Tag: Austria stamp

People may forget that Austria had a hard right wing government in the early 1930s that took on constitutionally questionable authoritarian powers. How does a veteran of that go on to big political power after Nazi defeat and under Soviet occupation. Turns out that the German Nazis twice sending you to a concentration camp gives a lot of credibility. The still conservative outside Vienna Austrians needing a voice also helped. 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.

It is interesting to me that Austria chose to put former Chancellor Leopold Figl on one of the two stamps honoring 25 years after the second republic. The other showed Belvedere Palace, the Chancellor’s official residence. The early post war years were not just difficult materially, but one of diplomatic maneuvering trying to end the multinational occupation. So perhaps the doer stamp images are reflective.

Todays stamp is issue A319, a two shilling stamp issued by Austria on April 27, 1970. It was a two stamp issue. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

During the interwar first republic, Austria’s many parties figured out how to share power. The biggest vote total party would chose the Chancellor and many deputies would be from other parties. Chancellor Engebert Dolfuss was far right wing and found a way to consolidate power. A close vote in parliament caused several of the deputies to resign so they could cast a vote. Three days after the vote they were informed by the state police that their resignations were permanent and the government had decided not to replace them. Dolfuss then set out rounding up communists and Austrian Nazis that favored union with Germany. During this period Figl was assisting and being mentored by Dolfuss. Rounding up Nazis proved problematic as their henchmen soon assassinated Dolfuss, despite him being quite right wing. Lesson learned by Figl, keep your opponents in the room.

After the union with Nazi Germany, Figl was twice sent to concentration camps. In early1945, he was sent to Vienna to face trial for treason. Before that could happen, the Soviets occupied Vienna and freed Figl. The local Soviet military commander then appointed Figl in charge of civilian food distribution, finding him easy to work with. In December 1945, there was an election, the first since 1930, and the more conservative party got the most votes. A majority in Parliment meant Figl could have formed a united government. Instead he chose to bring in the Socialists and even the Communists into the government. The Nazis themselves were of course banned. The united front was in a good position to work to end the military occupation though Stalin was slow walking it.

The military withdrawal  finally happened in 1955 and Parliament then declared  Austria neutral. Figl was now free to return to very right wing Lower Austria as governor. He died in 1965.

Well my drink is empty and I am tempted to toast Mr. Figl. I think I will pass on it, despite my thirst, because I wonder if he could have thought bigger and got the whole of old Austria Hungary united, neutral, unoccupied and prosperous 35 years earlier. That would have been worth a toast.  Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

A stamp issue of the better of the monarchs as a near last stamp issue of the empire seems a fitting culmination. So slip om 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.

The stamp today is a very formal portrait of a leader from over a century before. To be accurate the stamp was issued by the Empire of Austria-Hungary. Yet Joseph II on the stamp was actually from the Holy Roman Empire. What the two empires from different periods share was the Hapsburg Royal Line. Knowing this shows the stamp issue as more personal and less about changing borders or even the people. No wonder the days of monarchy were numbered.

Today’s stamp is issue A22, a 3 heller stamp issued by the Empire of Austria-Hungary from 1908-1916. It shows Joseph II, the Holy Roman Emperor from 1770-1790. It was part of an eighteen stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used. The stamp to look out for in this issue is the 10 krone stamp featuring Franz Joseph. It is worth $190 mint.

Joseph II was a Hapsburg emperor from Austria. At the time, the Holy Roman Empire ruled much of central Europe. This did not include France despite fashioning itself as the successor to Charlemagne. It also did not include Rome despite again being fashioned after ancient Rome. He did have an in with France as his sister was Marie Antoinette.

Joseph was unlucky in love. He loved his first wife, Isabella of Parma, but her infatuations were with his sister, Maria Christina. Isabella died young at age 21 after a difficult pregnancy produced a daughter followed by a string of miscarriages. The daughter then herself died at age 9 of small pox. He was distraught and had a loveless 2 year second marriage with no issue. His cruelty to his second wife was shown by not visiting her on her deathbed nor attending her funeral. He admitted later he should have shown her more kindness.

