Arraigning a German surrender at the end of World War II is a messy business. In the city of Trieste, it involved a dachsund dog in Switzerland, Allied Generals play acting as Irish businessmen, 40 days of terror, and an eight year post war military occupation to get the city back to Italy. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
This stamp is sort of a dual issue of Italy and the then Free Territory of Trieste. It was issued in concert with a stamp show in Trieste to ruffle fewer feathers. The flag shows where things would be headed two years later.
Todays stamp is issue A337, a 25 Lira stamp issued by Italy, and sometimes overprinted for use in Trieste on June 28th, 1952. It was a single stamp issue. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $1.20. If this stamp had the Free Territory of Trieste overprint, the value goes to $4.00.
Trieste had been a gateway to the Adriatic for Austria Hungary. The city though contained even then many Italians. After the First World War it was given to Italy. After Mussolini fell from power, the area came under German occupation. As German fortunes declined, an attempt was made to lessen casualties and negotiate a separate surrender of German forces. Two allied generals, one British and one American traveled to Switzerland in the guise of Irish businessmen. The purpose of the “Irish” trip was for one to acquire a dachshund dog named Fritzel. The actual purpose of Operation Fritzel was a four way meeting between the two Allied Generals, the American Secretary of State and Karl Wolf the Supreme SS and police commander in northern Italy to negotiate a separate surrender in the theater.
The problem was the Germans were very particular about who they surrendered to as they were dealing with many communist and Yugoslav partisans that didn’t take surrenders. This was the problem in Trieste.
On April 30th 1945 there was an uprising by the partisans in Trieste. The German occupiers withdrew to an old castle and announced they would only surrender to a nearby New Zealand force advancing toward Trieste. The New Zealand commander was summoned to the castle and accepted the German surrender, but then double crossed and turned the prisoners over to the Yugoslavs. The prisoners were never heard from again, and forty days of terror began in Trieste directed at mainly the Italian residents. The British Field Marshal Alexander was so shocked at what went on, how could our side’s occupation be worse than the Nazis, that he forced Tito’s forces to withdraw from at least the city of Trieste. A military occupation began of Trieste under the name of the Free Territory of Trieste. The military governor was British general Terrence Airey. He was the fellow that had pretended to be the Irish businessman in the market for dachshunds.
Trieste was allowed to return to Italy in 1954. It still remained somewhat isolated until the fall of communism allowed the the resumtions of trade ties to the usefully located port. Over 90 percent of the modern city are Italian speakers.
Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast Fritzel the dachshund. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.