Vilnius 1917

This is a postcard sent in 1917 from Wilna (now Vilnius, Lithuania) under the German occupation to Pfafstatt bei Mülhausen in Elsass, now in Alsace, France. It has a nice cachet of the Soldatenheim - Wilna, a recreational establishment for the soldiers, where the card has been sent from. It also has the address on it: Georgstrasse 9 which is the present Gedimino Prospektas. The German name "Georgstrasse", George street. probably comes from the St. George church located right behind the Lithuanian writers' Union building on Gedimino Prospektas.

Recent Acquisitions

Russ (now Rusnė, Lithuania), Ostpreussen (East Prussia) 1887

Серее / Seree (now Seirijai, Lithuania),
Сув/Suv (Suvalki Gubernia) 1910 

Rossienie (now Raseiniai, Lithuania) 1918,
during WWI German occupation

Rucken (now Rukai, Lithuania) 1920

Sejny 1919

Seinai (now Sejny, Poland) 16 May 1919

While collecting stamps for years, I'm pretty sure you have experienced a "what I thought it is, actually, wasn't" phenomena at least once. Well, it just happened to me so I thought I would post about it. This is a Lithuania classic stamp, to be precise, a Michel 14. I thought the postmark on it was an early example of Raseiniai postmark, for some reason labeling it so without much thinking. Recently, I was just going through my collection and one particular Raseiniai cancel on an air post stamp caught my eye. Why? well, I thought the size of the letter on the postmark is slightly smaller than the one on my Michel 14. So I took them our and compared, and wow wow wow! it wasn't "slightly" but pretty obvious!

Isn't it possible that 1919 Raseiniai cancel is bigger than the 1924's one? Maybe everybody knows it because it is mentioned in LPS journal and I'm the only one in the world not knowing about it... Or maybe some kind of previously not known Raseiniai cancel? I thought it would be wise to check on Lithuanian Philately.com before arming my fantasies with Icarus's wings.

1919 Raseiniai and Seinai cancels taken from Lithuanian Philately.com.

Looking further at my Michel 14 I have noticed that the space between the letter "S" and the previous one is way too wide. So I've looked with the possibility of the letter S being the first letter in my mind as well. Lithuanian Philately.com is really the best site earth can provide when it comes to 1919-1923 Lithuanian postmarks and they once again proved it to me. My Michel 14 is clearly not Raseiniai but it turns out to be Seinai. When compering their 1919 Raseiniai and Seinai cancels, you can see that if you draw up and parallel line at the left edge of the number "9" of the date, the Raseiniai one does not touch the letter "N" but the Seinai one touches big time and so does my Michel 14. So it is Seinai! This was another lesson that you should not label something without much doubt.

Seinai is actually not in present Lithuania. Now it it called Sejny and belongs to Poland. According Lithuania Philately (yes, again), Sejny had a branch of Postgebiet ob. Ost during WWI and later, a Lithuanian post office for little less than 8 months but not consecutively. The Lithuanian postmarker was supplied in early May 1919 so it matches the postmark on my Michel 14 as well.

A military Field Post card sent from Sejny in 1916 during the WWI German occupation

For further postal history of Seinai, look at the article on Lithuanian Philately: Seinai 1919-1920

Here is a modern Polish FDC cancelled in Sejny with a stamp of the Madonna of Sejny. The church on the cover is St. Mary basilica, a part of the huge castle looking former Dominican monastery where the statue is preserved. I have visited once the town and found the little town very charming, specially the central square filled with bunch of Baroque buildings. I very much recommend it!

Šiauliai 1916

Schaulen - Postamt / Šiauliai - Post office

This is a German military field post (Feldpost) card of the post office building in Schaulen (now Šiauliai, Lithuania) sent in 1916 to Bremen, Germany during the WWI German occupation. The postcard tells us only that it is a post office in Šiauliai so I'm sure about exactly which post office it is referring to but I can tell you for sure that it is not the main post office building used during the Imperial Russian time. It is most probably a building occupied by the German military not far from the railway station and used to house the field post office. The card itself has been sent from the field post of the 41st infantry division.

