Katalog der aptierten deutschen Stempel in Südwestafrika ab 1915, von Uwe Albert und Hans Koppe

Katalog der aptierten deutschen Stempel in Südwestafrika ab 1915, von Uwe Albert und Hans Koppe. Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Sammler deutscher Kolonialpostwertzeichen e.V. Berlin 2016.

Der Katalog der aptierten deutschen Stempel in Südwestafrika ab 1915, von Uwe Albert und Hans Koppe, ist eine Ergänzung zu unserem aktuell in der 17. Auflage vorliegenden Stempelkataloges der ehemaligen Deutschen Kolonien und Auslandspostämter.

The Union of South Africa took administrative control of German Southwest Africa during 1915. For civilian mail, English-language date postmarks were not available. Accordingly, the 'Director of Posts & Telegraphs', located in Windhoek, requested all postal stations in occupied Southwest Africa by letter on 23 February 1916 to inform him of the existing date hand-stamps and postal seals (Attachment, Document 1) at those respective locations. In August 1916, German hand stamps were found which had been buried at the end of World War I near Grootfontein. Those newly found hand-cancels and those from Windhoek were mostly unsuitable for continued use, since they often included the word "German". In the meantime, the names of some towns had also changed. For economic reasons it was decided not to replace those hand-stamps with new ones, but, rather, the available hand-stamps, well-made steel types from German times, were adapted to the new requirements by excising words, albeit with some postmark parts often remaining along with newly included letters, resulting in postmarks occasionally being asymmetric. Many of those hand-stamps having provisional alterations of the time remained in postal use for decades. Interest arose early from philatelists attempting to determine the original hand-stamps from the altered ones. An early basic reference book authored by Herbert Busch (1920) covered the 'Postmarks of the Union Mail of 1914-1919'. A subsequent major development was achieved by Dr. Herbert Gewande (1954) using technical methods. In 2012, Dr. Hansjürgen Kiepe published a broad historical summary of the origin of the hand-stamps. Nevertheless, questions continue to exist today. In particular, postmarks used after their intended usage period having German date configurations with mostly excised wording still have not been properly categorically organized, and those are listed in Part II of this work. Postmark diameters, type sizes and position of the dates offer indications of the original hand-stamp postmarks. Unfortunately, the postal archives in Johannesburg have to-date not permitted requests for research of the postal files stored with them from Windhoek, which could potentially assist in research of these postmarks.

This is the foreword to Katalog der aptierten deutschen Stempel in Südwestafrika ab 1915, von Uwe Albert und Hans Koppe.

Titel: Katalog der aptierten deutschen Stempel in Südwestafrika ab 1915
Untertitel: Aufstellung aller aptierten deutschen Stempel mit Beschreibung, Bewertung und Angaben zu den Verwendungszeiten
Autoren: Uwe Albert; Hans Koppe
Sonderdruck der Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Sammler Deutscher Kolonialpostwertzeichen e.V.
Herausgegeber: Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Sammler deutscher Kolonialpostwertzeichen e.V.
Berlin 2016
ISBN: keine
Broschur, 17 x 24 cm, 104 Seiten, zahlreiche sw- und Farbabbildungen