Gallery

 

The next major change came early in 1922 when an extra sentence was added to the wording on the label (lLrl) which translates: “The postal supervision takes place for taxation and business reasons”. Following it is the name of the organization doing the inspection; i.e., the Government Finance Administration. This had been added because the Post Office kept getting the blame for the delays in the mail due to inspection. The name of the organization was changed in October 1922 to Postal Supervision Office Berlin W8 (lLr3).

The final change came in September 1923 when a new law was quoted as the reason for opening the letter (lLr4). The first sentence was changed to “Opened on the grounds of the law against the flight of Capital in the decree of 26 January 1923 (Government Gazette page 91)”.

3. UNINSURED MAIL BROUGHT IN BY THE PUBLIC

As at other offices, there was a PP Office within the PU Office at Berlin W8 to which business men, in particular, but also members of the public, could take unsealed letters for checking at the counter. The letter would then be sealed by the
inspector and put into the post by him. All such mail bears the Berlin W8 postmark with the code letters nn, with one n on either side of the 8, until December 1921, while from March 1922, the code letters were ad.

At Berlin W8 the PP Office had an additional function, which was to deal with all insured mail including that brought in by the Post Office. This aspect is discussed later.

The circular cachets used at the counters of the PP Office are shown in Figure 5 and more details given in Table D. The first one (lC8) is a wartime cachet used at Berlin 0 17, the others were all used at Berlin W8. Surprisingly, four of these were inscribed Postüberwachungsstelle. However, by a study of the postmarks and the code letters, it is clear that these were usually, if not exclusively, used in the Postprüfungsstelle. The first one used at Berlin W8 for marking such mail was adapted from a wartime Berlin 0 17 cachet and is shown as 1C9 in Figure 5. The original wording around the edge was
POSTUBERWACHUNGSSTELLE/ * DES GARDEKORPS BERLIN 0 17 * • In the centre is the Prussian eagle with the number 2 below it. This eagle wears a crown and carries an orb and sceptre, although these may not show up well in Figure 5. It was adapted by cutting out the words DES GARDEKORPS and the postal district number 0 17. Its earliest use is recorded by Rist (reference 8) as 21 June 1919. The latest use is 25 August 1922. So far in 1919 only, this cachet has been found used in conjunction with the facsimile signatures of the inspectors D J Scharrey (1C16) and Grauer (1C17). No number other than 2 has been seen below the eagle. The author has details of 25 covers bearing this cachet. Apart from one registered express printed matter item posted from Zoppot in 1921 and addressed to

 

Danzig Report Vol. 1 - Nr. 77 - October - November - December - 1992, Page 19.