Tag: Prussia stamp

Prussia went from being an important region of German speakers to a Greater German Empire. Well it did have the best army, but it also had a leader with many tools and many enemies. So slip on 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 power of Prussia is not well presented by the stamps. Even in 1861 though, there are the signs of coming together. Lubeck does a version of this stamp and of course the eagle emblem will be common on German Empire stamps in later decades.

A note about currency and the transition. Prussian currency was not yet decimalized and a Silbergroshen as on this stamp was a coin valued at 12 Pfennig. 30 Silbergroshen equaled 1 Thaler, a large silver coin dating from medieval times. After decimalization, a 10 Pfennig coin replaced the Silbergroshen and there were no longer Thalers except as a  slang way to say 3 Marks. Dutch Daalers, Scandinavian Dalers and yes countries that use Dollars can trace these names to the Thaler.

Todays stamp is issue A7, a 1 Silbergroshen stamp issued by the Kingdom of Prussia in 1861. It was a 4 stamp issue in various denominations. There were 2 updated versions with the new currency in 1867. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth $1.60 used. This is the lowest value of any Prussian stamp, and I think too low as there are no Prussian stamps less than 150 years old. No doubt this stamp was common when issued. but this poorly printed on cheap paper had to survive in many collections in the many years between then and now.

In 1862, Prussian King Wilhelm I appointed Otto von Bismarck chancellor of Prussia. Bismarck was an aristocrat, then known as Junker. Being appointed, he was only responsible to the monarch and did not face election or interference from the legislature. His main goal was to unite the German people under a single government. That he was able to do this in 3 short victorious wars and through able diplomacy is quite impressive. The first was a war aligned with Austria, the big power in southern Germany against Denmark, taking German speaking areas. Those areas were at first jointly administered with Austria and the inevitable disputes were then used to start a war with Hapsburg Austria, really the only other viable rival to govern all Germans. This war left only France as an obstacle. Their army though was smaller and spread out over their vast empire. France was defeated and could no longer object to Germany coming together.

That does not mean the leaders of the individual German states did not object. Bismarck designed a Federal system for Germany that left some autonomy with the states and even refashioned Prussia as the North German Confederation to make the states feel less conquered.

Once united, Bismarck sought to make Germany more unified. He offered the first safety net for workers to greatly improve their lot in life and to try to connect working class loyalty to the new state. He instituted tariffs to protect German industry. Innovative steps at the time and not what was expected of a conservative figure. At the same time he was aggressively opposed to non German speakers, Socialists and Catholics. This went as far as banning the Socialists and Jesuits who he thought were too tied to the Pope in Rome. After the wars, he promoted peace, having good relations with England and Russia and not challenging them for far flung Empires.

In old age he was replaced as he clashed with the new Kaiser who wanted empire and saw the socialists as less of a threat. Germany thus returned to a war like stance and sure enough Socialists overthrew the Kaiser after World War I. On his death bed in 1898 he made predictions that were prescient. He predicted Germany would last only 20 more years on it’s current foolish course and that war would come from some foolish thing from the Balkans.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast united Germany whether bigger or smaller. Come again  for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2019.

Prussia was the German state most in charge of bringing together Germany. You see the overprint regarding decimalization of the currency for the upcoming North German Confederation. What you might not know is how Prussia was later coopted by Germany later using that old tradition of the political putsch. 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.

Prussia was not grandiose on their stamps like say Bavaria. Instead a generic German eagle. The North German Confederation replaced the Prussian stamps and dispensed with the eagle. They had several currencies on the same stamp and so their design tried to highlight which currency the stamp was in. Well at least they modernized with perforations The mechanics of coming together are often inelegant, as the EU would itself discover.

Todays stamp is issue A7, a 3 Silbergroshen stamp issued by Prussia in 1861. It was a 6 stamp issue in varios denominations and currencies. This is the early currency overprinted for use with the decimilized currency introduced in 1867. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $8.75 unused. The catalog is silent on what the overprint adds to the value, but I am going out on a limb and say not enough.

Prussia managed Germany coming together pretty fast in the 1860s. There was a war with Austria that victory allowed the coming together of the North German Confederation. The Confederation was 80% Prussian but allowed outsized representation of the smaller states in the Bundesrat in exchange for recognition of the Prussian Monarch as head of state. Southern Germany joined after success in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and the prospect of all the French reparations due afterwards. Key to the early success was Chancellor Bismarck, who managed to be seen as a conservative figure  who still did so much to improve the lot of the average German.

Prussia did not in fact do so well under the German state. Much land was lost to allow for the recreation of Poland after World War I. The military loss discredited the Prussian military/aristocratic system that was such a foundation  of Prussian strength. The Kaiser was in exile in Holland. Prussia was now run  by leftist Otto Braun. He had worked a strong coalition of center parties that kept communists and nazis marginalized. What he was not able to do was bring the Prussian part of Germany out of the economic hole it was in. Without that, how do you restore a sense of pride or purpose.

So the system was rigged to keep Braun in but without success. The end came for Prussia came much faster than Germany coming together 70 years before. Their was a bloody Sunday in Altona in Prussia were Communists and Nazis thugs fought in the street. Prussian police shot and killed 18 of them on both sides. German Chancellor Franz von Papen then used emergency powers to have Braun removed from office and von Papen himself given the extra title of head of Prussia. This then went to court which decided that von Papen had to leave Braun’s cabinet in place but was correct to throw out Braun. Braun went off to exile in Switzerland and barely a year later von Papen was essentially exiled by the Nazis when they made him Ambassador to first Austria and then Turkey. Hermann Goring was named head or Prussia, now completely ceremonial.

Braun offered himself up to the Russians post war to restart a Prussian German state, the small sliver of old Prussia still in Germany. Braun was denied, there was to be no more Prussian state.

Well my drink is empty and I am left wondering what would have became of Prussia had it not put Germany over all. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.