Moravská Ostrava /
Mährisch Ostrau
Moravská Ostrava
/ Mährisch Ostrau
This short overview of the Moravská Ostrava overprints aims to introduce this provisional issue to Czech collectors and researchers and to encourage them to gather information and complete this article. For my research, I used German-language literature, interviews with Gerhard Spath, and publicly available sources. My research will continue in the archives of the city of Ostrava. With this article, I wanted to ask other collectors of these provisionals who know more to share their information.
Moravská Ostrava, an important industrial city is located in the triangle of three countries: the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. The overprints of Moravská Ostrava have a different history of creation than the overprints of the Sudetenland, and therefore they do not belong to them. As the overprints were not created until the occupation of the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, they are considered to be the precursor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
Austria-Hungary broke up at the end of World War I. The population, which had previously been Austrian, Hungarian, German, Polish and Ukrainian, was incorporated into the newly formed entity, Czechoslovakia. The arbitrary division of the different nationalities caused various problems, including demonstrations and rebellion. Czechoslovakia did not correspond to the national division of the population, which was supposed to have the largest national groups of Czechs and Germans, not Czechs and Slovaks.
Unfortunately, the annexation of the Sudetenland in the autumn of 1938 and its integration into the Reich did not solve all the problems. The Slovaks, Hungarians, Poles and Ukrainians who had lived in Czechoslovakia since 1919 were promised the same rights as the Sudeten Germans, but only promises remained.
Encouraged by the Munich Agreements, the Poles demanded a border area with Poland in October 1938. Hungarian demands came in March 1939. Both Poles and Hungarians sought a common border. But this would have prevented the German Empire from expanding eastwards. Hungary occupied Transcarpathian Ukraine and planned to occupy Slovakia. Hitler wanted to overtake Poland and Hungary, so he decided to occupy Czechoslovakia on 12 March 1939. More German troops occupied the entire republic on 15 March 1939.
At the same time, Slovak nationalist forces took advantage of the political situation and demanded independence for Slovakia. On 14 March 1939, the Slovak parliament declared independence. The Slovak government immediately asked Hitler to take custody of the new state. Slovakia became a vassal state of the Reich. On the same day, Transcarpathia seceded and was immediately occupied by Hungary. Czechoslovakia, a state of four nations, broke up.
In this complicated situation, Czech President Emil Hácha wanted to save what he could. On 14 March 1939, he took a train to Berlin to put the fate of the Czechs in Hitler’s hands. But the dice had already been cast. In the evening on his arrival in Berlin, Hácha was informed by the Czech ambassador that German troops had already entered Moravská Ostrava. To prevent bloodshed, Hácha decided to entrust the Czech Republic to Hitler on 15 March 1939. The Czech Republic became the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and remained so until 1945. Emil Hácha remained president without political influence.
Ostrava was seized on 14 March 1939. However, the Ostrava Germans knew what was coming before 14 March 1939. NSDAP functionary Karl Partsch later stated that a group of young German men had been sent to the state border to help guide military convoys. The rest of these men gathered in the German House, as well as in the German Gymnasium in Vítkovice and also in Přívoz. They greeted each other with their arm raised shouting “Heil März!”. At the same time, rumours were spread that the German troops would only pass through Ostrava because they were heading for Slovakia.
The Germans showed a sample lightning war (Blitzkrieg). The attack began at exactly 17:30, from several directions. It is interesting that long before the arrival of the German soldiers, banners with swastikas were flying in Vítkovice. Before 20:00, Major General Walter Keiner reported to the commander, General Ernst Busch, that Ostrava was in his power without a shot being fired and that the flag of the German Reich was flying over the city.
The headquarters of the German army was located in the New Town Hall. A victory parade was then held in front of it, and the leader of the NSDAP in Ostrava, Wilhelm Heinz, gave a celebratory speech congratulating Adolf Hitler. The very next day, the transport system was changed. By the morning of 15 March, the trams were running on the right-hand track. The Germans of Ostrava were overjoyed, they celebrated all night long, the next day there were festive marches of tens of thousands of German citizens of Ostrava, and shouts of “Sieg Heil!” rumbled through the city. At the same time as the army, troops of the Gestapo, police, and special groups (Einsatzkomando) arrived in the city, so that they were in Ostrava as early as 14 March 1939. A network of confederates was formed from the German citizens of Ostrava, who immediately denounced Czech patriots, soldiers, and Jews.
Moravská Ostrava provisional issue
The Ostrava provisional issue contains 40 stamps and has postal validity from 16 March 1939 to 14 April 1939.