Recent Acquisitions

Here are some of the recent acquisitions of stamps:

WWI German occupation with a postmark of Schaulen (now Šiauliai, Lithuania) 1916

a stationery cut out (what a pity!) with a postmark Heydekrug (now Šilutė, Lithuania) 1895

Polish occupation period with a part of machine cancel of Wilno 2 (now Vilnius, Lithuania) 1938

Soviet stamps with a postmark of Vilnius C. 1941 during the first USSR annexation 

Postmark: Lekėčiai 1929

Postmark: Višvilė 1928 (present Viešvilė, former Wischwill, Memelgebiet)

Postmark: Alunta 1937

Raseiniai 1916

to Czenstochau, Rußland

This is a German military field post (Feldpost) card of Rossienie (now Raseiniai, Lithuania) sent in 1916 from the field post station of the 78th Reserve Division to Czenstochau, Rußland (now Częstochowa, Poland) also occupied by the Germans during WWI as well. The German name Czenstochau was also spelled Tschenstochau. A district commander's headquaters was located in Raseiniai so even though it was never a major town (and neither is now), it had a Soldatenheim (a sort of officer's club) and a casino like it is shown in the above picture.

Vilnius 1916

Arrival cancel of Bühl in the back of the cover

This is a registered cover sent in 1916 from Wilna (now Vilnius, Lithuania) to Bühl, Baden, Germany during the WWI German occupation. The franked stamps are the Germania stamps with an overprint "Postgebiet Ob. Ost" which I have posted several time already in this blog. They were used not only in Lithuania but part of Belarus, Latvia, Estonia and Podlakie which is a region in the north east corner of Poland. It looks like the sender is the German post office in Vilnius itself, you can see the hand stamped inscription "Deutsches Postamt Wilna" on the back along with the arrival cancellation of Bühl.

Kaunas 1916

Eisenbahn - Verkehrsamt Kowno /  Kowno Railway administration office

Kowno (Kaunas) 23 April 1916 Feldpost (Field Post)

This is a German military field post (Feldpost) card sent in 1916 from Kowno (now Kaunas, Lithuania) to München/Munich, Germany during WWI. You can find WWI German field post card without postmark time to time but this time I'm lucky, the sender wrote the location and date on the card: "Kowno 23. 4. 16". Usually there is a cachet of the affiliating unit on most of the field post card unless they are out in the field on action. This one is Eisenbahn - Verkehrsamt Kowno which can be translated as Kowno Railway administration office. During WWI, railways were the key strategic infrastructure so they were often run by the occupying military administration.

German stamps in Lithuania

When I write "German Reich stamps in Lithuania", most philatelist probably comes up with Memel related stamps or the occupation issues such as Postgebiet ob Ost. or Ostland. Well, I should say that's the right reaction but that is not all. There were some regular German stamps that have been used in Lithuania under different circumstances. I have mentioned before in this blog that I do collect Soviet stamps but having difficulties because of the criteria of my collection: all non-Lithuania themed stamps must be cancelled in Lithuania. The exact same criteria applies to the regular German Reich stamps as well, which makes again, collecting German stamps very difficult. There are several cases when these stamps were used in Lithuania, I would like list those in chronological order.

1. Pre-Memelgebiet stamp
99% of the regular Reich stamp that has been issued before 1920 could have been used in the Memel region. When I search German stamps in an internet auction, I usually ignore post-1920 Reich stamps up to 1939 to go faster. However, this does not mean that there is absolutely no way to find any postmark of the Memel area on a Reich stamp between 1920 and 1939 (for example, railway postmark Insterburg-Memel used in Tilsit could be on a post-1920 Reich stamp).
Pre-Reich stamps or also called Old German states' stamps were used in Memel region as well but only the stamps of Prussia and the North German Confederation.

Memel postmark of 1886 on a Reich stamp

2. Postgebiet Oberbefehlshaber Ost area

These areas occupied by the Germans during World War I basically used German stamps overprinted "Postgebiet ob. Ost" but in some cases, regular Reich stamps were used mainly by the private postal delivery services. It is very difficult to find. Believe me... 

3. Re-Annexation of Memel region

Nazi Germany re-annexed Memel region on March 1939 and used regular Reich stamps until the Soviet armies took the region in 1945. I would not say "frequently found" but those are relatively easy to find.

4. Ostland

Ostland had its own overprinted stamp but regular Reich stamps were also valid through out the territory. As a result of the mass-production of Ostland stamps, the use of regular Reich stamps were limited. 

Postmark of Schaulen (Šiauliai, Lithuania) on regular Reich stamps

Schaulen postmark used for precancellation or also for parcel

Those were the 4 cases where regular Reich stamps were used in the present territory of Lithuania for postal use. If I'm missing any cases, please feel free to comment on this post. 

