two conversion tables provide (i) RM, £, US$ exchange rates pre-WW1 then for each January 1924 to 1940 and (ii) £ to various European currencies in January 1938.
A summary of how the virtual philatelic exhibition at www.exponet.info has developed over its ten years of existence.
Egon Falz (1932-2010) started his career at age 16 and retired in 1995. The quality of his work is shown on a number of stamps – a particularly fine example being the portraits of Adenauer and de Gaulle on the stamp issued in 1988 to
commemorate 25 years of Franco-German cooperation (Mi. 1351).
German covers in the inflation period routed via the fortnightly British airmail service from Cairo to Baghdad are a rarity. The service is examined in detail in relation to two covers dated 4 December 1923 and 7 August 1923.
This survey not only compares the different designs but also gives a summary of control markings used, particularly the Puntlücken (dots removed from address lines to identify specific printings of a given card).
The ‘Insel Lundy’ overprints on Hindenburg head and other stamps are almost certainly bogus.
An interesting look at ways in which Germany in the 1920s appears to have partially circumvented UPU arrangements for collection of postage due.
A 1908 Russian newspaper wrapper from Riga to Latvia documents an extraordinary 700 years of history of a world which no longer exists.
An attractive cover posted on 10 November 1933 franked with a 25pf Wagner stamp addressed to Wagner’s granddaughter Verena at Haus
Wahnfried.
From 1966 to 1971 several West Berlin issues of identical or similar design to those of the Federal Republic had an inscription ‘BERLIN’ in the top margin of the counter-sheets.
(Reprinted from Collectors Club Philatelist 94/1 with kind permission). The events of that war year illustrated by picture cards, fieldpost cards and occupation covers
This part deals with the Third Reich period 1933-41: the ascendance of dogmatic Gothic. Quite apart from the wealth of illustrations of meter marks, special handstamps, slogan postmarks etc., we are given a fascinating glimpse into the world of Gothic typewriters.
A detailed checklist of volume and issue numbers and page numbers marks the 50th anniversary of the Society in 2014.
A description of the novel design of the 1933 Almanach and list of its detachable postcards. Two Danzig-related postcards from a KdF.-Kalender from one of the years 1938-40 and in an Addendum a Winterhilfswerk card from one of the calendars are also shown.
A 1788 letter in superb condition comes to light from which we discover that it was from His Eminence Gottlob August Baumgarten, head of the Royal Evangelical Church Court at Merseburg to Bishop Hermanns at Schleuditz (near Leipzig) enclosing a permission to marry. But it must be done quietly....
This part deals with 1941-45, the period of official Gothic-phobia.
A DDR miniature sheet commemorating the 450th anniversary of the Deutscher Bauernkrieg, as well as stamps depicting Martin Luther and Thomas Müntzer set the scene for events which had a dramatic impact on German history.
The author takes the reader on a journey through Germany from Braunschweig to Bamberg, Naumburg, Bremen and Würzburg examining art treasures on German stamps along the way.
The 1924 issue cards overprinted ‘15Pf.’ in 1925 are mentioned in the Michel Ganzsachen catalogue as having been overprinted without proper authority. They have very high catalogue values.
The latest postage rate rises are shown. A standard inland letter (to 20g) has gone up from 62c to 70c but Deutsche Post say they will now keep that rate unchanged for three years.
The first of a semi-regular column of interesting snippets harking back to our 1980s column by Bill Bruce-Bowling. Covered here: ‘Einschreiben Entwurf’ and ‘Errors in inscriptions on DDR
stamps’.
Continuing from part 3 in Vol. 50/4. With the help of the Yad Vashem database the author throws a chilling light on a number of covers which witness vividly the history of the time and form poignant items of Judaica.
A reference in the prize-winning novel Alles Umsonst (All for Nothing) by Walter Kempowski to a stamp supposedly depicting a bridge over the river Helge in Mitkau, East Prussia is most puzzling as neither the stamp nor the place appear to exist.
The curious case of the Bundespost stamp designed in 1980 for the Olympic Games in Moscow but which was not issued. This article first appeared in ‘Deutsche Post’ 28/2 (April 2015), the journal of the Filatelistenvereniging Duitsland.
Two correctly-franked ‘Muster ohne Wert’ registered covers from Tanga are illustrated and described.
This part continues with the 1941-45 period of official Gothic-phobia and then after 1945: the eclipse and ultimate death of Gothic.
Two interesting covers are illustrated and
described. The first was sent from the Socombel Hellenic Petroleum Company in Athens to Berlin in January 1942. The second from the Hellenic Industry of Electricity Pylons to Nuremberg in June 1942.
Postage imprinted on an R-label; internet stamps
A table designed to show that it is frequently easy to determine the language of a piece of Cyrillic text just by observing which alphabetic letters have been employed: Russian, Belorussian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian & Croatian.
Two such covers are examined: one written on 21 June 1955, the other postmarked Kazachinskoye 13 December 1955.
A detailed article first published in ‘Postal History’ 355 (September 2015), the journal of the Postal History Society, reprinted by kind permission of both the editor and author.
A survey of the conveniently sized product of the Deutsche Post AG branded ‘Marken-Set’ containing (normally) ten postage stamps.
This article first appeared in Collector’s Club Philatelist 95/1 (Jan-Feb 2016), the journal of the Collectors Club of New York. We are grateful for permission to reprint it as a continuation of ‘1914 – The first war year’ and ‘1915 – The second war year’ (in Germania 50/3 and 51/3). The events of 1916 are here illustrated by picture cards and
covers.
