Gallery

 

Labels of the Polish Harbor Post Office In Gdansk, 1920-1939
This article ties in with the preceding description of the Polish Harbour Post 0111cc as described by Georges Schild. Hans Vogels follows up with this description of the special labels found there.

Introduction
The Free City of Gdansk owed it’s existence to the fact that US president Thomas Woodrow Wilson promised Poland access to the sea, but English prime mini.er Lloyd George didn’t want to make Gdañsk and it’s vicinity part of the new Polish Republic The city was made a Free Cty under the supervision of the League of Nations. Poland received indeed access to the sea through the socalled Corridor, but didn’t have an appropriate harbor there Therefore Poland was given several special nghts in the Free City. Several agreements were made between Poland and the Free Cityto lay down the exact extent of these nghts Part of the agreemaits was the right to establish a Polish postal service m the Free City.

The first Polish post offic Urz4d Ekspedycji Pocztowej Gdañsk - Nowy Port’ (Fowarding post office Gdaitsk Nowy Port) was opened in the beginning of 1920. On January 11, 1922 the name of the office was changed rn tPolski Urzad Pocztowy NI w Gda,sku’ (Polish post office number 1 in Gdaxsk) On August 1, 1926 the office received the new number 3.

The office became responsible for the exchange of official mail between Polish offices in the Free City of Gdañsk and offices in Poland. Next to this, the office handled all mail for Poland that arrived from overseas countries and mail from Poland that had to be sent to overseas destinations by ship through the Gdai1sk harbor On March 10, 1Q20 the first transport of gift packages arrived from the USA with the ship “Krakus”. This was the beginning of a continuous flow of packages and mailbags to and from Poland through the Gdaflsk harbour.

The agreements with the individual postal administrations and the way the mail was exchanged has been described in detail already in the instructons for the Polish post inGdaitsk that were published in 1931. Based on these original ingructions, Bogacki and lank wrote their publications in ‘1948 and 1999. Further repetition is therefor not necessary. Because the formal instructions and agreements were most important in both publications, not much attention was paid to the postal items that were a result of tins This article wants to show the diffeient labels, used in the Gdansk harbor post office for the exchange of packages and mailbags with overseas countries.

 

Danzig Report Vol. 1 - Nr. 111 - April - May - June - 2001, Page 21.