Feldpost card posted from the Feldpost station 209 by the Rekruten Depot of the 11th corps in 1916. They were mainly active around Kaunas at that time. Wladislawow is now called Kudirkos Naumiestis and there are several hypothesises of the origin of the name. It is said that originally it was part of the settlement called Širvinta (Schirwindt in german). There is also a river named "Širvinta" in Lithuania but it does not reach Kudirkos Naumiestis. The settlement became the bordertown of Prussia and Lithuania but falls on the Prussian side. Gradually, a small sub-settlement started to grow on the lithuanian side which the germans reffered as Neustadt-Schirwindt, meaning New-town (Naumiestis in lithuanian) of Schirwindt (Later it was called Russisch Neustadt after the incorporation of Lithuania by the Imperial Russia). "Kudirkos" was later added for the honor of Vincas Kudirka, the composer of the lithuanian national anthem, who died there. The other hypothesis is, the present Šešupė river (Scheschupe in german, from the lithuanian "šeže upis" meaning "dark river") which flows nearby, was called "Širvinta" (from "širvas" an old baltic language meaning "brown" or "dark"). Since there was also another river called Širvinta and the slightly older town of Širvintos, they called the settlement "New-town Širvintos". The polish name Władysławów/Wladislawow came from Władysław IV Vasa who gave the civil rights to the town in 1643.
Those 2 cards were sent from the Feldpost station 213 on the same year. The last card shows the ruin of the town of Schirwindt (now Кутузово/Kutusowo in Kaliningrad oblast, Russia) which is on the german side of the border, and on the back, the undamaged town of Naumiestis/Wladislawow on the lithuanian side. It is interesting that what was at the time "german side" is now Russia, and what was "Imperial Russian side" is now Lithuania.
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