The article gives details of rates with illustrated examples for the various classes of letter post to countries that enjoyed concessionary rates less than the full UPU rates charged for mail to the rest of the world.
The author shows various uprated postal stationery cards with Germania imprints which have had one or more of the multiple imprints punched out leaving large holes. Read the article for the reason
why.
Interesting snippets about: an early joint issue with Venezuela; an unusual joint issue with Spain; significant dates of issue for definitives; Thurn & Taxis Post.
A registered cover sent on 29 December 1929 from Taganrog to Danzig with a 5 kopek philatelic exchange tax stamp on the back. The system of exchange is explained.
The post offices at the above-named places were opened on 22 November 1888 and 27 August 1890 respectively. The author illustrates and explains a number of covers from these short-lived post offices and the Zanzibar postal agency following the relinquishment by Germany of all rights in Lamu, Wituland and Zanzibar in exchange for the British colony of Heligoland.
In the article ‘Postage rate increase of 50 per cent, Part 1: 1 August 1916’ in Vol 51/1 a question was put about the reason for an unissued 4Pf Germania stamp. A member provides the answer in this
article.
Using illustrations of mainly DDR stamps the author tells the story of the infamous Reichstag fire on 27 February 1933.
This part of the article gives an overview of the procedures used by the various German postal administrations from 1872 to the present day to deal with postage due on both inland and foreign mail.
Research into two covers from a Jugendschutzlager inmate reveals details of a concentration camp in Moringen which had closed in 1937, but which was reopened in June 1940 as a camp for delinquent or otherwise undesirable (‘asoziale’) boys.
A Wagner publicity sheet with additional inscription gives rise to the question ‘Has anyone seen anything similar?’
The message dated 20 December 1939 on a card written to one sister to another in Soviet-annexed Poland whose husband was a second lieutenant in the Polish army, one of those listed among the some 15,000 Polish POWs, mainly officers, executed in what is known as the Crime of Katyn.
This article originally appeared in Michel Rundschau 1/2011 and is reproduced in translation by kind permission of both author and publisher. The article covers the technical and postal aspects of markings found in the margins of postwar German sheets of stamps, with some relevance to pre-war ones as well.
DDR stamps with column numbers in ‘bottom’ margin. The date in a postmark is not always what it seems.
An almanac of 1804 shows the number and variety of posts the operating in the city. A full translation is given which is especially useful as some of the old German terms are obscure.
This article on an unusual theme captures one double sheet from a recent display given by the author.
Letters and postcards intended for forwarding on zeppelin flights were sent to post offices in outer envelopes which on arrival were usually discarded. Thus examples have rarely survived.
This part of the article now concentrates on foreign mail and how postage due was calculated. Also covered are redirected mail, returned mail, Entlastet (discharged) mail, excluded mail and the maritime surcharge. A very useful summary of the UPU procedures for postage-due on foreign mail is set out by year and venue of relevant UPU Congresses.
A particular Wertbriefe is used as an example to explain how such insured letters should be treated.
This article was originally published as No.1 of a series of sectional catalogues by the Society’s now defunct German Seals Study Group in October 20003, and is reprinted by kind permission of the author. Some 250 German words (or abbreviations) and their meanings are provided.
Booklet Mi. MH5 could be considered one of the dullest booklets of the Germania period. Looking behind the façade, however, a lot of interesting details emerge, as this profusely illustrated study shows.
Individual Germans have emigrated to all corners
of the globe for centuries but more recently some have come together to establish colonies in the countries they settled in. The covers illustrated bear witness to three such settlements in South America: Hohenau and Fernheim in Paraguay and Blumenau in Brazil.
On 19 February 1923 the German Post Office issued a set of three stamps (Mi. 258-60) to raise funds to support Germans affected by the ‘Rhein Ruhr Crisis’. The author relates the interesting story behind these stamps .
More insights for the collector: a visible coil change; two printings of Heinrich Heine; label number
1000.
Kinderlandverschickung (KLV) translates as ‘despatch of children to the countryside’. A postal stationery card message from the camp leader at KLV.-Lager Kloster Pielonhofen über Regensburg-Land reassures a sick girl’s parents that she will soon recover.
In this part the following are examined: ‘Return-to-sender-for deficit’ [Nachfrankierung] and ‘Add-deficit-and-bill-sender’ [Portoergänzung] in which a ghost is laid to rest: ‘Hold-while-sender-billed’ [Nachtaxierung]
The final part of this comprehensive survey looks at the circumstances giving rise to postage due: 1. Posted unfranked intentional or otherwise, or labelled ‘Feldpost’ but rejected as such, or unfranked Feldpost mail to addresses abroad. 2. Posted underfranked due to an insufficient rate for its weight, the wrong category of mail, at local rate but addressed further afield, at inland rate but addressed abroad, and franked at an out-of-date
rate.
The 2Pf postal stationery card was sent on 26 May 1901 to Ragama Camp, Ceylon but franked with a 10Pf stamp sufficient to pay the postage.
Sending mail in tube form (Rollenform): details include illustrations of some of the special self-adhesive stamps for this service.
This article first appeared in Collector’s Club Philatelist 96/1 (Jan-Feb 2017), the journal of the Collectors Club of New York. We are grateful for permission to reprint it as a continuation of previous articles. The events of 1917 are here illustrated by picture cards and covers.
The unissued 2016 Christmas stamp
An accumulation of 12 items of correspondence could be taken to reveal a little of the uncertainties and difficulties faced by so many Poles during the war. In this instance the addressee appears to have been part of the Free Polish Army Group in Babadag near the Black Sea coast. From the evidence of a postcard sent c/o PO Box 506 in Lisbon (a Thomas Cook & Co post office box) it seems the addressee had found his way by 1940 to
the UK.