Joseph was very aggressive militarily which made it difficult for him to make alliances as no foreign leader could trust him. He once heard his friend the King of Prussia was sick so prepared an army to try to grab Silesia if he died. The Prussian King recovered and that was the end of that friendship.

In domestic issues, Joseph was considered enlightened, but many of his reforms just did not stick. He tried to advance education and use it to try to standardize the German language. This did not succeed. He tried to end capital punishment, but it was quickly brought back after his death. He tried to free the serfs in the Empire but this was opposed by both serfs and the nobility. The reason the serfs opposed it is that it required their labors to be paid in money while the whole system the serfs knew was based on barter. He announced freedom of religion but was unable to pry the Catholic church away from the Pope in Rome. He did have success in some legal reform and the economics of the empire were sound. Joseph himself was not satisfied with his achievements. He asked that the epitaph on his tomb read, “Here lies Joseph II, who failed in all he undertook.” Overall history has treated Joseph II more kindly than he treated himself.

Austria-Hungary itself ended a few years after this stamp. Much land was lost and the various countries contained went their separate ways. The Hapsburg rule ended. To see an Austrian stamp from a decade later could be 50 years later in how much more modern the style became.

Well my drink is empty. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

Here is the interesting story of a rare affordable housing project that did not turn into a well located slum and the radicals that made it possible. 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.

The stamp today is Austrian. At the-philatelist.com we have featured several stamps printed in Austria, but this is our first actual Austrian stamp. See https://the-philatelist.com/2017/11/29/not-a-country-long-enough-to-get-the-stamp-issued/ and https://the-philatelist.com/2017/11/24/well-we-think-we-are-independant-we-have-a-constitution-a-flag-and-austrian-stamps/ Both stamps were very well printed by the standards of the day. This one not so much. It was less of a commemorative and more for bulk postage. That and the other side of the iron curtain look and subject matter perhaps show the in between status of Austria in 1959.

Todays stamp issue is A176, a 50 groschen stamp issued by Austria in 1959. The stamp features the Karl Marx Hof, an affordable housing complex in the Heiligenstadt area of Vienna. It is part of a 16 stamp issue of various Austrian architecture. According to the Scott catalog, it is worth 25 cents used.

Heiligenstadt is an area on the outskirts of Vienna. It was formerly a summer spa for Viennese to go and there was a hot water spring. The place had some reverses including being plundered twice by the Turkish during their two sieges of Vienna. It’s biggest claim to fame was when the composer Beethoven went there to recover after going deaf. He wrote his brother the famous Heiligenstadt Testament discussing suicide. The stay though was good for Beethoven and he resumed his career afterward. The area was incorporated in Vienna proper in 1892.

Vienna was an exciting place after World War 1. It was the capital of a small country instead of a large empire as before. On the other hand there was an influx of people from the east escaping changed borders and many veterans of the old imperial army who chose to build a new life in Vienna. These included many Jewish people from former Austrian Galacia that brought their politics with them. Vienna was sort of a left wing bastion in a fairly conservative country so it attracted many intellectuals and artistic types.

The problem was where to house the new arrivals. During the war, rent control had been established and this made private construction of apartments uneconomical. The socialist local government had passed a series of taxes on luxuries that was to be used to construct affordable housing. Otto Wagner, a local proponent of modern architecture was, along with his students, an inspiration of what was coming. The Karl Marx Hof was built in 1927-1930 an a large tract of land that had been drained. 1382 apartments were built on about 20 percent of the land with room left over for playgrounds, gardens, a library, and a kindergarten. The apartments, at 300 -600 square feet sound small to modern American ears. It was designed to be the home to 5000 people. Interestingly with the rest of the country more conservative, in 1934 there was an attempt to bring the lefties of Vienna more into line. The rebellion that followed was centered on the new Karl Marx Hof. During the following right wing period, the apartments got a new name, the Heiligenstadt Hof. Interestingly the city planner of the big red apartment projects kept working in Vienna till 1951. Even the Nazis can’t fire a civil servant, even if his big projects were behind him.

