Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Currently, this cover and many others from the same seller are on eBay. He seems like a nice guy but claims he knows nothing about these covers other than that he states he found in a large box filled with similar items.
Bruce
1 Member
likes this post.
Login to Like.
I think that your assessment is right. There are a number of things that just look strange about this cover. For instance, I thought that 'Feldpost' was meant to be the army's free mailing service. In other words, for soldiers. This is a letter from a civilian to someone in the military. Was the free mailing service also for that? I do not think so. It appears that the addressee was in the Luftwaffe (L prefix), but how did the SS get involved? Apart from that, the office of the Reichsführer was in Berlin, not in Königsberg. So are we to believe that a letter from a civilian, a relative of the soldier Martin Schneider, used the feldpost system to send a personal letter to Martin, but that it was rerouted from Königsberg to Brussels to pass through the office of Himmler? Interesting assumption. 
Login to Like
this post
This is an odd one, and I'm not convinced it's a complete fake/forgery, but may have been embellished. I'm enjoying doing a bit of research!
All I've found so far is that the "51528" is likely a Feldpost number, allocated as follows:
L 51528
(01.05.1942-19.10.1942) Jagdfliegerführer West,
(08.09.1943-22.04.1944) 1.10.1943 Jagd-Division 5,
(25.11.1944-08.05.1945) 28.4.1945 Flieger-Division 16.
However, I can't find reference to Brussels, as the relevant units seem to have been in France at the postage date, and I can't yet find Martin Schneider.
The hunt continues!!
Login to Like
this post
Yes, embellished with all those fake SS and Feldpost handstamps well after the war. The cover itself is likely real. It is possible that the sender had a line of work in Konigsberg that allowed for the feldpost (written in by hand) free mailing but I'm not sure on that one though.
Bruce
Login to Like
this post
To answer JanSimon's query military mail is usually free in both directions, or at least in the British Forces - but only when on active service, domestic civil mail rates apply otherwise.
What I find strange is that FPO s are normally "blind". In other words the FPO number tells the sorters where the unit is stationed -actual destinations (as in Brussels) is not normally given away on the envelope for fear of giving such information to an enemy.
It is obviously, however, genuine FPO mail as the handwritten Feldpost matches the address, and the date is the first gap between locations where presumably the FPO was somewhere else.My limited German tells me that the first location was some sort of headquarters and like many units was not static so it could have been anywhere. Also I suggest that the dates in the list are first and last known dates rather than the definitive period. FPO personnel are usually permanent even where the unit they are attatched to is not. Again in British Forces on active service abroad RAF units use the army postal service ( only the Navy is different by it's very nature ) and I don't see why Germany should be any different, so the Luftwaffe reference is not necessarily an anomoly
The only way to get to the bottom of it is to minutely compare the Feldpost handstamps with known genuine examples of the same ones to prove that they are "right".
Login to Like
this post
Would it be possible to see what is under the selvage at the bottom left, possibly from the inside. It is possible that that the envelope was used twice, not uncommon for the time. The "2" in the FP number and both "2" in the sender look like they were written by 2 different people.
In March of 1943 a Luftwaffe field division was deployed to Belgium as occupation troops, activated in April of same year. Interesting is also the "t" behind the field post Number. Also the date under Martin Schneider and the date of the Cancel.
Login to Like
this post
Here's my offering, an SS cover posted from Reserve Police Battalion 112 in Tilberg, Netherlands to Berlin. Later in 1942, it became part of the 9th SS Police Regiment, ordered to provide "security" on the Eastern Front. As I understand this history, it was incorporated into the Einsatzgruppen security forces tasked with murdering Russian Jews in Ukraine, and destroyed in Russia in 1943.
The Nazi Terror — Gestapo, Jews & Ordinary Germans, by Eric Johnson, provides a fascinating look at the development of the Gestapo, which was made up of ordinary city cops, many of whom ended up in the Einsatzgruppen. Johnson interviews one such policeman who admitted to committing atrocities in Russia but was never charged with a war crime and returned to his former job in Krefeld, Germany. When he retired he received credit for his time with the SS.