A wonderful postcard sent from Berlin on 11 December 1913 takes the ‘notable date’ genre to a new level.
This continuation to the final (!) part of this survey covers reasons for postage due being charged such as mail with writing in the wrong place, wrong size, wrong material, not inscribed ‘postcard’, items adhering to the card, stamps on the picture side and reply-paid card still attached. Also covered are aspects of redirected mail.
The various Post Office, stamped-to-order and private issues are described in detail. Two tables provide analyses of the frequency of PO wrappers found on eBay over a 13½ year period and eBay sales transactions of wrappers of Bavaria made between March 2006 and February 2017.
A sender faced problems in sending a postcard on 16 October 1923 from Nennig (Mosel) to Brussels when the post office provided him with 36 copies of the 250 thousand mark stamp (MiNr. 295) to frank it with.
As one example of postal warfare, the Deutsche Bundespost Reichstag stamp of 1986 was objected to by the DDR which returned any letters addressed to the DDR bearing this stamp. Various cachets were added by the the Federal authorities to explain to the sender why the letter had been returned.
A DDR stamp issued on 7 November 1958 was described at the time in the above derogatory way and was quickly invalidated. The accompanying special first day cancel was also withdrawn at 2pm on the day of issue.
Mail home from French POWs had to be directed to the occupied or unoccupied zones of France as appropriate. This article provides new research on the variety of handstamps used for this purpose.
This part covers fees for special handling
un[der]paid mail in the following categories: inland express delivery; special-handling specified but
un[der]paid; addressed ‘Poste restante’ but the fee not prepaid; parcel with delivery charge not prepaid.
A commercial letter sent from Berlin on 22 July 1914 via Bombay-Bushire to Shiraz but the addressee had moved way. On its return it was passed by the censor in Bombay then lodged in the Bombay Dead Letter Office where it was held for
5½ years.
A very rare Bill of Lading bearing 25 revenue stamps is analysed, as well as two ‘Segel-Erlaubnis-Schein’ (sailing permits), one with a 0.125 rupie stamp and the other with a 12½ heller stamp.
The cover, postmarked on 5 August 1918, which did not need to be franked if a genuine fieldpost item was franked with three ordinary Germania stamps and a bisected one. The address in Glogau is incomplete.
Various stamps from Germany and Greece illustrate short biographies of the above two archaeologists.
Further miscellanea: international reply coupons not exchanged for stamps; German language on South West Africa stamps.
Postcards from both WW1 & WW2 illustrate the vital role carried out by these dogs.
After the official end of the war in Europe the newly liberated Czechoslovakia continued to use the Hitler definitives until 16 May, as also in some remote areas like the so-called ‘Free Schwarzenberg Republic’ in western Saxony.
In the early 1900s the Norddeutscher Lloyd of Bremen set up an agency in the small fishing town of Velas on the island of São Jorge. Passengers on passing ships which did not have the pre-arranged services of agencies could risk sending mail deposited in buoys or barrels, together with money or gifts, to be picked up by local fishermen.
This part deals with mail franked with invalid stamps: whether out of date, used before their official date of issue, not approved for foreign mail, reserved for a different use, of the wrong postal administration, non-postage stamps, postal stationery, cut-outs, bisects, inadequate stamps (e.g. a poor impression of a meter mark), or already used stamps.
Information on the ‘Spendenmarken mit Frankaturkraft’ stamps found at the back of the DDR section of the Michel Deutschland-Spezial catalogue. Regular postage stamps were issued for the tenth World Festival of Youth and Students, Berlin 1973 as well as a pair of stamps with a fund-raising premium for advance publicity followed by five stamps and a miniature sheet.
Since creating a Railway Mail Catalogue in 1975 only two examples have appeared of a postmark for this TPO. One of them on a cover is illustrated and described with timetable and routing information.
Information on the purpose and use of Innendienstmarken in Prussia, the North German Postal District, the German Empire and the Free City of Danzig.
This article first appeared in The Collectors Club Philatelist 97/2 (March–April 2018), the journal of the Collectors Club of New York. We are grateful for permission to reprint it as a continuation of ‘1917 – The fourth war year’ (in Germania 53/3).The events of 1918 are here illustrated by picture cards and covers.
From 20 April 1923 there was a daily airmail service from Cologne to Croydon operated by the British airline ‘Instone Air Line’. The service continued throughout the winter of 1923-24. The article provides a detailed explanation of the applicable inflation airmail surcharges.
The author offers some moving research into a number of postcards sent by Polish officers held in Soviet camps.
A look at the Sports Promotion fund stamps issued by Germany on 3 May this year entitled ‘Legendary football games’.
This part concludes its analysis of mail franked with invalid stamps then looks at mail where the fee is necessarily paid by the recipient as well as some miscellaneous aspects of postage-due. To be continued.
Following on from the article in the previous issue a postcard mailed to Lwów from the Polish officers’ camp at Kozielsk which was liquidated by the Soviet NKVD between 1 March and 3 May 1940.
The conclusion of this series deals with Post Office mistakes, distinguishing between ‘return to sender for deficit’ and ‘add deficit and bill sender’ mail items, and lastly cancellations used on stamps added by the post office.
Starting with the stamp issued for West Berlin on 7 May 1949 the author takes the reader through the life and times of the politician who for a time from 1926 was responsible for a major integration of the public transport system in Berlin.
