Help Understanding German Cover 1915

I obtained this cover in a group of other material and I am not sure what to make of it. Feldpost is a military mail? Also, I am presuming a date of February 11, 1915, but am not sure what to make of the rest of the cancellation. If anyone knows something about how to read this cover I'd be grateful. Thanks

In Europe, the day always comes before the month. 2.11. is the second day of the 11th month.
And yes, Feldpost is Field Post, i.e., military.

It is addressed to the Feld-Artillerie-Regiment General-Feldmarschall Graf Waldersee (Schleswigsches) Nr. 9 of the German Imperial Army established on 2 October 1866 and garrisoned in Itzenhoe, from 1890.

Fantastic! And thanks so much for the very quick response with more information than I could have imagined. Very helpful.

If anyone was wondering, the oval marking is a private one, for the orchestra club of Lyceum 1 in Hannover. Music topical in a Feldpost cover!

That's a very neat cover. :)

I can add a little:

"10-11 V" in the postmark refers to 10 to 11 in the morning (Vormittag).

I would guess that "R.K.B." refers to a specific artillery battery (Batterie).

I believe that "9. Züg." refers to the 9th platoon/troop/section (or whatever is the correct term for this level of unit when describing the German artillery).

However, I would have expected "9. Zug" here to be written without the umlaut (unlike the plural form Züge).

Perhaps NSK, hy-brasil or another member could confirm or correct these points?

That is not an umlaut. In old German script to differentiate between an "n" and a "u", a hooked line was added over the "u" in a lot of hand written material.

As I am currently going through pages and pages of old German ancestry notes and graphs, that little hooked line at least lets me know where the vowel is amongst all of the up and down strokes!

The "R.K.B." is likely a reference to this being a Bavarian regiment (Kingdom of Bavaria = Königreichs Bayern). Zug 9 is train 9.

Wow, thanks all for this help. I did know about the Lyceum music connection, as I try to focus on all music-related philatelic items. However, it is so good to have all of the rest of this information, especially as I do not read German. Thanks everyone.

A "Zug" is a platoon of 12 - 60 soldiers. It is part of a "Kompanie" or "Brigade."
Still not sure what R.K.B. is. I too started to go to the Bavarian 9th field-artillery regiment, but that has no relation to Itzehoe, whereas that of the Imperial German Army does. My guess is that K.B. means Kanonen-Batterie (canon battery). Maybe, they were reserves: Reserve-Kanonen-Batterie.

@PostmasterGS

This is one I do not agree with. I did come across a similar Bavarian Regiment. However that was not stationed in Itzehoe, in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, but in Augsburg. The one of the Imperial German Army also named "Schleswig" Regiment was garrisoned in Itzehoe. I have very little doubt the letter was addressed to the regiment I mentioned.

http://genwiki.genealogy.net/FAR_9
http://genwiki.genealogy.net/KB_FAR_9

The Bavarian 9th regiment was disbanded in 1914 and then re-established but part of the 2nd field-artillery brigade.

PMStamp wrote:



Thanks very much for this!

I can appreciate your challenges with old German manuscripts.

They are usually too hard for me, especially when we have long chunks written in the Sütterlin style.

I have seen the Sütterlin "u" before but I had completely forgotten about it.

I must admit I usually stick to printed German and even then I try to avoid any books in a Fraktur/blackletter font.

Here's a snip from Wikipedia where we have set out in a column these three pairs of upper and lowercase German letters in their Sütterlin forms:

Thanks for the note about German script. Very helpful and interesting.