German Occupied Belgium Postal Card Marking Help Please

Hello, Here are two postal cards from German occupied Belgium that have a couple markings I need help with. There is an Auslandstelle Aachen cancel that I think was to show that the correct foriegn postage was applied. In the center of that cancel is Frei Ge_ben. I can't make out the second word.My second question is: Is the mark at the bottom of the card a censor mark or possiblt a registered mark.
Thanks
David

Freigegeben means released, so maybe it was passed by censor and the A17 is a censor mark.

It's "freigegeben", which means that it was released by the censor.

The "A 17" is likely a Dutch mailman cancel. At the time, some Dutch cities delivered mail multiple times per day. The "A" signifies the first delivery of the day, and "17" is the mailman's badge number.

I believe that they are Belgian 'carrier' cancellations to identify the mailman who was on any particular route.

Chimo

Bujutsu

Does that mean the Auslandstelle stamp is a censor stamp?
david

Censor was probably the wrong choice of words. During the war, mail traveling between German-occupied areas didn't travel directly from one to the other, but was routed through foreign offices (Auslandstelle) in Germany. Mail was commonly held for security reasons, then released when the threat of disclosing troop movements, etc., had been overcome by events/time. When it was released for delivery, it was stamped with the freigegeben mark.

I get it now, thanks for clarifying it for me. As usual I learned a lot from the informatio. thanks to all.
david