Gallery

A Port Gdansk Postal card "Used" in the General Gouvernment. 

By John Miskevich

When the Polish Post Office in Danzig closed on September 1, 1939, there remained a stock of Port Gdansk postal cards issued in 1938 on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the Polish Republic. The stamp imprinted on the card’s face pictured Danzig’s Merchant Crane. A holding of these postal cards was seized by the German Army and subsequently turned over to the German Postal Ministry. This article will trace how they came to be used by German postal authorities as official circulars mailed from Krakau to advertise stamps of the General Gouvernement to collectors and dealers in Germany.

There is a brief note in the Michel Ganzsachen-Katalog Deutsch land under the section designated Polnische Post in Danzig where the postal card, listed as P4, is cataloged. The note reads: P4 wurde grosstenteils mit durchbalktem Wertstempel als Formular der Deutschen Dienst post Osten verbraucht. (P4 would serve with large bars through the value of the imprint in the capacity of a form of the German Official Post of the East.) One such postal card is shown in Figure 1. The value on the card is deleted by five horizontal black bars so that it could be used Postsache (post free) by postal authorities. Also printed in black are the words Deutsche Post Osten, Postkarte and Postsache.

The General Gouvernement section of the catalog offers further information. In December of 1939, postal cards of Germany with I-Iindenberg Medallion imprints were overprinted Deutsche Post OSTEN and issued in the General Gouvernement. Shortages of these cards developed, and, by February of 1940, Polish postal cards began to be overprinted General Gouvernement. This situation >

Danzig Report  Nr. 89 - Oct - Nov - Dec - 1995, Page 6.