Austrian Post Wars?

These two unorthodox overprints ( they don't match the usual osterreich stamp from the early days after the war) on Nazi issues came up in a odd group of Nazi posts and Czech postwar issues



I take them to be similar to the Czech overprints, as local issues after the liberation, whilst still under allied occupation. The Russian zones seem to have allowed local towns to stamp over the face of Hitler and use these stamps for postage. I'm familiar with this in East Germany and Czechoslovakia, but not come across any for Austria, until now.

Some seem to have been produced for raising money, and there are bogus ones I believe. Can anybody pinpoint where this one originates from?

Telcson.

The problem with these over prints is there is no history behind them. First I never seen that overprint in forty years of collecting and never seen it in the many collections that have come up for auction of post-war Germany and Austria .The printing looks too fine for post-war period. It doesn't make sense because I believe all post-war over prints had to deface any third reich stamp by order of the Allied Government .

Hi floortrader,

yep,I'd think that sounds right.

I would have thought it wouldn't need to be be enforced by law,
I would have thought the locals would have needed to deface the image
with their overprints - I think I would have insisted myself, if I was a postmaster at that time.
But, anyway, as you say, even if you were pro-Nazi in the days after the war,
then would you have wanted Austria to be a republic?

As you say, it doesn't make sense.
So probably bogus?

Telcson

Actually there is a good chance that they are genuine.

In my old 2000/2001 Austria Netto Katalog it shows this.



Mondsee is a small town in Upper Austria.

Value shows in Austrian Schilling MH for the
set of 17 up to the 60pf is S500 = 36 Euro.

Does the overprint then qualify as sufficiently obliterating Hitler's face then? usually, as Floortrader said, they practically cover the whole face, one way or another.
Though having said that the first Austrian ones after the war from Vienna don't really obliterate it either; and there are other examples too which don't



The other two are Czech, from Usti and the other I'm not sure exactly where. The dealer's label said Prachatice.

Telcson

I don't know what you mean by qualify.

These local stamps were issued in May 1945
immediately after the the end of the biggest war in world history.

There was no law which prescribed exactly how and how
much of Hitler's head was supposed to be obliterated on stamps.

Austria was divided into 4 occcupation zones,
American, Russian, British and French and the
capital Vienna into sectors just like Germany and Berlin.



Each occupier had different rules.

Mondsee is in Upper Austria which was for the most
part in the American zone.

In the ANK catalogue it mentions that the the Russians
ordered that in their zone as of June 4, 1945 all Hitler stamps
with the Vienna Provisional overprint had to be further
defaced by means of a hand made cork canceller and that
the CDS was only to be applied beside the stamp.

No, that explains why ones in Russian-controlled areas have a greater degree of obliteration.

You must excuse my ignorance of the rules governing these issues and their overprintings. All I have to go on is the originals, what I find on the internet, and Stanley Gibbons catalogues, which soon give up their usefulness over local issues. All Gibbons says is a dismissive statement ( and my Europe catalogue is a 1960s one )

"In May and June 1945, on the break up of German control, numerous local issues with various overprints appeared, some of which were made with little authority, and others were bogus."

My interest in historical context attracts me to overprints, and I try to gain some idea of authenticity despite Gibbons apparent dismissiveness, of anything which comes into "my hot little hands".

I'd already figured out that Mondsee, being in Upper Austria,near Salzburg by the look of it, wasn't in the Russian zone, and so there's a clarification in what you say about the rules applied to "obllterating" Hitler's image, which is actually really useful.

Telcson

TELCSON-----It just doesn't make sense that those stamps would be overprinted and especially with the words "Austria Republic " .A little background here would be helpful .The RED ARMY was still moving thru Austria in May 1945 and the wrong U.S. Army from the West was entering the area,it was supposed to be Gen. Mark Clark from the South .In May the Russians were not in a talking position, they were there to beat the enemy and take what they wanted . The U.S. and other armies where there to establish a military dictatorship. It really is silly and unrealistic to think anybody was in Austria to help the country . They were still killing anybody who thought they wanted a government to run the country ,it wasn't until July 1945 that the ALLIES sat down and drawn lines for what is yours and what areas we controlled . Remember in May 1945 it was a war zone and you shot first ,there was no friendly meetings with the locals .

Maybe this period's "in-betweenness" ( not the right word, but I can't off the top of my head think of a better one) is why Gibbons are so non-committal, but the catalogue mentioned, (Netto) seems to give them some space.

It seems to be a bit of a controversial subject, from the tone of some of these replies. What do you mean exactly "the wrong U.S. army"?

o.k. I'll do a little research on-line, if possible.

Question : How reliable is the Netto catalogue? Does it treat these stamps seriously, and on what grounds,or maybe it has a proviso on earlier pages about the stamps' credentials.

it feels like I'm being pushed into taking the point of view that these things aren't authentic, rather than being presented with facts that could verify or dismiss them.

I will reserve judgement until I get all the facts in, thanks.
It may be you're right.