The dissolution of Czechoslovakia began with the annexation of the Sudetenland to the Reich and the publication of the so-called Sudeten official overprints in September 1938. This continued with the issue of the Moravská Ostrava overprints in March 1939 and led to the stamps of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
Unlike the Sudeten overprints, the Moravská Ostrava issue was prepared by the Philatelic Association and published with the permission of the Post Office. Unlike the official Sudeten overprints issued illegally during the Sudeten crisis, the Moravská Ostrava overprints were produced after the occupation. There was no temporary executive power and no Free Corps. Because of this, these overprints are considered the precursors of the Protectorate stamps.
Thanks to its quality and accuracy, this is the most successful overprint. It was made by letterpress (which is characteristic of its weight – on the other side of the stamp you can clearly see the printed inscription “Wir sind frei!” and the swastika).
Apart from the different types of exclamation marks (type I is common, type II is rare and type III is the rarest) and the swastika tilted to the right, only one misprint (a broken W in the word Wir) and a few double and albino overprints are known to this day.
Occasionally, stamps with an overprint of a rubber stamp allegedly made by soldiers are in circulation. Previously, these stamps were attested and catalogued as issues of the Moravská Ostrava field post office (Feldpoststelle Mährisch-Ostrau). I have also contacted Mr. Späth about these overprints and his statement is: “I am not surprised that you have not found any sources, because no one has found them yet and probably none exist. In my opinion, this is a private overprint without official records. The Michel catalogue has excluded this issue for exactly this reason. The Reich used special postmarks for field mail, but for the stamps of this issue, the common Moravská Ostrava postmark was used. I am therefore of the opinion that the catalogue included this issue in error and it was rightly removed from it“. Interestingly, many of these overprints were sent abroad on letters. They are often seen at auctions.
Issues of official stamps are small, ranging from 20 to 3000 pieces. Several sources mention that after the liberation by the Russians and the takeover of the office by the Czechs in 1945, all the inhabitants of Moravian Ostrava were publicly forced to hand over these overprints to the authorities for destruction under threat of punishment. This appeal was heeded. According to post-war collectors, virtually no overprints of Moravská Ostrava remained in Czechoslovakia. Those that were saved were in the hands of collectors who were no longer living in Czechoslovakia at the end of the war. One German philatelist corresponded with collectors in Czechoslovakia and none of them could say that they knew or owned the entire edition of the Moravská Ostrava overprints. Dr. Hörr is convinced that there are no more than 500 complete series of these overprints in all.
Moravská Ostrava overprints were sold only for 3 days from 16 to 18 March 1939, therefore the letters are very rare. At the same time, it was possible to use not-overprinted Czech stamps until 15 December 1939.
As far as postal validity is concerned, the book “Die Postwerzeichnen des Sudetenlandes 1963” contains part of the reply of the Moravská Ostrava post office dated 22 December 1940:
……………… We hereby respectfully inform you that the former Czechoslovak stamps of all values – postage stamps 21 pieces, newspaper stamps 9 pieces, aviation stamps 8 pieces, and jubilee stamps 2 pieces – were sold only for 3 days from 16-18 March 1939 at the counters of the main post office in Moravská Ostrava 1, with the overprint “We are free” and the swastika. These stamps were valid until 18 April 1939.
On behalf of the main post office in Moravská Ostrava ……………..
National emblem
For the 10 and 20 hellers stamps, about 100 pieces are printed on parchment paper. There are about 50 pieces of 20–heller stamps in scroll design.
Portraits
Landscapes, castles, cities
For landscape stamps, overprinted and not overprinted margins are particularly sought after and valued.
Aviation stamps
Dětem
First Czechoslovak Stamps, 20th Anniversary
Newspaper stamps - Dove
Postal integral issues
Moravská Ostrava overprints were sold only for 3 days from 16 to 18 March 1939 and their postal validity was from 16 March 1939 to 14 April 1939. This is also why letters that have gone through the post are very rare. The so-called celebratory postmark is also evident, bearing the text ‘Mähr.-Ostrau die Stadt der schwarzen Diamanten dankt dem Führer. Tag der Befreiung 14. 3. 1939’, translated as ‘Moravská Ostrava, the city of black diamonds thanks the Führer. Day of Liberation 14 March 1939’. At the same time, it was also possible to use not-overprinted Czech stamps until 15 December 1939.
Sources:
1. Handbuch der Sudetenphilatelie, Gerhard A. Späth (2021)
2. Die Postwerzeichnen des Sudetenlandes, J. Hugo Hörr (1963)
3. modernidejiny.cz
4. Michel – Deutschland-Spezial 2021
5. POFIS Československo 1918 -1939 (2015)