The Russians In Germany

I saw the stream for "The Russians in Germany" depicting diagonal overprints on German stamps for towns and providences, in the Soviet zone I assume. along with a number. The stamps shown in the old stream were from 1947-48. These are from the previous issue. I didn't see these in the old post so I'm wondering what town/providences these were overprinted for? The 1pf reads ?ott 36 ?something? possibly tbwrrd. Its hard to read black on black. Sorry. The other two read 27 ?ue (Sachs? What was the purpose of these overprints. There are plenty of stamps listed for the Soviet zone and DDR. Any info will help.

http://www.stampmasteralbum.com/For...rmanyOcc.htm



try this....and I was born in 1945 outside of Prag and the Russians were coming!!

Hi ajbbarbados,

I'm guessing you're referring to the the following thread on Stampboards:

http://www.stampboards.com/viewtopi...f=17&t=16899

which is a fascinating survey of the local issues in the Russian Zone.

I hope folks here don't mind me posting this link but Gavin and others have done a great job there in describing these stamps and lots of related subjects.

These handstamped overprints are listed in the Michel Specialised catalogue. Basically the number is the German postal district ("bezirk") number and the second line is the name of the town or post office.

These overprints were applied to the 1946 numeral set as well as the 1947 set but they are more commonly seen on the 1947 stamps.

The only overprint I can read clearly here is the third one which says "27 Aue (Sachs)" which refers to the small town of Aue in Saxony (near the Czech border) in district 27 (managed from Leipzig).

However, for this overprint Michel says that many forgeries are known and in my old catalogue it has a zero price.

I hope this helps a bit.

This is not my area of expertise, so take this for what it's worth...

The unoverprinted versions of these stamps were joint issues of the Allied Control Commission which initially governed occupied Germany. On 21 June 1948, the Soviet Military Administration broke with the western Allies and instituted its own monetary reform in East Germany. With this monetary reform, it became necessary to have new postage.

Soviet produced stamps were not issued until July 3. In the interim, the Soviets authorized use of the remaining stocks of Allied Control Commission pfennig valued stamps at 1/10th of face value. Each post office was required to overprint the stamps with a distinct stamp. The overprinted stamps were valid until 31 July 1948. Because the cancels were done with local cancellers distinct to each post office, there are thousands of distinctly different varieties. Michel notes that a vast, vast majority on the market are forgeries, and BPP expertization is required to get the used catalog price.

The overprints consist of a district number and the post office name. There were 10 districts (Bezirk) -- 3, 14, 16, 20, 27, 29, 36, 37, 38, 41.

There is (as far as I know) no existing list of all the post office in each district that would allow you to match the post office names. Michel does, however, give a list of the most commonly forged post offices, which might allow you to narrow down the geographic area of Bezirk 27 and 36.

Most commonly forged post offices:

Bezirk 3 -- Berlin 4, 7, 8, 9, 17, 25, 34, 54, 55, 56, 66, 92, 113, 115, Berlln-Baumachulenweg, -Buchholz, -Karow, -Kaulsdorf, -Lichtenberg, -Mahlsdorf, Weißensee
Bezirk 14 -- Dresden 1, 6, A 19, 20, 26, 28, A 39, A 53, Bautzen, Bischofswerda, Elbau, Freiberg, Graupa, Großenhain, Görlitz, Herrnhut, Löbau, Meißen, Niederoderwitz, Pirna-Copitz, Riesa, Schirgiswalde, Zittau
Bezirk 16 -- Altenburg, Apolda, Arnstadt, Ellrich, Erfurt, Gera, Greußen, Ilmenau, Jena, Katzhütte, Meiningen, Meuselwitz, Oelze, Orlamünde, Saalfeld, Schleusingen, Schweina, Sonneberg, Steinbach, Bad Sulza, Tanna.
Bezirk 20 -- Bitterfeld, Calbe (Saale), Dessau, Halberstadt, Halle, Harzgerode, Heringen, Hettstedt, Bad Lieberwerda, Magdeburg, Osterwieck, Pretzsch, Rosslau, Staßfurt, Wegeleben, Weißenfels, Wolfen, Wittenberg, Zeitz
Bezirk 27 -- Leipzig S 3, 9, 12, 18, 22, 23, 24, 25, N 26, W 35, 37, 40, Chemnitz 8, 14, 19, 21, Aue Burgstädt, Borna, Engelsdorf, Gaschwitz, Glösa, Hainichen, Hohnstädt, Markkleeberg, Miltitz, Pegau, Taucha, Wurzen
Bezirk 29/2° -- Schönebeck 1, Thale, Köthen, Quedlinburg, Raguhn
Bezirk 36 -- Altenhof, Birkenwerder, Brandenburg 3, Caputh, Cottbus, Eichwalde, Finsterwalde, Forst, Grube Ilse, Jüterbog, Luckenwalde, Michendorf, Oranienburg, Potsdam, Potsdam-Babelsburg, Rehfelde, Bad Saarow, Senftenberg, Spremberg, Wildau, Wittenberge 1
Bezirk 37 -- Bützow, Crivitz, Bad Doberan, Fürstenberg, Güstrow, Lübz, Schwerin, Sellin
Bezirk 38 -- Anklam, Greifswald, Pasewalk, Saßnitz
Bezirk 41 -- Chemnitz 1 u. 4, Crossen, Bad Elster, Erlbach, Gelenau, Glauchau, Netzschkau, Niederwiesa, Ölsnitz i. V., Plauen, Reichenbach, Schwarzenberg, Treuen, Zwickau

My 1999 Michel Specialised catalogue lists around 167 post offices for Bezirk 27 and around 192 for Bezirk 36.

On extremely close inspection of the 1pf, it reads ?kenwerd? I believe its for the Birkenwerder region. Anyone know any of the towns for this region. What I can see of the towns name is ?ott?

Birkenwerder is a small town in Brandenburg with around 8,000 inhabitants.

These overprints were usually in two lines (Bezirk number then town or post office name) but sometimes there were three lines with the Bezirk number followed by two lines of text.

There's no sign of a second line of text on the 1pf stamp so the text above the number should be the same as that below (but the letters at the top would be later in the post office's name as the rest of it would have been on the stamp to its left in the sheet).

Alternatively, the text at the top could have come from a postmark if the stamp has been used or it could be a forgery (very likely if it is Birkenwerder) and the forger was careless and used a different handstamp on the stamp to the left in the sheet when overprinting that stamp.

This is one fantastic topic.

The url with the overprints etc is quite exhaustive and well researched.

Great work

Chimo

Bujutsu

Regarding these bezirk stamps, does anyone know any expertisers? I have just come into a great deal of them.

erosenmusicman,

If you are looking for expertization of these issues, especially if you want to sell them in the German market, BPP, "Bund Philatelistischer Prüfung" is the gold Standard.

https://www.bpp.de/en/home.html

Dan