An Absenderfreistempel (firm’s meter mark) cover of the Vereinigte Sauerstoffwerke (United Oxygen Works) with an interesting cachet: In Auflösung.
Alfred Goldammer produced some of the most iconic stamp designs of the immediate postwar period in West Berlin philately.
A chance find in a dealer’s box not recognized by the dealer as having been addressed to the graphic artist and stamp designer Erich Meerwald.
Four postcards are shown all paid at different rates. Which one is franked correctly?
More on Innendienstmarken; Berlin W and NW post offices in East Berlin.
Errors in the inscriptions and double prints in DDR stamps; ‘the wrong emperor’ on a 1995 Germany issue.
A postcard posted on board the above warship on 12 July 1900 whilst at Gibraltar sets the author off on a fascinating journey of research and seeking out collateral items. The article includes useful detail on the general rules of the Deutsche Marine-Schiffspost.
This is an update on part of an article published in Germania 49/2 (May 2013). More detail is now given on the Bavarian labels as well as some information on unusual usages in October 1938 and the winter of 1943–44.
The official order card for the stamps, accompanying booklet and postal stationery card also included information on the main purpose(s) of each denomination. The author shows cards and covers for each of these and more. There are some lovely items here. The article is supplemented by a useful table of principal postage rates during the period of validity of the stamps.
Bargain covers from Ebay: 22 September 1938 from Prague to ‘The King of England’ and 28 September 1938 from Heilbronn to ‘Ministerpräsident Chamberlain’.
The item in question is a piece of fabric which was part of a bag or package sent via parcel post on 18 November 1915 and is a rare survivor.
Information on the Sorbs of Lusatia; a political slogan on a German stamp issued in 1900.
A seemingly unremarkable card celebrates a key event in the history of modern chemistry.
The relevant officially published information from Amtsblätter provides detail on the usage of these stamps not otherwise easy to find.
Some notes on a postal stationery card and slogan postmark.
The first part of this in-depth article deals with the first three booklets. The article is profusely illustrated and provides some fascinating background information about the companies advertising on the booklet pane covers, interleaves and se-tenant labels.
A cover addressed to ‘Stettin’ on 25 February 1946 by then Szczecin in Poland and a card sent to Schweidnitz on 18 April 1946 are both returned to sender whilst another addressed to Waldenburg on 7 March 1947 appears to have been delivered.
Detailed information on the camp posts and stamps of Oflag II-C Woldenberg, Oflag II-D Gross-Born, Oflag II-E Neubrandenburg & Oflag VII-A Murnau.
Booklet 4 is dealt with in this part.
If ever there was an unlikely postal procedure in WWII this must surely be it! For a few months only around the end of 1944 the mail of French POWs held in some German prison camps was addressed as shown above. A most interesting article with analysis of a number of POW sendings.
Every year from 2004 to 2018 Deutsche Post has issued a pair of stamps showing lighthouses from around the country. This year (2019) the pattern has been broken with just one stamp in a different format issued. The author takes this opportunity to review what has been issued so far and what is available to collect.
Some significant increases and changes are highlighted.
The only recorded example of a 1902 post office wrapper sent to Little Popo prompts research into the dark, slave trade history of the area but the details of the addressee Messrs Lebau & Witt still elude the author... who can help ?
As an appendix to the article in Vol.55/2 ‘Mail to the Polish provinces 1946-7’, this article shows some propaganda regarding the Oder-Neisse line, a card demanding payment from a former German grocery which was returned as no postal connection was available at the time and a letter from a stamp dealer in GB to another in Gdańsk which was returned as the addressee’s house had been burnt down.
Readers further contributions to the piece in the May issue on the same subject include stamps showing attractive folk costumes, a puzzling set of labels and bilingual postmarks.
Extraordinary revelations on some poor condition concentration camp mail kept in a ‘rubbish’ box for 30 years make for a salutary lesson: never write off a cover as trash before you’ve fully researched it....
This illuminating account of the Dienstpost and Deutsche Post Osten services will certainly assist collectors in understanding covers from occupied Poland in WW2.
Information on both the ‘coffin issues’ of Marienwerder and on Saar stamps with and without inscriptions.
This article first appeared in the August 2019 issue of Deutsche Post, the journal of Filatelistenvereniging Duitsland, and is reprinted with permission. These stamps were in the end never needed as they were produced in case of a second blockade of Berlin similar to the one that give rise to the famous Luftbrücke in 1949. A most interesting and little-known story.
In this part the author examines Dienstpost covers from the early wartime provinces of Oberschlesien, Danzig-Westpreussen and the Wartheland.
Part 1: Two services grow together
In this first part the author focuses on the development of Postal Advances from its roots in Prussia and Cash on Delivery from its roots in Baden. Postvorschuss letters and Auslagen handstamps are explained.
A Treaty was concluded between Austria and Prussia on 6 April 1850 regarding the foundation of a German-Austrian Postal Union to come into effect from 1 July that year. The author has done a great service to those English-speakers trying to understand 19th-century postal history by translating the entire Treaty into English for promulgation in Germania.
Following on from an article in the last issue on the Sorbs of Lusatia the author shows two postmarks from Burg in the Spreewald.
A consequence of the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944 was that German troops on the Channel Islands had no means of sending letters home. Instead, use was made of radio messages being sent home to their families via the naval base at Wilhelmshaven: one such message, transcribed to a postcard, is shown in this article.
Starting in 1909 in Berlin C2 post office machines were installed to enable people to post registered letters directly without having to interact with a postal clerk. This article tells the story of this relatively short-lived facility.