Bob
Login to Like
this post
Here's an ABE.com link to a page that lists several used copies of the book I mentioned in my previous post: The Nazi Terror.
To find copies of The Nazi Terror, scroll down a short way on the first screen; there are a couple of different designs for the cover. Reviewer Niall Ferguson of the Daily Telegraph calls it "One of the most impressive works I have read about the Third Reich published in the last decade."
Bob
Login to Like
this post
The Totenkopf Division was deployed in the field during the Third Battle of Kharkov when the letter was posted - not really close to either Konigsberg or Brussels.
Login to Like
this post
For more information on the progression from local reserve police units to marauding murder, I suggest Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust.
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
Login to Like
this post
I wasn't going to post this cover in this thread, until I read what Bob wrote:
"Gestapo, which was made up of ordinary city cops"
This cover was sent by the Capture Police (Kompanie Rowno) in Volhynia to the Police School, co-located at Oranienburg concentration camp. No SS markings per se, but I'm presuming the Police School there was an SS entity. There is a Oranienburg receiver CDS on the back, dated 24.9.43. Kennbuchstabe 'd' at the bottom of the CDS.
Volhynia, in Ukraine saw a lot of death and destruction during WWII, wedged between Poland and Russia. During the Nazi invasion in 1943, around 40,000–60,000 Polish people (mostly women and children) in Volhynia were massacred by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. This cover was mailed a few weeks after the peak of the genocide. Poles were arrested by the Nazis and were deported to the Reich to forced labor, detention in camps, and mass executions.
For me, there's intrigue around what the contents could have been. A report of deportations? An appeal for reinforcements? Or, just someone's application to the school?
-Paul
Login to Like
this post
08:42:01pm
Anyone care to weigh in on these handstamps? Note the one on the right purports to be from Himmler's office. My opinion: fake. Yours?
Currently, this cover and many others from the same seller are on eBay. He seems like a nice guy but claims he knows nothing about these covers other than that he states he found in a large box filled with similar items.
Bruce
1 Member
likes this post.
Login to Like.
Approvals
re: "SS" Handstamps on Feldpost
I think that your assessment is right. There are a number of things that just look strange about this cover. For instance, I thought that 'Feldpost' was meant to be the army's free mailing service. In other words, for soldiers. This is a letter from a civilian to someone in the military. Was the free mailing service also for that? I do not think so. It appears that the addressee was in the Luftwaffe (L prefix), but how did the SS get involved? Apart from that, the office of the Reichsführer was in Berlin, not in Königsberg. So are we to believe that a letter from a civilian, a relative of the soldier Martin Schneider, used the feldpost system to send a personal letter to Martin, but that it was rerouted from Königsberg to Brussels to pass through the office of Himmler? Interesting assumption.
Login to Like
this post
re: "SS" Handstamps on Feldpost
This is an odd one, and I'm not convinced it's a complete fake/forgery, but may have been embellished. I'm enjoying doing a bit of research!
All I've found so far is that the "51528" is likely a Feldpost number, allocated as follows:
L 51528
(01.05.1942-19.10.1942) Jagdfliegerführer West,
(08.09.1943-22.04.1944) 1.10.1943 Jagd-Division 5,
(25.11.1944-08.05.1945) 28.4.1945 Flieger-Division 16.
However, I can't find reference to Brussels, as the relevant units seem to have been in France at the postage date, and I can't yet find Martin Schneider.
The hunt continues!!
Login to Like
this post
08:00:12am
re: "SS" Handstamps on Feldpost
Yes, embellished with all those fake SS and Feldpost handstamps well after the war. The cover itself is likely real. It is possible that the sender had a line of work in Konigsberg that allowed for the feldpost (written in by hand) free mailing but I'm not sure on that one though.
Bruce
Login to Like
this post
05:54:10pm
re: "SS" Handstamps on Feldpost
To answer JanSimon's query military mail is usually free in both directions, or at least in the British Forces - but only when on active service, domestic civil mail rates apply otherwise.