Until, then, I'll leave the court in recess...

Telcson.

It was the wrong ARMY that took Austria .Gen Mark Clark of the ALLIES was pushing up from Italy with British,Polish and New Zealand forces into the Po Valley and to push up into Austria and had the political teams to run the country.But the whole Western Front collapsed and the German Army gave up ,so there was a rush from the Western Armies to push East to meet the Red Army . While Clark got hung up with a few S.S. divisions who wanted to fight on . So that's why the Austrian had to buy parts of their country back from the Russians .Nobody was thinking of a REPUBLIC at that time,so it doesn't make sense while U.S. and Russians still had their fingers on the trigger in May 1945 .

okay, a couple of facts: and I'll rephrase my original post, and question.

The "Republik osterreich" designation was one adopted by the soviets for their stamps, so it should make sense to suppose that this overprint on a nazi stamp does/purports to have a Russian origin of some sort,

but Mondsee is only a short distance from Salzburg, and Allied forces entered Salzburg on May 5th 1945, and Salzburg was to become the centre of U.S. occupation in Austria.

It certainly seems from reading the items on the web that Russian forces had a bad reputation with the people, for sexual assault, violence, etc, and I recall seeing a film extract on a t.v. program about a festive gathering welcoming US forces into Austria.

But What bearing would these details have on this alleged stamp?
who would have used a stamp like that in May 1945, and who would have overprinted it, or issued it, and for what purpose? Might its use not have any relationship to the Austrian people of the area?

What about displaced person's camps, in that area, after the American entry into Salzburg? Did the Russian forces reach that far west?

Or is it indeed a speculative issue made at a later date.

Does that pose the question more satisfactorily?

Telcson

The Austria Netto Katalog Briefmarken is the primary
specialized catalogue for Austrian stamps and was first published
in 1946.

The local issues section was worked on by experts from the
Verbandes Österreichischer Briefmarkenprüfer which translates
loosely as the Association of Austrian Stamp Expertizers.

The Mondsee stamps are shown on this auction site
http://stampcircuit.com/Stamp-Aucti...okalausgaben

Also note that Michel numbers are used so they aren't
just in the ANK catalogue.

Since this is a stamp forum and not a history forum I
don't want to get involved in the hows,whys and whats
of post WWII Austria.

But what name was used on the Austrian stamps is
relevant here.

Between 1922 to 1938 all Austrian stamps had just plain
Österreich on them and it was the first Austrian Republic.

For some reason the Russians wanted Republik Österreich
on the stamps in their zone, starting with the
Vienna Provisional overprints and also the Coat of Arms (Hammer&Sickle) issue of July 3, 1945.
They were designed and printed by the State Printer in Vienna.
After all it was now to be officially the second Austrian Republic.

The 3 western Allies for their Post Horn definitives
used the designation Österreich.
They were issued in june 28, 1945 and printed by the BEP,Washington.

Finally when the new general all zone Landscape series stamps were issued beginning November 24, 1945
the 4 occupiers agreed that it would be Republik Österreich


And that's how it stayed until January 1, 2002 when with the first stamps showing the Euro values
the name was now again Österreich just like before the Anschluss.

Although there have been a few stamps issued since where the country name was shown as Austria

Thanks, Lithograving,

I think that it is quite clear that the overprint has originated with the Russian forces, which was what I originally expected.

And the primary specialised catalogue for Austria, well, that has to be a strong source for acknowledgement that such stamps did exist, isn't it? Whatever their original reason for being applied with that overprint. I'd have to take it that Netto's experts didn't say it came from Moodsee for no reason whatsoever.

For myself, I do consider historical context important, as that's a basic reason that I collect stamps. It's a physical representation of the trends of history, in this case across Europe after world war 2.
The history in the stamp, if you will. And I like to get to the bottom of the whys and wherefores of a specific issue from a specific time, as that helps me to understand other issues around it.

Telcson

Hi Telcson

Don't get me wrong I also love reading and researching history
and I believe that stamp collecting and history can feed off each other .
At least it does that for me.

But history and politics especially about something so recent as WWII can often lead to bitter arguments on forums.
Been there, done that , don't need anymore aggravation.

Getting back to your stamps, as far as I'm concerned those stamps where genuinely overprinted by the Mondsee postmaster(?) sometime in May 1945 but I don't believe they were ever used as postage.

Which makes them what.

As per catalogue note that they are listed only under MH and MNH/ hashmarked circle which is the symbol for favour cancels or basically CTO.

Great discussion, all!

Now for another question - were there more than one type of this overprint? The overprint on the left has thicker lettering and appears to be slightly wider, overall, than the stamp on the right - although, it may just be my eyes.

Although I can't offer a useful opinion on the authenticity of either of these stamps, I do want to comment about just how many overprinted Hitler definitives on the market are forgeries or fantasies.

These stamps should still be examined by an expert to verify their authenticity before getting too excited.

Just my 2 cents ...

Brian