The author describes the beginnings of the Postnachnahme service in 1878 and the regulations regarding its operation. The changes made from 1888 and further evolution are explained. A number of COD letters and Nachnahme cards are
illustrated.
Typically gaudy FDCs have become a blight on the market ! The author, however, shows many examples of the real thing, starting from 1 January 1875, some found in the £1 box!
Military mail handled by the Dienstpost was delivered free of charge in occupied Poland. Early civilian mail, on the other hand, carried by the Dienstpost, attracted the same postal charges as mail carried by the Reichspost in Germany. The author explains the use of the ‘Deutsche Post Osten’ overprinted stamps, ‘Frei durch Ablösung Reich’ usage and the General Government official postage stamps.
At last the author has found an example which he has sought for many years.
A postcard showing the Technische Hochschule in Danzig with the ship’s cachet alongside the stamps turns out to reveal a very interesting fund-raising event held at the university on 2 December 1923.
German reunification: a philatelic enrichment: for 1991 Deutsche Post DDR had already prepared several stamp issues but with unification a new situation had arisen so these issues were integrated into the Deutsche Bundespost programme.
The author makes some interesting further observations on the inscriptions on the Saar 1952/5 definitives following on from the ‘Did you know ...?’ article in the February 2020 issue of
Germania.
A really bad example of a forged overprint – Buy your philatelic accessories from the Society and you too could make a fortune ! – An interesting card from Warsaw in February 1916.
A postcard from Berlin to Viborg, written in Swedish on 20 March 1940, a week after the Soviet-Finnish treaty was signed is eventually returned to Berlin by the Leningrad dead-letter office.
The regulations to differentiate between official mail and ordinary post-office mail are explained. Examples of official Dienstpost stationery are shown, including for local government agencies and associated organisations. The transfer to the Deutsche Post Osten is described. This part concludes with a fine cover illustrating how the General Government was represented in Berlin.
The system of use of Kriegsgefangenen-Lagergeld is explained.
A fragment of a parcel wrapping airmailed from Berlin on 1 October 1941 shows that the weight was 760g and the postage, paid for in cash, without stamps, was 234.10 RM.
A number of stamps, mainly from the DDR, prompt the author to chronicle the life of the sculptor, graphic artist and writer Ernst Barlach (1870-1938). In 1934 Barlach was among the 37 artists signing an appeal of trust and loyalty to Hitler. Nevertheless, many of his works were called entartet (degenerate) and removed form public
view.
A DDR philatelic cover bears cachets of both Lufthansa (the short-lived DDR rival set up in 1956) and Interflug (which succeeded it on 1958). This prompts the author to provide some illuminating narrative on the resumption of German air services after WWII.
From 1955 to about 1970 Deutsche Post DDR produced stamp booklets containing various definitives, then from 1971 containing Sondermarken. The booklets generally had a colourful cover. The same cover can be found with different contents. The author shows how these readily and cheaply available stamp booklets can form the basis of a most attractive collection.
A very interesting selection of covers, including a rare registered Feldpost cover from the Guernsey Organisation Todt, are reproduced here by kind permission of the Channel Islands’ Specialist Society.
A useful guide to the differences between ‘very fine used’, ‘fine used’, ’good used’ and ‘average used’ with special references to the inflation period, and forgeries on AM-Post stamps along the way.
(i) Early blister packs: information regarding a pilot scheme in 2005 for selling packs of stamps in Postpoints and chain stores; (ii) The Mark values for the 1951/2 Posthorns: when the Posthorn definitives, issued from June 1951, superseded the 1948 Buildings series, the Mark values continued to be sold and only became invalid on the same day as the Posthorns: January 1955.
This part shows the activities of the Department for People’s Enlightenment including the artful Germanising of Polish postcards, and their pervasive influence over newspapers, the theatre and the film industry.
A letter addressed to Maschinengefreiter Herbert Walter which missed the departure of the Bismarck on its fateful last trip, and a postcard to Walter in a POW camp in Northumberland reveal that he was one of the 115 only out of 2,221 who survived.
Just six days before the Soviet army took the city and elderly Polish gentleman writes a quite extraordinarily unconcerned postcard to Switzerland...
This detailed study, breaking new ground, examines various different types of Norditalien, Suditalien, Deutschbesetztes Gebiet, and Feindbesetztes Gebiet handstamps on POW cards.
The 30th anniversary of German reunification took place on 3 October 2020 prompting the author to review what happened thirty years ago from a postal perspective. All this makes for a very interesting collecting subject.
A remarkable letter transforms what could be considered a piece of philatelic trash into a collectable item of real live postal history, a Zeitdokument.
Two interesting returned items are shown: (i) a letter posted on 4 February 1991 in Reichertshausen, north of Munich, to either Iraq or Kuwait during the First Gulf War; and (ii) a printed matter card sent from Westphalia on 26 June 1947, Kreis Soldin Neumark where the sender failed to realise that the locality was now in Poland.
A survey of the many designers and engravers on these beautiful stamps.
A continuation of the article started in Vols. 53/2, 55/2, & 55/3. In this part booklets 7 to 12 are covered in detail with a brief mention of booklet 6.
Three covers – from the 1930s/1940s and 1950s – reveal human stories of turbulent times.
The story of the light cruiser, built in 1905, and her destruction by the Royal navy on 11 July 1915 in German East African waters. The purser’s stock of stamps was salvaged. Details of their distribution and use were given in an article in Germania in 1986 (Vol. 22/5).
This article shows that close attention to the sheet margins of stamps could open up a fascinating new collecting interest.
