Germany: Occupation of the Sudetenland - Printable Version

+- Kingston Stamp Club Community Forum (https://kingstonstampclub.ca/forum)
+-- Forum: Philatelic Discussions - Country / Region Specific Forums (https://kingstonstampclub.ca/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=24)
+--- Forum: Europe (https://kingstonstampclub.ca/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=28)
+--- Thread: Germany: Occupation of the Sudetenland (/showthread.php?tid=209)

---

Germany: Occupation of the Sudetenland - Hugh - 13-10-2025

Picked up a very nice item at the club meeting last week. 

It's an express cover sent on October 12, 1938 from the 'new' German post office in Schlag, in the district of Gablonz, [formerly in Czechoslovakia] to Halle (Saale) in Germany.  This was four days after the German Occupation (Annexation) of the Sudetenland following the Munich Agreement.

[attachment=730]

It has a rather unusual provisional, roughly set, rubber hand-stamp, BAD SCHLAG / 12.X.1938 in black ink.  It's actually two hand-stamps, one for the town and one for the date. The word BAD was added by the local authorities who were perhaps eager to position the town as a spa town for German tourists. 

[attachment=732]

As well,  there is a 34mm purple hand-stamp commemorating the occupation of Gablonz four days earlier.

[attachment=733]

The arrival cancel on the back is dated the next day ... and is from HALLE (SAALE) / FERNSPRECHAMT. [Fernsprechamt = Telephone / telegraph office]. 

[attachment=734]

There is a German delivery / route number 21 on the back next to the arrival stamp. The arrival CDS and this route stamp would seem to confirm postal use and delivery. 

[attachment=736]

It's been franked with 57Pf in Hindenburg stamps cancelled with the date stamp and provisional rubber hand-stamp. There is a manuscript Durch Eilboten [By Express Messenger] in blue crayon in the upper left corner. There is also a manuscript 826 on the front, presumably it has to do with the brown etiquette reading EXPRÈS. It is, I assume, a Czech stock label still being used during this early period.

The routing appears plausible for next morning delivery. Over-franked perhaps but it was sent express and it would have bee a confusing period. No contents.

It was addressed, in a German cursive script known as Schreibschrift, to:

Herrn Robert Schuler
Halle (Saale)
Cansteinstrasse 14

I haven't yet found any information about Robert Schuler but the street address is a private residential building. It still exists. 

[attachment=739]
Source: Wikimedia

The town and the postmark is listed in Die Not-und Befreiungsstempel in den sudetendeutschen Gebieten 1938/39 (The Emergency and Liberation Postmarks in the Sudeten German Territories 1938/39). Another monograph confirms it was assigned to the German Postal Region of Dresden. 

In short, a postally-used philatelic souvenir created in the days following the occupation. The provisional hand-stamps were replaced within weeks.

Today, Bad Schlag is known as Jablonecké Paseky and is part of Jablonec nad Nisou (formerly Gablonz) in the Czech Republic.

Cheers, Hugh

---