It still stands today, back to the old name since 1945 and was recently refurbished. It can be seen in the controversial film “The Night Porter”.

Well, my drink is empty. I wonder who lives there now, young singles? refugees? old people? I can’t imagine young families. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

We must do a stamp on a Chamber of Commerce convention in Linz that is meeting in a dreary late brutalist building there. This sounds like a formula for a dreary stamp. Why not at least spice up the building with bright colors. Then kick it up a few notches with a building emblem of a technology a generation away. That will get a certain stamp collector scratching his head. 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 just must be backdated, in the manner of a Biden mail in ballot from the ghetto. Austria is no slouch in the realm of high technology but they did not have WiFi in 1983, I don’t care what that building says on it’s side.

Todays stamp is issue A645, a 4 Shilling stamp issued by Austria on August 16th, 1983. It was a single stamp issue recognizing the 27th International Chamber of Commerce Professional Competition held in Linz. I can confirm the was a talent section to the competition but I am still awaiting confirmation on the swimsuit portion. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 40 cents used.

At first Chambers of Commerce were local clubs for merchants. The first one formed on Marseilles, France in 1599. Soon the local affiliates were merged into national organizations that were regulated by the government and lobbied for pro big business measures. This can be seen in Austria where the first chamber formed in Vienna in 1848 but by 1868 there was a national parent organization regulated by an act of the Reichsrat legislature. In many European countries, including Austria, membership in the chamber of commerce is required by businesses over a certain size. The dues, as with union dues on the other political side are a major source of resources for center right political parties.

This is currently creating some trouble on the political right. The Chamber as advocated for liberal immigration policies in order to push down labor costs for big business. As right politics becomes more populist, this is a big bone of contention and in the USA the Chamber has begun redirecting it’s political support to Democrats.

This involvement in national politics is becoming a deterrent to local professionals and merchants joining the chamber. A late friend of mine was a member recruiter for the local chamber. After he quit he explained that he was a salesman his whole professional life but had very little luck getting people to join the local chamber. A local club for business people would have been welcome but not one where dues are redirected toward political lobbying that the locals opposed.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast my late friend. He always flew better on two wings. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

A recurring theme that keeps coming up in what we learn here through postage stamps is what a productive period there was in the arts in the first decade of the 20th century. Here we have a Bohemian poet who was so taken by how sculptor Auguste Rodin studied a subject before sculpting it he became his secretary and used what he learned to develop a new type of poetry, thing poems. 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.

The image on the stamp is an accurate one of a dark mysterious bohemian figure. Quite apart from the aristocracy of Vienna in Rilke’s time. Yet this fellow, born in Prague who accomplished most of his best work in Paris and Zurich is being portrayed as Austrian. This is based on the borders of then Austria Hungary of the time. This was from 1976 before the EU was actively began minimizing Euro nations differences. To American eyes, it seems a little odd.

Todays stamp is issue A465, a 3 Schilling stamp issued by Austria on December 26th, 1976. It was a single stamp issue on the 50th anniversary of Rainer Maria Rilke’s death. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

Rene Maria Rilke was born in Prague to wealthy parents. His mother was distraught over loosing Rene’s older sister at ten days of age. She treated and dressed Rene as a girl. When Rene’s parent’s marriage broke up, his father sent him to military school in hopes of toughening him up but Rene dropped out. At 16 he was on is own. He took up with a much older married female psychoanalyst Lou Andreas Salome. She made Rene a frequent travel companion visiting European artistic salons. She helped him prepare for University examinations and encouraged him to change his name to Rainer to be more masculine. After University in Switzerland he made is way to Paris. He married and stayed married to sculptor Clara Westoff but they were separated for most of their marriage.

