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4 April: The ordinance of 26 March on the introduction of new postage for letters and postcards in Land Austria took effect. Simultaneously, postage stamps of the German Reichspost became valid for use in Land Austria.
Such cryptic statements had to be explained more carefully to the German postal workers. So the Berlin Gazette published explanatory notes, which I paraphrase as follows:
a) From 4 April 1938 mail in and from Land Austria can be validly franked, not only with Austrian stamps, but also with German stamps with in relief the head of the late lamented ReichsPresident Field Marshal von Hindenburg.
b) From that day the post offices etc in Land Austria will issue German Hindenburg stamps of 5, 6, 8, 12, 15 and 25 Rpf as well as postcards of 5, 6 and 15 Rpf and reply-paid postcards of 5+5, 6+6 and 15+ 15 Rpf.
c) Austrian and German stamps can be used side by side on mail posted in Land Austria. The use of Austrian stamps for mail in and from Germany is not permitted.
This forbidding cannot have applied to reply-paid cards with 5Rpf Hindenburg imprints and 1 or 2 groschen supplementary franking, where the reply part came from Germany back to Land Austria. The reply-paid part of such cards franked with the stamps of any arbitrary country had to be treated as validly franked on their return to the country of origin. A summary of the Postal rates to and from Land Austria in 1938 is in Appendix I of this article.
d) When calculating the value of the stamps a Reichspfennig corresponds to the value of one and a half Austrian Groschen; eg a stamp of 6 Rpf has the value of 9 Groschen, a stamp of 15 Rpf the value of 23 Groschen.
e) When deciding the value of the franking of mail which is franked completely or partially with Austrian stamps, the Groschen values are to be converted into Rpf according to the rule of 1Rpf = 1½Gr. Fractions of Rpf are to be ignored. Any resulting deficit is to be charged Postage Due at the rate of 1½ times.
Note the post-conversion rounding down (apart from 1Gr = 1Rpf). By mid-June this had changed, ½+ being rounded up. The original notes stated "die Groschenwerte sind insgesamt umzurechnen" which should mean that the Groschen values were added and the total then converted. However examples can be found where each Groschen stamp must have been separately converted, to explain the absence of a surcharge. The original document gave two "worked examples", which are in Appendix II.
The effect of all this was that the new basic rates were now calculated in Reichpfennig, while the ancillary charges for express, airmail, registered and pneumatic services remained at the Austrian rate and were calculated in Groschen. As the Austrian system was moved over to the German, that which was not explicitly changed remained unaltered. For both, either the specified current German stamps, or those Austrian stamps still valid (at a rate of exchange of 1½ Groschen = 1 Reichpfennig), or a mixture, could be used. A further complication is that the monthly accounts of a Post Office were prescribed as "convert each then add" (eg 3@5Gr = 3@3Rpf = 9Rpf) while sales were "add then convert" (eg 3@5Gr = 15Gr = 10Rpf): so the Office 'bought' them at 9Rpf, sold them at 10Rpf, and made 1Rpf profit!
Inland letter dated 4 April from Wien to Leipsig. Requires 12Rpf; franked (12+4) * 2/3 = 10.67 Rpf (which in April counted as 10 not 11) plus 5Rpf making 15Rpf in total. Original has printed return address: probably not philatelic.
4th April postcard from Baden bei Wien to s'Gravenhage in Nederlands. Foreign rate 15Rpf; franked (12+4) * 2/3 = 10.67 Rpf + 6 Rpf making 16 Rpf in total.
Inland letter from Wien to Hamburg dated 4 April; rate 12 Rpf; franked 3 * 2/3 = 2 Rpf + 5 Rpf + 5 Rpf making 12Rpf in total. The German Winterhilfswerk stamps were not authorised for use in Austria at that date, but it would take a bold man to reject them!
6 April: "The Dollfuss stamps of 24 g and 10 S were withdrawn with effect from 15th March 1938 and have lost their validity for franking both inland and foreign mail".
Curiously, this announcement was made retroactively; it is recorded in a Vienna postal decree published on the 13th April as having being decided on the 6th April. Theoretically then, mixed frankings with Dollfuss and Hindenberg stamps are possible, though also very improbable! However the issue of Die Postmarke published on 31st March states that the immediate withdrawal was communicated to all post offices by telegram on 15th March; I suspect that the Vienna 'decision' was recognition of a fait accompli. It adds that the Vienna Collectors Counter was besieged on 12th March by collectors who had postponed buying a 10S Dollfuss: they soon sold out, so that the trade price rose to several times face value. (The 24g stamps had been sold out some time previously.) The 10S could be exchanged at all Post Offices for 'acceptable' stamps, although this was not publicised.
8 April: The special 6 Rpf stamp "Ein Volk - ein Reich - ein Führer" will be issued in Land Austria on the occasion of the referendum of 10th April 1938. [This is ANK 662 (Berlin printing) and 663 (Vienna printing).] Likewise the special referendum postcard, priced at 6Rpf + 9Rpf surcharge, total price 15 Rpf. In theory, the Berlin printing was sold and used in Germany, the Vienna in Land Oesterreich. Philatelic variations are known; this example also has the German-troops-in-Austria fieldpost cancel!
9 April: reduced-rate postcard to Czechoslovakia; rate 10 Rpf; franked 6 Gr * 2/3 = 4 Rpf + 6 Rpf making 10 Rpf in total.
| Links such as the following, in a box, are to remarks based on a contemporary commentary "Der Übergang des österreichischen Postwesens an das Reich" (The transition of the Austrian postal system to the Reich), a series of articles in the issues of "Die Postmarke" from April to July 1938 written by persons oleaginously sympathetic to the new order. |
| See Der Uebergang des österreichischen Postwesens an das Reich Part 1: 15 April 1938 |
| Back to Anschluß index | On to part 2 of the 2nd period |
©Andy Taylor. Last updated 24 Aug 2002