Gallery

 

the Senate, Heinrich Sahm, saw several vans from Polish firms delivering parcels at the post office in the evening. This was against the agreement of April 1923. The Polish post denied that the office was accessible for the public. The parcels were delivered there only in exceptional cases, because there was not enough space at the Heveliusplatz to receive the parcels. After 1929, the complaints stopped.15

The Tasks of the Post Office at the Railway Station

The Polish post office at the railway station played a vital role in the Polish postal traffic in Gdarc’sk, because it was used as a transit office.

Mail arriving from Poland by Polish post trains was received and from there transported to the main post office at Heveliusplatz. Post that had to be sent to Poland was sent in bags from the Heveliusplatz to the post office at the railway station and from there by train to Poland. The main railway station in Danzig was a stop for several Polish post trains driving on routes between Poland and the Free City. Several post trains driving from Poland to Gdynia through the territory of the Free City stopped in Danzig, too. Probably, mail for Gdynia was loaded there, and on the way back from Gdynia, mail for the Polish post in Danzig was again dropped there. It concerned these lines:

Ketrzyno - Kartuzy - Gdansk 427 (opened on 1 April 1924)
Koscierzzyna - Pszczolki - Gdansk 431 (opened 1 October 1925)
Bydgoscz - Gdynia 230, 324
Lodz - Bydgoszcz - Gdynia 325
Poznan - Gdynia 45, 202, 208
Warszawa - Gdansk - Gdynia - Puck 5 (through Bydgoszcz)
Warszawa - Gdynia 15 (through Ilowo)
Warszawa-Gdynia 105, 115, 125
Hel - Puck - Wejherowo - Gdynia - Gdañsk - Tczew 235
Strzebielino - Luzino - WejIierowo - Gdañsk - Tczew 234, 236 16


Post from Poland, that had to be sent to overseas countries through the Polish post office in the harbor, arrived from Poland at the post office at the railway station. Post for Poland, arriving by ship in the Danzig harbor, was sent through the post office at the railway station, thence by train to Poland. It isn’t clear if the post office.at Heveliusplatz also played any role in this exchange.

The letter from the Polish Ministry of Post to the Polish postal administration in Danzig of 4 April 1923, states that the exchange of mail with Great Britain had to be one of the tasks of the post office. The authors of the two most complete books on the Polish post in Danzig, Franciszek Bogacki and Aleksander Sniezko, write the same in their books.’7 However, evidence suggests that this didn’t happen in practice. The postal orders for the Polish post in Danzig state clearly that the exchange with overseas countries, including Great Britain, was done by the harbor post office. The Dziennik Urzedowy, on the opening of Post Office Gdañsk 2, of 17 April, doesn’t mention this exchange, either.’8 There exist several labels, used on parcels, and mailbags for the exchange with Great Britain. On these labels the post office at the harbor is indicated as the sending office. LFigure 5] Additionally, it wouldn’t be wise from an organizational point of view, to execute the exchange of mail with Great Britain through the post office at the railiay station-, while the exchange with all the other overseas countries went through the harbor post office.

 

Danzig Report Vol. 1 - Nr. 92 - July - August - September - 1996,  Page 11.