What I find strange is that FPO s are normally "blind". In other words the FPO number tells the sorters where the unit is stationed -actual destinations (as in Brussels) is not normally given away on the envelope for fear of giving such information to an enemy.
It is obviously, however, genuine FPO mail as the handwritten Feldpost matches the address, and the date is the first gap between locations where presumably the FPO was somewhere else.My limited German tells me that the first location was some sort of headquarters and like many units was not static so it could have been anywhere. Also I suggest that the dates in the list are first and last known dates rather than the definitive period. FPO personnel are usually permanent even where the unit they are attatched to is not. Again in British Forces on active service abroad RAF units use the army postal service ( only the Navy is different by it's very nature ) and I don't see why Germany should be any different, so the Luftwaffe reference is not necessarily an anomoly
The only way to get to the bottom of it is to minutely compare the Feldpost handstamps with known genuine examples of the same ones to prove that they are "right".
Login to Like
this post
re: "SS" Handstamps on Feldpost
Would it be possible to see what is under the selvage at the bottom left, possibly from the inside. It is possible that that the envelope was used twice, not uncommon for the time. The "2" in the FP number and both "2" in the sender look like they were written by 2 different people.
In March of 1943 a Luftwaffe field division was deployed to Belgium as occupation troops, activated in April of same year. Interesting is also the "t" behind the field post Number. Also the date under Martin Schneider and the date of the Cancel.
Login to Like
this post
re: "SS" Handstamps on Feldpost
Here's my offering, an SS cover posted from Reserve Police Battalion 112 in Tilberg, Netherlands to Berlin. Later in 1942, it became part of the 9th SS Police Regiment, ordered to provide "security" on the Eastern Front. As I understand this history, it was incorporated into the Einsatzgruppen security forces tasked with murdering Russian Jews in Ukraine, and destroyed in Russia in 1943.
The Nazi Terror — Gestapo, Jews & Ordinary Germans, by Eric Johnson, provides a fascinating look at the development of the Gestapo, which was made up of ordinary city cops, many of whom ended up in the Einsatzgruppen. Johnson interviews one such policeman who admitted to committing atrocities in Russia but was never charged with a war crime and returned to his former job in Krefeld, Germany. When he retired he received credit for his time with the SS.
Bob
Login to Like
this post
re: "SS" Handstamps on Feldpost
Here's an ABE.com link to a page that lists several used copies of the book I mentioned in my previous post: The Nazi Terror.
To find copies of The Nazi Terror, scroll down a short way on the first screen; there are a couple of different designs for the cover. Reviewer Niall Ferguson of the Daily Telegraph calls it "One of the most impressive works I have read about the Third Reich published in the last decade."
Bob
Login to Like
this post
re: "SS" Handstamps on Feldpost
The Totenkopf Division was deployed in the field during the Third Battle of Kharkov when the letter was posted - not really close to either Konigsberg or Brussels.
Login to Like
this post
re: "SS" Handstamps on Feldpost
For more information on the progression from local reserve police units to marauding murder, I suggest Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust.
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
Login to Like
this post
11:59:41am
re: "SS" Handstamps on Feldpost
I wasn't going to post this cover in this thread, until I read what Bob wrote:
"Gestapo, which was made up of ordinary city cops"
This cover was sent by the Capture Police (Kompanie Rowno) in Volhynia to the Police School, co-located at Oranienburg concentration camp. No SS markings per se, but I'm presuming the Police School there was an SS entity. There is a Oranienburg receiver CDS on the back, dated 24.9.43. Kennbuchstabe 'd' at the bottom of the CDS.
Volhynia, in Ukraine saw a lot of death and destruction during WWII, wedged between Poland and Russia. During the Nazi invasion in 1943, around 40,000–60,000 Polish people (mostly women and children) in Volhynia were massacred by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. This cover was mailed a few weeks after the peak of the genocide. Poles were arrested by the Nazis and were deported to the Reich to forced labor, detention in camps, and mass executions.
For me, there's intrigue around what the contents could have been. A report of deportations? An appeal for reinforcements? Or, just someone's application to the school?
-Paul
Login to Like
this post