Germany: Postal History - Printable Version

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Germany: Postal History - Hugh - 06-05-2026

I won a few items at Roy's auctions last weekend ... including a couple of covers from the North German Confederation. I'm looking forward to picking then up at the club next week. 

In the meanwhile, I had a look at one of the North German covers I already had. It's a bit damaged (Well, a lot damaged actually) but it's always fun to play with a less-than-perfect cover and squeeze out as much from it as you can.

Here it is. It looks like sometime in the last 175 years someone torn off the upper left corner of this cover. It was not well done. Parts of the letter are hanging by a thread.

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It was sent from Berlin to Geiersthal / K. Landg. Viechtach / i. Bayern - which I take to mean 'Geiersthal' near or under 'königliches Landgericht Viechtach' (the jurisdiction of the royal court-district of Viechtach) in Barvaria. This is supported by the Halbkreisstemple [Semi-circle] transit / arrival cancel on the other side which reads VIECHTACH. Viechtach is a town on the Schwarzer River northeast of Straubing.

The receiving cancel, on a 1 Gr. North German Confederation stamp issued in 1869 (Mi.Nr. 16), is a single ring CDS with BERLIN POST-EXP.23. 6-9N. inside the ring and 21 5 / 70 in the middle. Post Expidedition No. 23 would have been a branch post-office. 6-9N meant it was processed in the evening.

1 Grochen was the proper pre-UPU postal rate for a simple letter within the North German Confederation or to the southern German States under the 1866-71 postal union. There is a Fr. 1 handwritten on the cover. The Fr. would mean 'franco' and the '1' is in red / orange crayon and would have been written by the postal clerk when calculating the 1st level postal rate. The CDS was applied twice, once as an obliterator.

In 1870 it probably took 2-3 days to reach Bavaria. As noted above the Berlin CDS was clearly dated May 21. It's very fuzzy, but it looks to me like the Barbarian semi-circle or Fan stamp is dated May 24 - three days later. I assume it went from Berlin to Leipzig. Then to Hof on the Saxon-Bavarian frontier. From there it would have gone to Regensburg. -- the local hub. It might have continued to Straubing. The last leg, most likely, would have been by mail coach to Viechtach (where the Fan-cancel was applied) and then to Geiersthal.

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The letter inside was written in Kurrent script which is always a bit of a challenge. This particular letter is (for me anyway) very had to transcribe due to the writers rather cryptic comments that are probably understood by his correspondent but are unkowable to anyone else outside the family. Essentially, he is describing complicated personal, business and family affairs. And, a plan that has fallen through.

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It's a good reminder that the past is a foreign country -- they do things different there (smile).

Lots of fun though.

Cheers, Hugh

PS - The letter has an embossed oval in the upper left corner that reads, "Hugo Diehle / Berlin". The Frano-Prussian War is only a few months away. One wonder how Hugo's plans unfolded over the rest of the year. Did things get better, or worse?

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