In Paris Rilke became the secretary of sculptor  Auguste Rodin. He also wrote a biography and an academic presentation on Rodin. Rodin made extremely in depth studies of his subjects before sculpting. This inspired Rilke to change the style of his poems from the subjects of romance or loneliness to long poems that very closely and realistically described things. The subjects of his thing poems were often flowers and written as sonnets and mostly written in French.

As with many other creative types in that period, World War I intruded. He was banned from Paris and his apartment there was raided with his possessions taken and auctioned off due to his Austrian citizenship. In Prague, he was deeply depressed and desperately trying to avoid military service. His beliefs became more left wing and political. In 1916 he was able with rich patronage to get established in a Swiss mansion. He was a big proponent of the Bavarian Soviet Republic but took it hard when it failed. In the early 1920s, there was finally another productive period for his poetry before succumbing to poor health from leukemia that ended his life in 1926.

Well my drink is empty. Come again tomorrow when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Modern stamps do so much to honor milestones of institutions. Perhaps too much, wouldn’t today’s letter writer rather get excited about where his people are going rather than how his ancestors were long ago. So to make it more relatable, I thought I would get into why the institution on this stamp got going, and a little on how close it is sticking to it’s mission. 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.

I am afraid this is a fairly drab likeness of the historic building that houses the Francisco-Carolinum Museum. The drab presentation is done perhaps to imply correctly that the museum has itself downplayed the historic in order to display mainly modern photograph arts. Well those folks probably throw better conventions than the history crowd.

Todays stamp is issue A655, a 4 Shilling stamp issued by Austria on November 4th, 1983. It was a single stamp issue honoring the 150th anniversary of the museum administative organization of Upper Austria in Linz. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 40 cents used.

The museum was founded by Linz lawyer and city administrator Reichritter Anton von Spaun. von Spaun was an avid collector of historic documents and his personal collection became a basis for the archive. A special interest of his was the folk music and folk dancing of the area. He felt knowledge of this past was at risk of being lost with the movement of people to the cities.

The historic building that houses the museum was acquired in 1895 and the agency has since acquired a local castle and taken charge of several other historic sites around Upper Austria.

Understandably there was a big reorganization of the organization in 1946. The emphasis of the flagship museum changed from preservation of the historical record of the area toward displays of a now fairly extensive collection of modern art with an emphasis on photography. Perhaps an interesting lesson of what happens to even a well funded history museum  and archive when nobody cool wants to talk history.

Well my drink is empty and perhaps I have had enough as that photo of the girl from the museum collection just seems a blur. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Austria had manged to rope a dope an end to the occupation of four belligerent occupiers barely 20 years before. From lack of food and fuel to enough wealth and spare energy so to reach out to those who might not have benefited yet. In the case of this stamp, the handicapped are being offered a helping hand, though with a strange period image. There must have been some kind of miracle between. 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.

The image on this stamp is a fun one that could only be from this period. An earlier era stamp would have shown the handicapped as pathetic desperate wretches in the hope of extracting the most sympathy from those more blessed. A modern stamps would have the afflicted recast as the hero slaying the challenges they face. He we have a three part image with one distorted. In other words things aren’t really great  until they are great for everyone so lets get to work. Neat!

Todays stamp is issue A502, a 6 Schilling stamp issued by Austria on October 2nd, 1978. It was a single stamp issue. According to the Scott catalog, this stamp is worth 55 cents used. A stamp issue like this from anywhere dates badly, because what they did for the challenged is far less than what is done now and definitions of who was handicapped was much narrower.

In 1945 Austria was in quite a bad position. It was a region of Germany. In March, Germany launched Operation Spring Awakening that hoped to secure oil fields in the area between Vienna and Budapest and retake Budapest. The Soviets were ready for the attack, defeated it and counterattacked taking Vienna. Former left-center President Renner reached out to Stalin and convinced him to let Renner  create a new Austrian government. The Allies had previously decided that the union of Austria and Germany would not stand post war but Austria would be treated as a perpetrator rather than victim country. The German and some Hungarian remnant forces were enough to slow the Soviet advance westward to allow Americans to enter western Austria and surrender to them. The Renner government quickly declared the end of the union with Germany and made noises that Austria was but another victim of the Nazis.

