Stamps are printed in millions, and they reach every community. Today the pictures on them are usually commemorative, generally uncontroversial and rarely memorable. During the Second World War these seemingly innocuous little pieces of paper played a far more important role in sending key messages to the people who used them. Political leaders were keen to exploit their capacity to communicate ideas, promote events and play on emotions. Stamps and their accompanying slogan postmarks and propaganda cachets provide fascinating evidence, sometimes disturbingly so, of the aspirations, anxieties and assumptions of Second World War nations - whether they were autonomous, triumphant, enduring defeat, or puppets.
In Germany the Nazi regime issued numerous sets of stamps between 1933 and 1945 and the skillfully composed images concentrated entirely on the peace, prosperity and pride Hitler had brought to a nation so humiliated in 1918. Nothing suggestive of a dictatorship was ever hinted at, and until 1943 no stamps reminded users that a war was going on. Some sets deliberately peaceful in their imagery – of pastoral views, children coming home, waving flags, and joyful workers - celebrated the return of the Saarland, the Sudetenland, Danzig and Alsace-Lorraine after they had been wrenched away by the Treaty of Versailles. Very few issues outside those marking the Nuremberg Rallies hinted at a swastika or a soldier, but numerous sets highlighted welfare achievements such as maternity care and medical advances. Leisure achievements such as new sports stadiums and the Olympic Games, technical achievements such as sports and family cars, and the famous airships, and historic figures such as the poet Peter Rosegger, the musicians Bach and Mozart, and the medical pioneers Emil von Behring and Robert Koch also featured. Young people were targeted, too, with sets showing handsome Aryan girls and boys busy as members of the Hitler Youth and Labour Corps. The long sets marking Heroes Days in 1943 in 1944 had a jarring effect with their imagery of the fearsome weaponry of modern warfare, but the infantry, tanks, ships and planes advancing on their enemies were meant to be reassuring. As Berlin succumbed the Volksturm (youths and old men drafted into uniform) and Stormtroopers ) were pictured, but by then few were impressed.
As the Germans occupied or browbeat countries across Europe so stamps reflected their new circumstances. France was a primary example. After its defeat in May 1940 the southern part was allowed limited autonomy under Marshal Philippe Petain. He believed France’s moral decay and crippling lack of national confidence since 1918 could only be overcome by an alliance with Germany and emulation of its powerful authoritarian regime, proud united people, and efficient organization. Based in provincial Vichy, his regime sought to ally itself strongly to the Catholic Church, to establish a society devoted to family life and service to the community, and to inculcate national pride by appealing to the alleged virtues of high spots in France’s past, notably the reigns of Louis XIV and Napoleon Bonaparte. Vichy stamps therefore were replete with the deceptively distinguished features of Petain himself, families hard at work, girls in provincial costumes, and famous figures from the chosen periods. The new enemies, Petain said, were the British, Communists, Jews and French Resistance, all of which the regime sought to rid from its territory.
Other nations used stamps differently. In Poland the Nazis ruthlessly destroyed its culture and numerous stamp issues proclaimed a German cultural as well as political mastery of the region. As the Soviet Union reeled under the German invasion its stamps stopped eulogizing Communist ideologies, and inspired national unity through heroic historical battles and popular cultural figures even though they reminded people of Tsarist days. Other issues contained striking action scenes of Heroes of the Soviet Union sacrificing their lives to hold back the Nazi hordes. In the Balkans it was different again. Here Hitler played off the bitter jealousies between Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary to secure their support, and their stamps vividly reflect their moments of glory as the Axis armies swept into Russia, then the numerous charity issues reveal the hideous casualties they suffered, and finally images record the advent of the Communist regimes and the end of monarchies. In 1941 Hitler carved up the defeated Kingdom of Yugoslavia into its mutually hostile parts of Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and Montenegro. Each new ‘state’ produced stamps highlighting its religion, culture and past patriots, and it is easy to see the hatreds that led the partisan units to fight each other as much as the Germans and Italians.
David Parker is the author of European Stamp Issues of the Second World War: Images of Triumph, Deceit and Despair. Today, European nations still use stamps to commemorate aspects of a nation’s culture, history and achievements. During the Second World War, however, stamps were considered far more important in conveying political and ideological messages about their country’s change in fortunes – whether it was as triumphant occupier, willing or unwilling ally, or oppressed victim. Some issues and overprints contained obvious messages, but many others were skillfully designed and subtle in their intentions. Stamps and their accompanying postmarks offer an absorbing and surprisingly detailed insight into the hopes and fears of nations at this tumultuous time. This remarkable collection examines and interprets the stamps of twenty-two countries across western and eastern Europe.