Credits
content: Frederick Highland
website: amg
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A postal authority known as the "General Gouvernement" issued stamps for a period earlier this century. Are there any clues on this stamp that hint at the country which issued postage under this designation? |
The eagle with its wings outspread and clutching a swastika in its talons at the upper left, clearly point to the stamp as an issue of Nazi Germany.
"General Gouvernement" stamps were issued from 1939- 1945, although stamps bearing only these words were issued from 1940-41 inclusive. After Hitler turned on his former ally Stalin and invaded Russia in 1941, the new Polish territory gained was consolidated and stamps were issued which read "Deutsches Reich General Gouvernement" and then, after 1943, "Gross Deutches Reich", meaning "The Greater German Reich." The General Government area, taking up much of Western Poland, became a kind of Waste Land for Third Reich undesirables, particularly for non-German Poles who had been forcibly removed from their homes and farms in Silesia to make way for German-speaking Poles.