Various covers and cards illustrate the roles of the judiciary and the different sorts of German police units operating in German-occupied Poland: the Ordnungspolizei (an umbrella organisation comprising a number of elements) and the Sicherheitspolizei.
unfortunately the cover states Vol 58/2 in error
First German stamps with a QR code/ Blue postmarks/ Two printers for the self-adhesive ‘digital change’ stamp and other items.
Special handstamps on ‘Postsache’ covers/ ‘Capsule money’ (Kapselgeld)/ POW mail is still free/ German High Command in 1915.
A continuation of the article started in Vols. 53/2, 55/2, 55/3 & 57/1. In this part booklets 10 to 12 are covered in detail.
A short history of the letter card, a type of postal stationery with perforated or pierced edge strips which are partially gummed.
An extended version of an article that first appeared in both the Postage Due Mail Study Group Journal (No.91, Sept. 2019) and in Postscript, the journal of the Society of Postal Historians (No. 297, Autumn 2019). This article explains what might otherwise be very puzzling postage due calculations.
A classic example of postal items not being what they seem to be at first glance.
These were very unusual pictorial datestamps promoting the pre-eminence of the clock and watchmaking manufacture and precision engineering in Glashütte, Saxony.
The German Jewish name of the addressee of a cover sent from Switzerland to Cuba in 1943 leads to a discovery of the family commemorated as part of the Stolpersteine (‘stumble stones’) project, the nickname given to inscribed brass bricks set unto the pavements of many German cities commemorating Jews who lived at the adjacent premises and who were deported to their deaths by the Nazis. The website www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de/en is an eye-opener in German/English on the everyday chicanery suffered by Germany’s Jews during the Third Reich and their fates.
This part explains the administration of the Post Office showing examples of printed stationery and handstamps. There is also information on communication systems and financial services.
Fourteen items are illustrated and analysed giving a good overview of how the German censor and postal services treated picture postcards during WWII between the German Reich and the Netherlands.
The first part of this article appeared in this journal in 2013 (Vol. 49/2) and took the story of German international return-to-sender labels from its inception in 1886-87 up to World War I. A second article dealt with Bavarian labels alone (Vol. 55/1). Here the story continues until the end of World War II with some updates in the earlier period.
This article provides a succinct and beautifully illustrated overview of the historical background, the postal story, currencies, design and development of the breast-shield stamps, and the introduction of the unified mark/pfennig currency. An Annex deals with the posts in the North German Confederation in late 1867.
Outline information is given about the following aspects: the Chief of the German Military Medical Services Otto von Schjerning, the organisation of medical services, cachets of medical companies and war, field and reserve hospitals.
Three diverse topics are covered: the catapult ship Westfalen, German support for the Boers and the National Assembly 1919 (National versammlung).
Intaglio dies prepared using two different techniques – the Composers’ anniversaries set of 1935 is used as an example of mixed engraving and etching techniques.
The author comprehensively demonstrates that claimed ‘Bergedorf 1 Schilling 1861 reprint proofs’ as well as many others including of Hamburg and Bavaria stamps are completely bogus.
A number of DDR and other stamps highlight the demonstrations for peace in 1917 and 1918 by insurgent German sailors as well as the political roles played from 1917-1922 by Philipp Scheidemann, Matthias Erzberger (assassinated 26 August 1921) , and Walther Rathenau (assassinated 24 June 1922). A very useful chronological table of events is appended to the article.
For Germans the mail service was allowed by the Allies at various dates after the end of the war, initially for official bodies and vital institutions, and only later for the general public and then only within their own occupation area. It was not until 1 April 1946 that mail for foreign countries was permitted. This comprehensive article is profusely illustrated with covers from 1945 to 1948.
In this part the author shows now the Nazi determination to destroy Polish culture impacted on children’s and higher education and research establishments.
A detailed study of the printings, secret engraver’s marks, proofs and essays, official reprints, forgeries and cancels.
The mail items discussed cover banking, taxation, pensions, and customs and border protection in the General Government.
This article which covers booklets 13 to 15, is a continuation of ‘The 3 Mark Germania booklets’ in Germania 57/1 (February 2021) and 57/2 (May 2021). Amongst the main illustrations is a two-page spread showing a superb complete printing sheet of the stamps from which booklets were formed.
A pre-inflation official postal stationery card was used as a formular card to collect a fee for tracing a postal payment (Laufzettelgebühr).
The raid ended in the destruction of the airship with all lives lost including that of the commander Max Dietrich, uncle of the famous singer and actress Marlene Dietrich.
This article was originally published in Deutsche Post in 2009 and is reprinted with permission, translated by the author.
The letter to Erich Honecker is dated 8 November 1972 and is essentially a cry for help for better housing from a DDR citizen.
German new issue programme for 2023, German letter rates from 1 January 2023, the new ‘World of Letters’ definitives and new values of the Flower definitives
(1) Solidarity with West Berlin – a postcard mailed in Munich on 6 September 1962 with two Brandenburg Gate stamps over and above the 10Pf postcard rate. (2) A wrapper for Hitler blocks (Michel Block 8). (3) Not delivered at first attempt – a registered cover posted in Gotha on 2 October 1990, the last day that DDR stamps on the old eastern currency were valid.
– a tribute to the last surviving of the three co-founders of our Society, who died in February 2022 with a detailed account of his superb organisation of the Society’s first Germania Posta exhibition and convention in 1964.
