Stamp Collecting for Grown-Ups
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VOLUMEAJR JOURNAL 12 NO.3 MARCHMARCH 2012 Stamp collecting for grown-ups ostage stamps, it seems, have had selected combine to give a very particular the war of 1866 were the stamps of the a magical appeal to generations of historical insight into the experience of states of North Germany replaced by P schoolboys. While my father as a the refugees from the Nazis. those of the Prussian-dominated North boy in Vienna had specialised in collecting Postage stamps have always had German Confederation. That signalled the the stamps of the Austro-Hungarian the capacity to educate the attentive disappearance of the Kingdom of Saxony monarchy, I concentrated on the stamps collector. For the young, this can be a with its rare classical issue of stamps of of what was then still called the British simple matter of information. I remember 1850, and of the Kingdom of Hanover with Empire, as befitted a boy in London in my puzzlement at seeing an Irish stamp its issue featuring the image of the blind the 1950s. Disdaining the inflated flow celebrating the anniversary of the year king George V, among others. In 1871, of new issues flooding onto the market, 1916, which for a young British boy was following Prussia’s victorious war against I took no interest in any stamps issued subsumed into the war years of 1914-18, France, the remaining South German after the death of King George VI in states were also incorporated into 1952. What magic was evoked by the the new German Empire, which simple, almost austere images on issued its own stamps, including the stamps of bygone decades! The the series bearing the image of earliest, issued after the introduction Germania. of the modern postage stamp by the Of the three South German British Royal Mail in 1840, mostly states, only Bavaria was granted featured only the portrait of the the right to continue to control monarch of the issuing state, on its own postage after 1871. This the model of the profile of Queen reflected the skilful tactics of the Victoria that adorned the original German Chancellor, Bismarck, in Penny Black (and the much prized making apparent concessions to Two Penny Blue), or the coat of Bavarian autonomous sentiment, arms of that state. while ensuring that in matters of Letter to Warth Mill Internment Camp, 31 July 1940 Something of the same attraction real power control rested in Berlin, emanates from Fleeing from the Führer: a national narrative in which the Easter not in Munich. (Bavaria had control of its A Postal History of Refugees from the Rising of 1916 in Dublin played little part. own armed forces, for example, but only Nazis, written by Charmian Brinson and I remember my bafflement at seeing the in peacetime, which is rather like giving William Kaczynski and published by the unknown word ‘bilingual’ applied in the a young man access to a contraceptive History Press, Stroud, in 2011 (ISBN 978 catalogues of the stamp dealers Stanley vending machine, but only while he 0 7524 6195 3). The book is built around Gibbons to issues of South African stamps remains celibate.) Kaczynski’s remarkable collection of – until I realised that the wording on the The collapse of 1918 was reflected in stamps, postcards, envelopes, visas, stamps was in two languages, English Bavaria on the face of its postage stamps. certificates and other such apparently and Afrikaans, and gained an inkling of The revolution of November 1918 in ephemeral documents relating to the the deep historical divide between Briton Munich brought to power a radical left- experience of the vast numbers of refugees and Boer in that country. And I remember wing regime under Kurt Eisner, which and deportees whose lives were dislocated wondering why a Czech stamp of 1947 promptly overprinted the image of King as they were forced to flee the Nazis or bearing the image of a veiled woman Ludwig III with the words ‘Volksstaat were otherwise uprooted. in mourning should carry the name Bayern’, overtly designating Bavaria The book captivates the reader at the ‘Lidice’, until I found out about the atrocity a socialist ‘people’s state’. But when first sight of its images of stamps from a perpetrated by the Germans in that village the left-wing government was bloodily multitude of countries, of envelopes that in retribution for the assassination of overthrown in May 1919 by the right- once contained communications from Reinhard Heydrich in 1942. wing paramilitary forces that ‘cleansed’ refugees to relatives in far-away lands and Germany’s stamps, too, constitute a Munich of ‘Reds’, the overprinting on of the postmarks and censorship marks of visual record of its history. At first, the Bavarian stamps changed to ‘Freistaat various national authorities, including the various independent German states that Bayern’, the conservative slogan of the ominous eagle and swastika of the Nazis. made up the German Confederation new government