Gallery

 

POSTPRUFUNGSSTELLE DES GARDEKORPS 3 / BERLIN with a Prussian eagle in the middle (1C8 - Figure 5). It also bears the facsimile signature in blue of the inspector “Scharrey” (1C15, Figure 5). This is a letter that was taken by hand, unsealed, to the examination office, sealed by Scharrey in the presence of the sender and put into the post by the inspector. What is additionally interesting is that the sender was the ‘Deutsche Bank’ Berlin W8. This suggests that the PP Office at Berlin W8 was not operating in January 1919.

No other items are known to the author which can definitely be shown to have been inspected at Berlin 0 17. Of the three items that may have been inspected at Berlin 0 17, the first was posted at Berlin SW19 on 22 November 1918. On the reverse are two Berlin 0 17 Post Office sealing labels (ilpi Figure 4). Maybe the letter became damaged in the Post but maybe this was opened by the exchange control inspectors, since the flap had been lifted up and resealed by this label. Further use of the Post Office label at Berlin 0 17 has been reported in reference 2 and it is known that at other PU Offices, inspectors used Post Office sealing labels from time to time.

The second possibility is shown in Figure 21. It was posted in Helsinki on 20 March 1919 and arrived in Berlin Lichterfelde on 27 March 1919. It bears the same Finnish two line censor’s cachet as mentioned above. On the reverse is an inspector’s numeral cachet number 46 in a similar style to the number 213 mentioned above and like the cachets that were to be used at Berlin W8 later in 1920. It also bears a manuscript 4P that is partly hidden by the postmark. The envelope has been opened and resealed with a plain strip with no cachets of any kind tieing it to the envelope. This is not a Finnish censorship label, according to H.G.Moxter (reference 18) and although the numeral 46 may be a Berlin inspector’s cachet, one cannot be certain who opened the letter without further evidence

The third possibility was registered at Stockholm on 8 April 1919 and arrived in Berlin Steglitz on 11 April 1919. On the reverse it bears an inspector’s cachet number 91 (lNlbl, Fig.4) in a similar style to the 213 mentioned above. It is also accompanied by the manuscript number 23 (lNm Figure 4). However, it was not opened.

10. SWITCH FROM BERLIN 0 17 TO BERLIN W8

10.1 MAIL EXAMINED AT BERLIN

One of the strange things about the Berlin offices is the very small number of items which can be attributed to them without doubt, in the first year of operation. This is perhaps best illustrated by the data in Table J. This does iiot follow the pattern for the Hamburg and Munchen offices described in references 11 and 12 and suggests that very little mail was

 

Danzig Report Vol. 1 - Nr. 77 - October - November - December - 1992, Page 39.