Hello,

I bought this cover for less than a dollar plus shipping. The seller identified the date as 1943 but I thought it looked like 1945.

It is 1945 and it's postmarked Berlin. The date is significant since this was Hitler's last birthday, April 20, 1945. At this point, Berlin had not been completely surrounded by the Russians so mail was technically still making it out. The cover is addressed to Mannheim.



Chime in with your opinions regarding real or not real. I haven't made up my mind, yet so I am curious to read your takes.



The word Drucksache that is hand-stamped at lower left is I believe indicative of the contents not being a letter but advertising material.

Bruce

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Jansimon

collector, seller, MT member
16 Dec 2014
05:46:07am

re: Real? Berlin cover postmarked April 20, 1945

I do not know where postoffice W8 was located, but according to various sources (e.g. Harper - The Stamps of the Third Reich) some postoffices remained open until the very end of the siege:

Berlin C2 - closed probably 21st April
Berlin-Charlottenburg 2. - abandonned 20th April.
Berlin S.S. 68 closed on the 21st April
Berlin C.25 (Sub Post Office) open on the 20th April and probably the 21st April
Berlin-Wittenau closed 7 PM. on the 21st April
Berlin-Wilmersdorf closed at 11am on the 25th April
Berlin W.15. closed on the 28th April

(I took this info from a specialized forum that should be familiar to you, as I saw your name there as well ;-) )

According to Harper, postoffices Berlin N4, Berlin NW7 en Berlin W8 were open to sell stamps, but they did not accept or deliver mail in this period. As a final note, Berlin W8 had a philatelic counter (which seems surreal in the midst of a siege) so this particular letter could have been cancelled there, but it is unlikely it was delivered to Mannheim anyway because Mannheim was abandoned by German troops end of March and subsequently taken by the Americans on March 29th.

It is very well possible that this is a backdated cancel as there are many. Produced to earn a buck (= American dollars).

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Rhinelander

Support the Hobby -- Join the American Philatelic Society
16 Dec 2014
07:17:48pm

re: Real? Berlin cover postmarked April 20, 1945

Sorry, Bruce. The cover looks completely fake and surely is. The postmark style was used during the Third Reich, but just not this particular one. The genuine cancel Berlin W8 (post office Französische Straße 9-12) with letter Z is a GDR cancel and did not come into use until perhaps 1949. The post office Berlin W8 also housed the GDR Philatelic Service (later Berlin 1085 and also known as Berlin ZPF). I do not think that the cancel "W 8 / z" ever was used for regular postmarking service, because I assume that two different units in the same building were at work, a regular post office and the philatelic service. But of course, it is possible. In any event, this is a forgery of a cancel that was used in later years to produce philatelic cancellations in the GDR.





Mail from the last days of the Third Reich is rare. Typically, the mail was stuck in transit at the end of the war, picked up from unemptied mail boxes, backrooms of post offices etc., by the Allies and delivered months later when postal service resumed. Such covers are true historical documents and show the appropriate markings. This specimen looks too clean. It is lacking a proper address (no zip code), the type written address is automatically suspicious, the Drucksache marking is contemporaneous, Mannheim was occupied by the Allies on March 29, 1945 (Wikipedia) and mail service was hence interrupted etc etc. If you want to stand a miniscule chance of the real deal, your best chance probably are local Berlin letters.

Arno

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Rhinelander

Support the Hobby -- Join the American Philatelic Society
16 Dec 2014
10:42:46pm

re: Real? Berlin cover postmarked April 20, 1945

Sad as it is, if you repost it on ebay and correctly state the postmark date as 1945 you may get $99 out of it because too many buyers just eat that kind of stuff up without any thought.

I think it was a good buy for one dollar to add as a reference object. The main value of sharing your find with us is that the existence of one other fake Berlin W 8 z cancel has now been documented on the internet. Please compare: the horizontal lines in the circle do not touch the inner circle and also note the different spacing of the word Berlin W 8 in the postmark on your cover compared to the two genuine cancels I posted.

I write one other because a common Berlin W 8 z fake cancel exists with a fixed date of 13.11.53.- 12. This fake cancel is documented in Willy Wolff 600 Falsche Stempel (1961). I lifted the image from a current ebay auction:

 
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