amsd

Editor, Seal News; contributor, JuicyHeads
09 Sep 2020
11:11:38am

re: Treaty of Versailles Surcharge?

Allenstein, a short-lived dead country, city-state actually, carved out of Germany as part of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles; like all the others, it returned to Germany

 
1 Member
likes this post.
Login to Like.

cdj1122

re: Treaty of Versailles Surcharge?

It must have been scary living in a place between
several large and at times aggressive neighbors.
Allenstein (Olsztyn) lay on the eastern edge of
Prussia and became a part of the unified
Germany till WW I when it was shuttled back
and forth betweenthe Soviet Union and Germany,
although after the war claimed by the new Polish
state.
Thus under the Treaty of Versailles, which ended
that war, and sliced up many parts of Europe a
plebiscite (Election) was held and the German
majority won in 1920. Eventually when Hitler
gained control of Germany in 1933, the oppressive
Nazi rule led to the horrors of WW II.
During WW II it was again seized by the USSR
and then in 1945 made a part of Poland.
Olsztyn lies in the southeast corner of the Baltic
Sea and is just south of Kaliningrad, a Soviet
enclave that is between Poland and Lithuania,
a leftover part of the Soviet era.
With no real defensive borders both places are,
and have been, easily overrun during wartime.
The two overprinted sets of "plebiscite" stamps
were as much advertising of the voting as postal
emissions.

Login to Like
this post