Kudirkos Naumiestis 1918

This is a Postgebiet ob. Ost overprinted postal stationery sent in 1918 from Wladislawow (now Kudirkos Naumiestis, Lithuania) to the Kriegsgefangenenlager Stammlager (P.O.W. camp) in Preußisch Holland (now Pasłęk, Poland). The sender's name is a certain Anton Kunzaitis and it is addressed to Konstantin Kunzaitis (or Kuncaitis?), probably held as a prisoner in Preußisch Holland. The card has a postmark of Wladislawow but the sender's address is in Gielgudischki (now Gelgaudiškis, Lithuania) which probably derives from the Polish name Giełgudyszki, located just 1km south west of the famous Panemunė Castle (Not Panemunė, the former Memelgebiet town!) and according to the card, it used to be part of the postal district of Kreis Wladislawow, postamt Szaki (now Šakiai, Lithuania).
By the way, the famous English actor John Gielgud's descendants are from a Polish noble family of Lithuanian origin who owned Giełgudyszki.

Joniškis 1916

This is a German field post (Feldpost) card of Janischky (now Joniškis, Lithuania) sent in 1916 from the field post station 264 to Imlingen bei Saarburg, Lothringen, Germany (now Imling, Lorraine, France). Saarburg is also part of France today with the name Sarrebourg.
Joniškis is also a confusing town just like Abeli/Obeliai which I have posted previously, located near the border with Latvia. So far I have encountered the spellings: Janischky, Janiszki, Jonišķi. We see lot of people on the picture, even cars (I see at least 4 of them)... Sunday mass? Wedding? Easter? I can tell it is not during the winter but what is it, I don't know. Joniškis has a big church comparing to the size of the town, with an enormous bell tower you can see from far away when driving from Šiauliai and looks like as if the long straight road is directly leading to this tower. Curiously, same phenomenon happens with the bell tower of the cathedral of  Šiauliai when you drive from Joniškis.

Obeliai 1916

This is German military field post (Feldpost) card of Abeli (now Obeliai, Lithuania) sent in 1916 to Scholderup, Schleswig (now Taarstedt, Schleswig-Holstein), Germany. Abeli is very often mistaken to be part of Latvia. This town was mentioned as part of Kurland (Courland) in most of the documents prior to WWI, because the term "Kurland" was purely geographic to most the Germans at that time. Today the simple formula: Kurland = Kurzeme therefore Kurland = "part of Latvia" is followed by most of the non-Latvian people. In addition to this, there is a town called Ambeļi near Daugavpils not far from the Lithuanian border, which for some unknown reason, sometime mistakenly spelled "Abeļi". If you are in doubt to identify a picture, the church you see on this postcard can be your best bet, it remains exactly in the same shape in today's Obeliai.

Kaunas - pre-Aleksotas bridge

 pre-Aleksotas bridge

 Feldpost station 209 used in 1916

 This cards was used in 1916 but the picture was probably taken earlier than the first card.

You see the top of one of the twin bell towers of the white baroque church has been destroyed,

but in the first card you see it has been restored. 

 The same bridge from the other side of Nenumas river.

 Construction of Aleksotas bridge

I have noticed that many visitors of this blog come from websites that deal with old pictures and postcards. I haven't posted much comparing to the size of my collection because I didn't find those postally interesting, but since I have received several requests, I decided to post more postcards. Today, I have posted few cards of the bridges in Kaunas. There was a provisional military-made bridge approximately 100 meters east of the present Vytauto Didžiojo tiltas (Vytautas the Great bridge) which you see in the first 3 postcards. The last 2 postcards show you the construction and the completion of Aleksoto tiltas (Aleksotas bridge) which is called now Vytauto Didžiojo tiltas. All of the postcards are postally used by the WW1 German field post (Feldpost) station 209 except the last one which was printed during the First Republic.

Kretinga under German Occupation

I have found 2 postmarks of Krottingen (now Kretinga, Lithuania) from 2 different German occupations, WW1 and WW2, so I thought I would post these. As I have mentioned in my posts in the past, the German name of Kretinga is rather confusing. "Russ (Russisch) Krottingen" was for the present town of Kretinga and "Deutsch Krottingen" was the name given for Kretingalė. Both names were also spelled "Crottingen" with a "C" at the beginning. The ones cancelled simply "Krottingen/Crottingen" can be identified according to the stamp, when Memel stamps were used then it means that it was Kretingalė, when it was the Ostland overprint, then it was Kretinga.

I also have some other WW1 and WW2 occupation stamps still umposted in this blog so I would like to take the oppotunity to post them as well. 

 Mariampol 1917 (now Marijampolė, Lithuania)

Schaulen 1942 (now Šiauliai, Lithuania)