Germany Last SS Trooper

I got these 2 from ebay, any opinion about the cancellation would be appreciated.

My understanding is that all used examples of these stamps are either fakes or were cancelled well after the fact for occupying troops that happened to be collectors.
By April 20th the Berlin city center was under constant bombardment and within a few days was subject to close combat. I can't imagine that there was any mail going anywhere, or even many people out in the streets anywhere unless they were fighting. I'm sure there are a number of articles about these issues, and there are certainly people who know far more than I do about them who can add to this.

The provenance of used copies of the SA/SS issues is one of the longest-running, most hotly-debated topics in German philately. Entire volumes have been written on the subject. There was a good 17-page summary in the December 2010 issue of the German Postal Specialist (the publication of the Germany Philatelic Society), which then sparked numerous additional articles in the following months. Like I said, it's a hot topic.

In short, the stamps are known to have arrived at several post office in Berlin during the closing days of the war, but there are serious questions about whether mail service was still in operation due to the presence of Russian forces. There are theories involving postal carriers and private couriers making a few runs, and there has been detailed analysis of the volume of non-SA/SS stamped mail from those locations during the same period in an attempt to determine if the mail service was still in operation. End result... a few competing theories, but no concrete proof.

For this reason, the BPP will no longer issue certs for these issues. There are a few old certs floating around. The general feeling is that even if there was some small volume of mail validly cancelled and routed through the postal system, it's nowhere near the volume of cancelled SA/SS issues on the market today.

I found some info in a document that has a conversion of stamp collectors about these stamps. I quoted it here.




May be mine are backdated cancelled stamps

April 20th was Hitler's birthday wasn't it? Understandable to think that might help sales.

9. The last American bombing raid on Berlin was the morning of April 21.
At midday the Soviet artillery barrage began. All communications
between inner city post offices ceased at this point.

Your stamps are cancelled on the 22nd, so it seems unlikely that they would have been backdated.
Something I found on the web.
http://axis101.bizland.com/Article.html

Also, April 22, 1945 was a Sunday.

Some interesting reading here, too.

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewto...443&start=30

Thank you for you info, Revcollector, may be the forger forgot that 04.22.1945 was a Sunday.

Over here in the Netherlands, mailboxes are still emptied on Sunday and mail is delivered on Monday. In my view that means the mail has to be cancelled on Sunday. I cannot see it was any different 70 years ago. This of course neglects the fact that they had other things to do in Berlin on April 22nd, 1945 than cancelling letters for stamp collectors...

I was going to mention the Third Reich Study Group (TRSG) but see that this is already pointed out in the url that revcollector gave us.

There is a lot of information in that study group from people who collect only that kind of material and they have a wealth of knowledge in there too, as well as the members in here

Chimo

Bujutsu

Fascinating thread and great discussion. The controversy surrounding these items would, in and of itself, make for an interesting album page.

everything everyone else has said and.....

they are way to clean for war postage... and the cancels are too perfect for that time period when they were getting the carp bombed out of them...