of the right that was to In conjunction with the linking narrative until 1867 issued their own stamps; only preside over the launch of Adolf Hitler’s supplied by Charmian Brinson, the images after Prussia’s victory over Austria in continued overleaf 1 AJR JOURNAL MARCH 2012 Stamp collecting cont. from p1 Compensation programmes improved political career. Following negotiations with the German benefit survivors of the Budapest ghetto The history of Austria is also told government, the Claims Conference has as well as child survivors hidden in France, announced a series of improvements Belgium, Italy and Greece, and that an through its postage stamps. The stamps of in compensation programmes that additional 3,500 survivors will become the Austro-Hungarian monarchy initially they administer. These changes affect eligible as they reach the age of 75 over bore the imperial coat of arms, the double- applicants to the Article II and the Hardship the coming years. Funds. Also, there is now no deadline for headed eagle of the Habsburgs, or the Hardship Fund image of the Emperor Francis Joseph. As applications to the Ghetto Fund, which makes a one-time payment of €2,000 Also coming into force in 2012 is a befitted a proud empire, in 1908 Austria- (approximately £1,650) to people who widening of entitlement to the Hardship Hungary celebrated the sixtieth anniver- worked in Nazi-controlled ghettos. Fund, which now extends to Jewish sary of Francis Joseph’s accession to the victims of Nazism who live in Western Article II Fund Europe, provided they have never received throne with a series of stamps designed With effect from 1 January 2012, the any compensation for their suffering. by the noted artist Koloman Moser and minimum time period for persecution The Fund provides a one-time payment featuring images of the imperial palaces, (interned in a ghetto, in hiding or living of €2,556 (approximately £2,100) to the Hofburg and Schönbrunn. Austrian under false identity) is reduced to 12 certain Jewish victims of Nazism, including pretensions to power and influence in the months. The Claims Conference is re- many from former Soviet-Bloc countries examining applications that were not who emigrated to the West after 1969, eastern Mediterranean were underlined eligible on the basis of the applicant not which was the application deadline for by the stamps issued for the Austrian meeting the 18-month minimum criteria. the West German Indemnification Laws post offices maintained in the Ottoman The Fund makes monthly payments of (BEG). Empire (including one in Jerusalem) and €300 (approximately £250) and it is Application forms and further guidance exotically denominated in piasters, the thought that this change will make an are available from AJR Head Office and extra 8,000 survivors eligible for pensions. from the Claims Conference website local currency. Additionally, survivors aged 75 and at http://www.claimscon.org/index. But with the collapse of 1918, as Austria over who were in a ghetto for less than asp?url=compensation Separately, the was reduced to its German-speaking 12 months but for a minimum of three deadline to submit questionnaires to rump, the new republic issued stamps on months will be entitled to a special Project Heart at www.heartwebsite.org which the image of Emperor Charles, last monthly pension of €240 (approximately has been extended into 2012. £200). It is thought that this change will Michael Newman of the ruling Habsburgs, was overprinted with the word ‘Deutschösterreich’. Under the post-war peace settlement, the union and, following the outbreak of war, the of reaching their intended recipients, of ‘German’ Austria with neighbouring internment of Jews in camps in the were the only remaining link between Germany was forbidden by the victorious occupied countries of Western Europe. them. The amazing odysseys of some of Allies. Austria became a republic, whose Particularly well recorded are the British the letters in the book took them literally fragility was at first belied by the optimism internment camps: Huyton Camp near round the world, following their recipients of the images on its stamps: the parliament Liverpool, Warth Mill in Bury, and the as they were repeatedly displaced by the building, symbol of the new democracy, or various camps on the Isle of Man, where tides of war. Apart from the internment a kneeling man, symbolising the arising refugees were detained from summer camps in Canada and Australia, Fleeing of the new republic, all crafted in the Art 1940. William Kaczynski was himself from the Führer recovers the memory of Nouveau style of the Vienna Secession, interned with his mother and younger half-forgotten camps like Beau Bassin in the avant-garde movement that stood in brother in the family camp in Rushen, Isle Mauritius (for ‘illegal’ Jewish entrants opposition to official Habsburg aesthetic of Man, and it was a letter from his cousin to Palestine) and Somes Camp in New pomposity.