Tag: Germany stamp

I don’t think much training is needed to deliver the mail. Apparently it was big business in East Germany. Enough to invoke DDR’s favorite martyr Rosa Luxemburg in the cause. Little do these young apprentices know they will soon be merged and then privatized. Ms. Luxemburg would not approve. 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 is the only stamp I have seen from anywhere invoking the training of postal workers. They show multiple specialties and the involvement of various institutions. The East German Post had wider communication tasks including telegraphs and telexes. Made it seem like the future.

Todays stamp is issue A653, a 20 Pfennig stamp issued by East Germany on February 10th, 1981, your author’s twelfth birthday. It was a five stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether used or unused.

Rosa Luxemburg was a Polish Jew who was the daughter of a lumber merchant in then(1871) Russian occupied Poland. She joined hard left movements in Poland but then had a break with them. They supported Polish independence from Russia and Germany while Rosa thought the more important thing was that Germany and Russia become communist. She went into exile in Switzerland where she earned a Phd and involved herself with the Socialist Internationale. She spoke German, Polish, Hebrew and Russian. She desired to be German though it was not her heritage to be part of Berlin’s hard left scene. She had a sham marriage to a German man to obtain German citizenship. She joined the left wing German SPD party and taught Marxism. When World War I broke out, the SPD rallied to the flag and supported the war effort. Rosa was distraught by this decision. She helped form a group of former SPD members who opposed the war called the Spartacus League. Spartacus had lead a slave uprising in Roman times. The League supported dodging the draft, not following orders once in the army and labor disruptions to fight the war effort. This type of activity was of course against the law and Rosa was jailed. It also lead to the charge from the other side of politics that the war effort had been “stabbed in the back” by leftist Jews.

Rosa was released in an amnesty at the end of the war. Rosa’s former student, Fredrich Ebert was the new President of Germany. By now though Rosa had completely broke with the SPD and desired Germany to be a Soviet Republic. At the beginning of 1919 she started a putsch to destroy capitalism. The SPD opposed this violence and controlled a remnant of the German Army called the Freikorps. This deployed in the streets to fight the revolution. Rosa Luxemburg was taken in the street. After a short questioning Rosa Luxemburg was shot and her body dumped in the Landwehr Canal. She was now a martyr of the left.

Many years later, Rosa Luxemburg has been very controversial. The East Germans raised her high. Most of their leaders had also been part of the Internationale movement with long exiles outside Germany. On the other hand the official position of todays German government is that idolization of Rosa Luxemburg in a tradition of far left extremism. For example East German Post’s Rosa Luxemburg School of Engineering has lost her name and is now a telecommunication university. They have left standing the statue of Rosa Luxemburg visible on the stamp. Every year on the date of her death, the German left marches in a funeral parade for Rosa. The Freikorp officer that ordered the execution was taken into custody by the Soviets in the first days of the occupation of Berlin in 1945 and executed. He claimed to be following orders and had served jail time after the execution in 1919.

Well my drink is empty. Skirting Rosa, I will pour another drink to toast the young apprentices of German Post. I hope all the changes coming to the post were positive for you. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

America had “Rosie the Riveter” as a proto-feminist symbol of using the previously unutilized talents of American females in the war effort. Historians and stamp collectors may realize that Germans were there first, and the effort predated the war and even Hitler. 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,

Rosie in America had a distinct if unspoken lesbian vibe to her image. This RAD girl in Germany goes the other way with her Aryan master race looks. Nobody will think it proper to compare the two but perhaps both would have benefited from a dialing back of the politics.

Todays stamp is issue B281, a 6+4 Pfennig semi postal stamp issued by Germany in June 1944. There were two stamps, one for the male and one for the female sections of the National Labor Service, the RAD. There was a third section of RAD for male Jewish laborers. That would have made an interesting Nazi stamp. but no such luck. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents unused.

The Weimar government of Germany formed a national voluntary labor service the FAD, in 1931. It was designed to combat unemployment by hiring for road construction and agricultural land improvement. It came out of the work of Friedrich Syrup. He was a Saxon in the post war labor ministry assigned to finding places in industry for former soldiers. Once he had risen to Labor Minister, FAD was the result. He was not a Nazi. However when Hitler came to power, it was greatly expanded and opened up to females in separate units. Syrup was put into direct charge reporting to Goring. The organization was renamed RAD and organized along more military lines. In 1938, the Jewish section was organized and mandated work from otherwise unemployed Jewish males. This would be cited as the later war crime.

