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LETTERS to the Editor

From Eddie Krause, Hamburg:
I’d like to refer to John Whiteside’s lines in Danzig Report #84,showing a cover charged with 30 gr postage due in Poland. It should be added that many visitors from Poland were unaware that Port Gdaisk mail (to Poland) had to be posted either at the Polish post office or put into the Polish mail boxes within the port area. Mail put into the Free State letter boxes had to bear Free State postage stamps.Foreign stamps, including Polish, were invalid unl ess used on reply postal cards. Such erroneously despatched mail was intercepted and marked not only during the letter box war in 1925, but until 1939.

I happen to hold a somewhat unusual post card with greetings (“we arrived happily in Gdailsk and in half hour’s time we shall see the Polish Sea”), mailed in a Free State letter box in Zoppot on 31.7.32, with the Zoppot tax-due stamp (T encircled) applied and the Port Gdaitisk post stamp framed in blue pencil. Apparently, the Polish postmen in Warsaw were satisfied with the 15 gr Port Gdar’isk stamp, as the Zoppot T was crossed out in red pencil and obviously, no postage due was collected. Had the Polish postmen felt some mercy for their Polish compatriot addressee?

 

Danzig Report Vol. 1 - Nr. 85 - October - November - December - 1994, Page 20.