Following the German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, the USSR attacked an all but defeated Poland on the 17th of that month. In April 1940 the USSR issued a set of stamps inscribed ‘Liberation of our fraternal peoples in west Ukraine and west Byelorussia, 17.IX.1939’. The article goes on to illustrate cards and stamps associated with the internal displacement of people within Poland and the evacuation of ethnic Germans from Soviet territory.
A detailed examination of booklet 15 of November 1921 and the sheets of stamps used for producing the booklet panes. Some examples of covers with postage from booklet 15 are also shown.
On 1 May 1896 Kaiser Wilhelm II attended the grand opening of the Berlin Industrial Exhibition in Berlin’s Treptow Park. The exhibition ran until 15 October. It was advertised internationally and received over 7.4 million visitors. The article tells the story beautifully illustrated with a rich array postcards, postal stationery, ‘Berliner Packetfahrt’ stamps and postmarks.
An interesting 10Pf Bavarian postal stationery card sent to a camp at Mikra in the south of Thessaloniki and addressed to a rifleman from the Bavarian Rifle Regiment No.15.
In this concluding part the author examines mail connected with the expropriation of Polish businesses and management of the economy to bolster German’s war effort. This excellent series of articles has described how the Dienstpost was introduced and developed and has illustrated the most illuminating participants in the service.
A postcard with a rubber stamp to explain it was salvaged from a train accident near Ottersberg, Hannover on 30 December 1906.
Two covers are shown: (i) from Hamburg with a rubber stamp to explain it was salvaged from an aircraft accident on 27 March 1937 in Peru and (ii) from Porto Alegre to Nürnberg from an aircraft which crashed into the sea on 27 October 1937.
(1) Orange triangular labels inscribed ‘Nachnahme’ and the significance of the numbers in the triangular handstamps. (2) Numeric postmarks in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. (3) No ‘j’ as a distinguishing letter in a postmark.
The goal of the article is to help collectors identify the Michel-listed colours of the stamps of the old German state of Prussia. This part deals with Michel nos. 1 to 13 (1850 to 1860).
As the article illustrates, the above Berlin private postal company issued some interesting and attractive postal stationery not just in 1888 but also to mark the 10-year jubilee in 1898 of Kaiser Wilhelm II.
Individual state administrations and other official bodies could contract with the Reichspost to provide then with franking privileges. The administration in Schaumburg-Lippe (today part of Lower Saxony) signed the eighth such contract, effective from 1 July 1871.
The authors show a semi-humorous postcard, evidently no.254 of a series produced in Leipzig, which was mailed to the sender’s parents in Strassburg in 1898.
the author puts into context the last days of the hyperinflation, the introduction of the Rentenmark and then on 30 August 1924 Germany’s return to the gold standard and the new Reichsmark.
As far as the author is awre the illustrated postmark is the only one used in Germany. The postmark concerned the ‘IDAD: Festspiele des Ostdeutschtums’, the Festival of Eastern Germans, held in Heidelberg 24-31 October 1948.
This article was first published in Vorläufer, the journal of the German Colonies Collectors Group, issues 190 (June 2019) to 192 (June 2020), and is published here with kind permission of their editor, and the author. It is a very thorough and illuminating overview of the stamp issues, thus a great incentive to start collecting this fascinating facet of German philately.
...as evidenced by a post office in Lüchow taking exception to a political label attached to a letter sent from Holzkirchen in January 1985.
A cover where the surname of both sender and addressee was Kaiser Blüth, leads the author’s research to the expropriation of a Jewish business and Theresienstadt concentration camp.
Three damaged stamps on a censored letter from Vienna to New York on 18 December 1939 might indicate that the Frankfurt censor attempted to lift the stamps looking for a secret message.
The article concludes with Michel nos. 14 to 26 (1861 to 1867)
This part deals with the German offices in the Ottoman Empire, Imperial China and Morocco.
A Post-Insinuations-Dokument, also known as a Post-Behändigungs-Schein or Documentum Insinuations, is a certificate of delivery of a letter sent by a court and returned by post to the court.
A very useful survey of the history behind perfins, how they were punched into stamps and the different kinds of designs.
An unassuming WWII cover turns out to be full of interest due to its ‘aborted censorship’, meter mark, and the historical value of the complete letter inside.
Following on from an article in the previous issue this article offers more attractive pictorial postcards from WWI German soldiers.
A variety of postal markings on a cover front from Neraditz über Bischofswerda (Sachsen) to Belgium reveals unusual usage particularly with regard to censorship.
The International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva provided the author with much valuable information with regard to a cover carried on the SS Vega to Guernsey in WWII.
Eagle-eyed collectors of Automatenmarken might wish to look out for the rare stamps described here which were dispensed for a short time only from failed experimental machines from mid-December 2018 to 12/13 June 2019.
A letter posted in Switzerland on 18 August 1920 addressed to Smolensk was returned because of a lack of proper postal communications across land to the east of Germany in the aftermath of the Russian revolution.
The tale is about some detective work regarding, and the analysis of, a selection of covers sent between the island of Helgoland and the artificial island of Steinwärder in the harbour area of Hamburg.
This part deals with the German colonies of Kamerun, German New Guinea, Togo, German Southwest Africa, the Marshall Islands, German East Africa, Kiautschou, the Caroline Islands, the Mariana Islands, & Samoa.
This first part in a survey of different types of meter marks deals with the Post Office meter marks (Post-Freistempel) encompassing those of Württemberg, Bavaria, and Reichspost and the inflation.
A letter-card posted in Buenos Aires on 5 November 1923 to Leipzig was franked only at the domestic rate rather than the foreign rate. The author shows how the resultant postage due of 374 milliarden marks was calculated, that’s 374,000,000,000.00 (paper) marks!