RAD units, the male ones, were busy building the Atlantic wall in France and agricultural work in the Ukraine. The Ukraine work is also thought of as a war crime as it sought Ukraine food exports to Germany thereby perhaps starving the Ukraine. That charge mistakenly assumes it was the Soviet practice to leave Ukraine farm produce for Ukrainians. Syrup himself had a mental breakdown in 1941 that pretty much ended his involvement.

As the war went on and the tide turned against Germany, the male RAD units duties became more combat centered. First there were units that maned anti aircraft flak batteries. In the last 6 months of the war, RAD units were formed into 6 infantry formations that fought on both the Eastern and Western Front as infantry. Female units did not face this fate, but there is little information on their, or the Jewish RAD units, late war activities.

Fredrich Syrup was advised to flee Berlin at the end of the war. Instead he was taken by the Soviets to the former concentration camp(well maybe not so former but under new management) in Sachsenhausen where he died in August 1945 at age 63.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast all those who are free to benefit personally from their labor. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Germany on both sides of the East-West divide were divided on reforming a new German Army. In East Germany, that meant it was all volunteer until later when the army became the only Warsaw Pact force to allow for conscientious objection. 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.

What I like most about this 15th anniversary of the East German Army stamp is the close up shot of a regular soldiers face. Reminding Germans who may not be thrilled with the politics that the regular soldier was still one of you. A wider shot would just be uniform details and get bogged down in how the East German uniforms more resembled the old while the West German Army uniform looked more American.

Todays stamp is issue A400, a 20 Pfennig stamp issued by East Germany on March 1st, 1971. It was a single stamp issue. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents cancelled to order.

As early as 1948, East Germany was accepting volunteers in what became known as the Kasernierte Volkspolzei. These troops were trained in a military fashion but lacked heavy weapons. Most were recruited from captured by Soviet Union World War Two German soldiers. It should be remembered that Germany contained many with communist sympathies even among those serving the Third Reich.

In 1956, West Germany formed the conscript Bundeswher. Six months later East Germany formed the all volunteer National Peoples Army. Both armies started with about 75 percent of the officers being veterans of the old Wehrmacht. It was more than 10 years later and the veterans were serving in much higher capacities. After the Berlin crisis of the early 60s, the army added conscription and doubled in size to about 150,000 men.  Interesting very few aristocrats served, the Prussian military tradition was no more. In 1968, the 7th Panzer Division deployed to Czechoslovakia in a non combat role. This was the first post war German deployment outside Germany. Some may remember an earlier 7th Panzer Division lead the 1940 invasion of France under General Erwin Rommel.

At the time of reunification, the East German Army was mostly disbanded. Only 3200 of the 36,000 officers and NCOs were retained, no Coronels or Generals. Those that remained were reduced one rank. The West German Army was itself shrinking with the end of the cold war.  The over 2 million German males that served in the East German Army were not treated well. Their pensions were only token  and their employment records listed the time  as serving in a foreign military. They were also not to allowed to use their military titles in retirement as was customary even for SS officers. 15 years later a court case finally restored some of what was owed.

Well my drink is empty and so I will pour another to toast the veterans and active duty members of all the worlds armed forces. Come again tomorrow when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

There are not many stamps displaying erotic dancing girls. Throw in one where the local girl is dancing to service someone suddenly thrust into power by defeat and it becomes one in a million. 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 mentioned in the stamp yesterday that the situation self corrected when the Stasi came in the night and removing the statue of Stalin. The situation on this stamp ended abruptly as well when the Gestapo sent Weill packing.  As of yet the fond remembrance of Weimar degeneracy has gone unchallenged in Germany. We will see if that continues.

The stamp today is issue A1000, a 3 Mark stamp issued by Germany on February 17th, 2000. The stamp honored Kurt Weill, a composer of musical plays. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth $1.75 used. The value beats yesterday’s East German stamp 5 fold but the denomination on the stamp is 15 fold higher. Perhaps Germany’s reputation for tight control of inflation is slipping.

Kurt Weill was born in Saxony in 1900. After the war in 1918 the old order was discredited and the people that had been in opposition were now in power. Their opposition was not just to militarism  but the basic rules of Church and family. People like Weill gathered in Berlin and were free to produce for each other works that broke boundaries both sexually and politically. The post war deprivations meant that many Germans like the dancing girl on the stamp had to go along with it to get by. Imagine the sadness of fathers, brothers, and potential husbands at the tawdry display.