Renner was not a man the Americans would have picked but he was in place and Austria was divided into four sectors like Germany had been. Vienna was divided like Berlin. Austria was really in a bad way. they still bought their coal and most of their food from the East but that was virtually impossible now. The Austrian oil fields were in Soviet hands and the Russian sector was heavily looted. Austria like other Eastern European countries were expected to pay the cost of the Soviet 40,000 troop occupation Force. America was creating arms stockpiles in the west assuming an East and West Austria with an armed western Austria as a cold war ally.

An election was held at the end of 1945 that elected a more right of center government, but the Soviets refused to let it be seated.  There were food riots in Bad Ischi in 1947. There was a poor potato crop that year and communists tried to claim greedy farmers were withholding food to sell for more on the black market. This then backfired because the agitators were Jewish and many blamed the black market on them so they became the targets of the riots. This discredited further the old exiled Jewish communists in Stalin’s eyes and made them put more faith in the local left wing government installed by Renner. America responded with much food and industrial help because Renner’s people could be seen as keeping the real communists at bay.

The death of Stalin provided a opening in the 1950s. The Soviets hoped that by withdrawing their forces and allowing Eastern and Western Austria to reunite as a neutral country that it would show a path for a similar outcome for Germany. So Austria allowed to unite but the west held the line in West Germany.

If you compare economically Austria today to Hungary the former partner that remained under Soviet occupation during the cold war, the differences are dramatic. GNP per capita in Austria is three times that of Hungary and even 10% ahead of Germany. Plenty or resources to help the challenged.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast President Renner. He didn’t live to see Austria reunite and prosper but it could not have happened without him. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

There is a debate as to where is the center of the stamp collecting world. As an American philatelist, London and New York come to mind. That does not take into account the preponderance of stamp collecting in central Europe. Okay then Berlin but that was divided for many years and perhaps never recovered from the departure of the many Jews that were and are so prominent in the trading of stamps. This stamp makes the case for Vienna. 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.

In an era of plentiful souvenir stamp issues, this one is a pretty mundane issue for a stamp show. New Zealand did a much better souvenir sheet for this show. Vienna is of course a beautiful city but is not known for it’s skyline. The skyline view on this stamp is also out of date as Vienna’s tallest building. the DC Tower 1 completed in 2013.

Todays stamp is issue A1307, a 55 cent stamp issued by Austria on September 2nd, 2008. It was a single stamp issue celebrating the WIPA stamp convention that year in Vienna. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $1.60 used.

Austria was issuing stamps starting in 1850, with quickly improving quality. Vienna was also the home of several prominent philatelists. Among them was Edwin Mueller who in addition to collecting wrote a widely circulated stamp magazine called, “Die Postmarke”. In 1933 he was tasked by the Austrian government in bring back the WIPA convention to Vienna after a 50 year lapse. The show was larger than ever and Mueller was honored both by his country and made President of the International Stamp Press Assosiation. Are there still such things?

In 1938, Mueller was forced to flee to New York City after the union with Nazi era Germany. In New York, Mueller started the Mercury Stamp Company and became a stamp dealer and auctioneer. He helped handle sales from the collection of the Rothschilds. He still wrote for philatelic journals.

Austria had hosted the WIPA convention 6 times by the 2008 show. The were over 300 exibiters. Conventions are very big business in Vienna which perhaps is why the stamp on the subject is so mundane. Ove 6 million people visit Vienna each year to go to conventions. So in general they know how to play host and have an elegant old city to show off. Stamps will seem small time in comparison.

Well my drink is empty and I can look forward to a night of drinking in Vienna after a stamp convention. I wonder how one obtains a stamp press credential. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.