Both Käthe (misspelt Käte on the 10+5Pf stamp MiNr. 984) and her husband Felix were executed in 1943 by the Nazis as members of a resistance group.
Deutsche Post has issued various stamps featuring optical illusions but there is another not widely noticed: West Berlin 1988 80Pf (Mi.Nr. 800)on which the bear’s head appears in parts to be in front of the lettering and the rest behind.
Where persons were officially cleared through de-nazification trials they received a card declaring that ‘On the basis of information provided on your application form you are not affected by the 5 March 1946 Law on Liberation from National Socialism and Militarism’. Such cards were jokingly referred to as the ‘Persil-Schein’ – it washed recipients as clean as Persil soap powder!
This, the first of three parts, provides a detailed and well-illustrated account of the wartime start of the inflation 1916-18, to the founding of the Weimar Republic and years of some currency stability in 1920/21; then the rapid depreciation of the mark and how the Reichspost dealt with inflation during the period August to December 1922.
As well as the historical context, a number of highly interesting mail items are shown in this article due to sealed borders, seizure, censored and returned to sender, illegally taken across the border by diplomatic bag or otherwise smuggled. Postal cachets, markings and rates are explained in this fascinating article which was the subject of a display given to our London Group on 7 December 2020.
It states in the Michel catalogue that the set of four overprinted Germania stamps released in August 1921 (MiNr. 154-7) had a last day of validity of 31 October 1922 but this was not the whole story...
The survey continues with more Post Office meter marks including those of the Saar Territory, the Free City of Danzig, the Anschluss of Austria, Luxembourg and then postwar types. Examples of mistakes and errors and other items of interest are also shown.
The two 27 x 17mm cachets in question were used respectively in the Trier and Coblenz censorship offices and are not to be confused with the later 1919 ones size 30 x 18mm.
This major piece of research should provide collectors with valuable insights into rates and markings on foreign parcel cards of the period.
This part describes what the author terms ‘the descent into madness’ and the various ways in which the Reichspost dealt with the inflation, including cash payments and the burning of stamps instead of affixing them to official envelopes!
One is Jungholz in Alsace which was returned to France after the First World War becoming Jungholtz. The other is in Tyrol which became part of Germany after the Anschluss. Illustrated by a nice selection of cards and covers.
In this part the author examines sender meter marks (Absender-Freistempel) from their beginnings until 1945.
Some interesting observations on early postal stationery of the ‘PFENNIG’ issue.
Continuing this occasional series (part 6 was in Vol. 58/3) the author illustrates a poignant part parcel card dated 17.9.1940 from Konzentrationslager Dachau Gef[angenen] Eig[entum] Verwaltung (administration of prisoners’ belongings) concerning the return of the effects of Jak[ob], Isr[ael] Vexler, born 6.4.01.
Continuing from the previous issue, this annex provides a series of tables of exchange rates for different uses (parcel, insurance fees, telegrams) with highly detailed notes on sources.
This part deals with the path to recovery and the introduction of the Rentenmark.
This part continues with sender meter marks from incorporated, annexed and occupied territories – The Saar territory, Free City of Danzig, Anschluss of Austria, Sudetenland, the Protectorate of Bohemia & Moravia, Generalgouvernement, Luxembourg and Latvia.
A potted history of the party is given illustrated by some unusual fundraising vignettes.
A postcard sent on 19 March 1921, the day before the plebiscite, has a blatantly partisan postmark reading: ‘BRESLAU DEUTSCHER SCHUTZBUND ABSTIMMUNG O.S.’
Marking the centenary of the issue on 25 February 1924 of the first stamps for the benefit of the Deutsche Nothilfe (German Emergency Aid) organisation, the author explains the context and background to the design with special reference to four of the wall medallions in the Elisabeth Gallery in the Wartburg.
This part continues with sender meter marks from the end of WWII till reunification in 1990.
These short biographies with historical background are illustrated with various DDR and Bundespost stamps and special cancels as well as from other countries.
Two tables show (i) the current low-value definitives at the start of the Third Reich and (ii) Weimar stamps and stationery still valid in the Third Reich. Profusely illustrated.
This part continues with more meter marks from the end of WWII till reunification in 1990 – West Berlin, Saar, Saarland, the Soviet Zone (SBZ) and the German Democratic Republic (DDR).
As exemplified by the three ‘omnibus’ issues: the Bicentenary of the birth of Goethe, the 75th anniversary of the Universal Postal Union, the Centenary of the first German stamps.
The history of the clinic is illustrated with covers from German soldiers in both world wars. Incongruously, a Jewish clinic, Etania, founded in 1921, also remained in Davos throughout WWII and into the early 21st century. A picture of this is also shown.
The history of the Verein für das Deutschtum im Ausland (VDA) is illustrated by a number of ‘Cinderellas’ and postcards it used to raise awareness of the organisation and to raise funds to support their activities.
A detailed analysis of the availability over the period 2011-21 from internet auction sites of wrappers from German Post Office issues, Bavaria, Württemberg, the Levant, Morocco, North German Postal District and German Eastern Military Command.
This part contains updates to the previous articles and provides details of old labels after WWII, then provisional and new labels with particular references to Großräschen, Saarland, Bavaria & Württemberg.
The survey of sender meter marks continues with a wealth of illustrations of mainly 1960s-80s German covers with some earlier ones.
A thought-provoking article on how to “ignite a passion in others” through collecting. The author demonstrates his own enjoyable research into German postal history from 1945 to 1949 illustrated with covers from both East and West Saxony, Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