Kurt Weill’s most famous work was on the political “3 Penny Opera” a reworking of the old English “Beggers Opera”. The play contained Weill’s most famous song “Mac the Knife”. In 1933 Weill moved to the USA to avoid arrest. He continued work in America including working with Langston Hughes, the far left black activist and composer. Weill also collaborated professionally with his frequent wife Lotte Lenye. They married and divorced in Germany and the reunited and remarried in the USA. You may remember her from her portrayal of Rosa Kleb in “From Russia with Love”

In talking of those who collaborated with Weill I have so far left out Bertoit Brecht. Remember on yesterdays stamp, the noted architect Hermann Henselmann was convinced by Brecht to stay and work in the Eastern sector of postwar Germany. Brecht collaborated with Weill both in Weimar Germany and later in the USA. Weill did not however join Brecht when he returned to Berlin, despite himself being a Communist from the Eastern sector. Weill died in the USA in 1950 as a naturalized citizen.

Well my drink is empty and I may have a few more while pondering the snearing of the East while the earlier depravity of Weimar is now celebrated. People like boundary breakers, even if it leads to alone, depraved, and purposeless people. Hope you enjoyed the two parter, you can find the first part below this article if you scroll down. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

A conquering power sometimes goes too far after victory. Stalin’s Alley was to be East Germany’s show place, site of May Day parades. So care was taken, and luckily for Berlin, by Germans not Russians. 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 first of a two parter.

The small size and simple printing of the stamp lets it down or in emblematic of the façade depending on your point a view. It still is all here though, a wide boulevards, elaborately decorated with ceramic tile wedding cake style buildings in the Stalinist style. Also with the statue of Stalin, in its last years after his death before the Stasi disappeared it.

Todays stamp is issue A43, a 20 Pfennig stamp issued by East Germany in 1957. This was an over twenty stamp issue in different denominations over a seven year period from 1953 to 1960. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 30 cents unused.

The street on the stamp was known as Great Frankfurter Strasse prior to 1949. At that time the area was under Soviet occupation and in need of urban renewal after the war. It was decided to make the street a showplace in the Eastern Sector of Berlin. This was before the wall was built. Naming a street after the person who just lead a large army into Germany showed the level of deference to the Soviets on the part of the East German leadership. Nevertheless the project was German. Noted architect Hermann Henselmann designed the street  that later became a favorite of post modernists. There were upscale apartments and shops and restaurant/bars that had themes based on Eastern European cities like Budapest and Bucharest. East Berlin after all was to look east. The Bucharest bar featured Romanian beer that was 18% alcohol was especially memorable. As seen on the stamp, there was a bronze statue of Stalin. It was a gift of the Soviet Communist Youth group Komsomol on the occasion of World Festival of Youth and Students held that year in the Soviet Sector of Berlin. No doubt parents were thrilled to send their children to listen how great Stalin was. I mean, who wouldn’t?

When things go too far they often self correct. In 1961, in the middle of the night, the Stasi secret Police came for the Stalin statue knocking it off it’s pedestal and trucking it away to be broken and recycled. East Germans woke the next day to find The street renamed Karl Marx Alley with all the street signs and subway stations changed. Karl Marx was still communist, but at least a German.

Unlike much of the East German work after the wall fell, Karl Marx Alley was deemed worthy of preservation, even the name. Henselmann’s architecture has stood the test of time. In later years Henselmann became more of a modernist and many of his buildings still stand in Germany. He had made the conscious decision to stay in the East, taking the advise of Bertolt Brecht.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast architect  Hermann Henselmann, He operated under difficult conditions but was able to build things that survive. Come again tomorrow for part two of rubbing Germany’s nose in it from a different war that was dealt with less well, but is another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Here is another stamp where the lead times to produce a new stamp meant the story told by the stamp was out of date. Thus the early German optimism about the war is displayed just as Stalingrad had turned the tide. 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.

There were two series of this style of stamp from Germany. The early issue showed German forces victorious and on the march, including this U boat. They came out on Hero Memorial Day in 1943. For Hero Memorial Day in 1944 there was a new issue that was quite different. Gone was the blitzkrieg bluster replaced by determined, well armed soldiers clearly on the defense. In 1945 there was a stamp  honoring the Volksstrurm, a new army of children to resist the Russian advance from the East, as the situation went from bad to worse.

Todays stamp is issue SP189, a 3+2 Pfennig  semi-postal stamp issued by Germany on March 21, 1943. It was a 12 stamp issue in various denominations showing German war fighters from the various services. The surcharge benefited the families of the war dead. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $1.25 used.

Germany had great hopes that their Navy’s submarines would help insure a German victory in the war. Great Britain after all was an island and very dependent on supplies brought in by sea. The German war effort in World War I had been greatly damaged by the mainly British naval blockade. It was now time to return the favor. Unfortunately when the war broke out the navy only had 57 seaworthy U boats, and many were small coastal types. They all were not truly submarines in the modern sense, being able to stay under water for long periods. Instead they were more surface ships that could dive underwater for short periods with their engines off under battery power. Notice the cannon on the deck of the U-boat on the stamp. This was to attack a merchant ship on the surface without ever diving.

German production was gearing up fast. By 1943, Germany was able to field the 100 U boats concurrently at sea that German Admiral Donitz believed was key to success. U boats sank 3663 ships that added up 14 million tons of shipping. The cost however was 720 U-boats sunk. The surface journey in and out of base was becoming ever more treacherous. German ship builders were innovating new battery technology that would have kept the subs underwater longer where they were much less vulnerable. They required extra crew training and were only just coming into service at wars end.

At the beginning of May 1945, Admiral Donitz replaced Hitler as head of the Third Reich. One of his first orders  was that the U-boats and all other German ships except useful post war minesweepers be scuttled. On May 4th, in surrender talks that order was rescinded, but many ship Captains went ahead with the scuttling assuming the rescinding order was coerced. 238 of the 394 remaining U-boats were scuttled and 4 were turned over to Japan. This is indicative of both extremely high U-boat construction during the war and how around two thirds of them were lost.

The German technological progress with submarines was very influential post war. The West German, French and Soviet navies made submarines modeled on late war model U-boats. Even the USA started the GUPPY program that rebuilt World War II subs to incorporate German technology. Even as late as the 1980s, a Soviet Whiskey class sub was sneaking undetected into Swedish waters until underwater rocks found it rather than the Swedish Navy. The Whiskey class was a copy of the Type XXI U-boat.

Well my drink is empty and so I will wait till tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

These nanny state issues are ridiculous. Do people really need to be told not to burn down the forest. Will the crazies so inclined be prevented by the helpful government advise. I don’t know, when my daughter was young I was contantly telling her not to do this or that. I had the theory that if she did it anyway it wasn’t because I didn’t tell her otherwise. Should a government think of it’s citizens as unruly children? 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.

Here is a stamp where the cancelization helps the visuals a great deal. Nicely centered concentric circle to focus you on the subject, like a gunsight. You can see the issue facing the stamp designer. Showing actual flames would be too exciting and may draw in the pyromaniac. So instead we have bare tree trunks with an orange color to hint at fire rather than say winter. I wonder if the message in the center was added later to better drive home the point.

Todays stamp is issue A199, a 20 Pfennig stamp issued by West Germany on March 5th, 1958. It was a single stamp issue encouraging the prevention of forest fires. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 55 cents used.

Germany in it’s natural state contained large forests of beech trees. Human activity had reduced the forests to about 20 percent of the country. At about this time mining was becoming more important and was a great driver for increased demand for wood. This was to build shafts and the heat energy needed for smelting. The problem of how to manage this was met by the worlds first school of forestry at Ilsenburg in the Harz mountains in 1763. They hit upon quickly that wood cutting rates cannot exceed the natural rates of growth. However the new experts could not stop there. Instead efforts at reforestation would now involve planting pine and spruce that grew faster and were cheaper to plant.

On one hand the forestry work means that there are now more forest coverage in Germany than 200 years ago. One the other hand nature has changed and few would argue the aesthetics of the pine tree are better than the Beech trees given by God/nature. From an industry point of view the quick growing pines are well utilized in a sustainable fashion. Even wooded enclaves in urban areas. There is a large amount of politics infused with this stuff. This stamp for example fails to point out that naturally occurring forest fires from lightning are a natural part of forest renewal. Or the fact that pollution is mitigated by the presence of forests rather than just pollution being a destroyer of the forest.

Well my drink is empty. Between todays stamp and the one the other day about forestry in Gabon, I have learned a lot about forestry. When I picked out the two stamps to write about, I had no idea what I would learn. Stamp collecting is great. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.