Propaganda and Espionage Philately

By SGM Herbert A. Friedman (Ret.)

Note: In 2016, parts of this story were used with permission by Bob Baltzell in a two-part article entitled “The Clandestine Stamps of President Franklin D. Roosevelt” in the American Stamp Dealer & Collector Magazine. This article was featured in Issue 34–2017, of the Weekly Pegasus, the e-newsletter of professional readings supporting the Air Force Military Information Support Operations Working Group.

I have been writing articles on propaganda and espionage philately for 5 decades. Most of the articles were printed in philatelic magazines and newspapers. They go into great detail about the paper, the perforations, the manner of printing and all those very specific facts that philatelists and researchers find so interesting. Looking at my bookcase I see that I wrote eleven articles for The American Philatelist between 1969 and 2002. I wrote another thirteen articles for the now defunct Society of Philatelic Americans between 1967 and 1978. Four articles went into Scott's Monthly Stamp Journal and another five into The German Postal Specialist. I can't even count all the newspaper articles, but have published series in Linn's Stamp News and in the British Stamp Weekly. I also want to recognize my friend and partner professor Frank Prosser for his work in placing all this information into workable files so that the data is always at hand and easy to access. I am not going to go into any great detail in this Internet article. There are probably about 300 different propaganda stamps, most produced by Great Britain, the United States, and Germany. The Russians did not produce propaganda stamps, but they printed dozen of propaganda postcards, many with a forged imprinted stamp. We will probably illustrate less than two dozen here. If our readers request any other specific items I will be happy to add them to this article. Feel free to write to me with your request and I will add the image and a short text. Readers wanting to learn more can search for my old articles and study the field in depth. This will just be a very light look at many of the more interesting propaganda parodies and espionage forgeries. It is meant to be a general introduction to the field. I will also depict some selected items because of their rarity or interest. Perhaps we should take a moment to define the difference between a propaganda parody and an espionage forgery. In the former, one government will take the stamp of an enemy or occupied government and change the stamp in such a way as to make a political statement and perhaps cast aspersions at and ridicule enemy leaders or occupation forces. These stamps are designed to be recognized for what they are, an attack on the enemy. In the case of the espionage forgery, one government has produced a stamp that is a perfect imitation of the enemy stamp to be used to mail propaganda or instructions to people in the enemy or occupied country. These stamps are part of a secret operation and not meant to be recognized. We will mainly discuss black propaganda in this article, items produced secretly by one nation to be used against another. We will start with Great Britain. Without going into detail, up until July 1940 the items were printed by Department EH, and Section D in countries where it operated. From July 1940 to September 1941 the Special Operation Executive (SOE) was the printer; SO1 produced the propaganda, SO2 handled delivery. From 11 September 1941 on: Political Warfare Executive (PWE) produced the stamps under the direction of Ellic Howe (pseudonym: Armin Hull), and significant distribution by SOE's SO2 unit. The listing has items with known Section D, Department EH, and SOE document numbers, and PWE H-numbers, as well as those for which the code numbers are not yet known.

During WWI the British counterfeited the stamps of Austria, Bavaria and Germany. I first wrote about these in "Propaganda Forgeries of World War I," The Stamp and Coin Collector, April-May 1966. I wrote about them again in "British Espionage Forgeries of the First World War," American Philatelist, September 1973. I must admit that this article was a great disappointment to me. I sent the APS a dozen extremely rare photographs of margin copies of all the stamps with various notations by the forgers. Apparently the editor lost the photos, and without writing to me and asking for replacements he simply printed the article with no illustrations. I was mad at that editor for quite a while. I didn't write another article for the APS until 1985. The World War I British forgeries of the German Germania issue were produced in September 1918. They were printed in sheets of 100 (10x10). The forgeries have 15 horizontal perforation holes, whereas the genuine stamps have 14 holes. The forgeries have less shading (more white space) along the brow and nose line as compared with the genuine, giving Germania a somewhat fierce look. The imperforate color proofs tend to be paler, flatter in appearance, without gum, and printed on mildly tinted paper. The proofs are known as "Watford proofs" from the manuscript notation "Printed at Watford" found in the selvage of the sheets. The actual printer of course was the British firm of Waterlow. There is much documentation for this statement and among them is a sheet of directions for perforating the forgeries discovered in the company's archives. It is written in technical jargon but appears to have such comments as: G or B Stamp (German) also A(ustrian)... Dimensions taken across sheet (longway). Dimensions taken way sheet travels (shortway). P.S. Waterlow B.& L. could not wait while MP [machine perforations?] was made so used MP 102/2 Edward VII, worked from dowel pin holes & centre stamp & put extra hole each way in each stamp. There is much more of course, but clearly Waterlow and the people doing the perforations are discussing what machines to use and the number of perforations on each stamp.

The British also counterfeited the 5 pfennig green, 10 pfennig carmine and 15 pfennig vermilion Bavarian 1916-1920 King Ludwig III issue. The forgeries were printed in sheets of 100 (10x10) or 110 (11x10), both perforated and imperforated. The perforated forgeries have 15 horizontal perforation holes, whereas the genuine stamps have 14 holes. In the forgeries, the wavy lines in the watermark are 3 mm apart at their closest, whereas in the genuine the lines are 4 mm apart. All items are known in imperforate color proofs. The proofs tend to be paler, flatter in appearance, without gum, and printed on mildly tinted paper. The proofs are known as "Watford proofs" from the manuscript notation "Printed at Watford" found in the selvage of the sheets. One block of nine 5 pfennig stamps which I bought many years ago had comments in the lower right selvage that said: From Watford Friday 11 October 1918 (mid day) Block of 6 left with Mr. Earl who is to go down there this afternoon. "Watford" was the home of Waterford and Sons printers and Murray Teigh Bloom states in The Man Who Stole Portugal that Sir William Waterford was awarded the Order of the British Empire for his counterfeiting of German, Austrian and Bavarian stamps... and his facsimiles of Imperial German banknotes.

The above photo postcard is a British propaganda reproduction showing happy German soccer players in a prisoner-of-war camp. This card is addressed to John Von Possel of Altoona and gives his POW camp address in Great Britain. It is coded H/6 and was disseminated in September 1918.

This folded air letter was sent from Karl Scholz to Josepha Scholz in Peterwitz. It was disseminated in February 1917. During WWI the British reproduced a large number of German prisoner-of-war postcards and air-letters. They took genuine postcards and letters that had pictures or text favorable to the British and reproduced them to airdrop over the enemy by both aircraft and balloon. According to the History of M.I. 7 (B) (March 1916 - December 1918), Captain Chalmers Mitchell produced the following type of philatelic propaganda. 1. Reproductions of German prisoner of war letters and postcards, received either from General Headquarters, France, or through the Postal Censorship (M.I. 9), and selected by M.I. 7 (b) (4), as showing the good treatment of prisoners in England. 2. Reproductions of photo postcards of prisoners of war or groups taken in prisoner of war camps in England. In 1917 the British produced 594,000 reproductions of 88 prisoner of war letters and 7 postcards and 90,000 reproductions of 17 photo postcards. By the end of the war, the total number of leaflets, prisoner of war letters, cartoons, and other items produced by M.I. 7 (b) (4) was 25,986,180 products. German Parodies of Russian "Currency Stamps" From 1915 to 1917, Russia issued eleven so-called "currency stamps," postage stamps printed on thin cardboard instead of the usual stamp paper. They were meant to be used as coins to save metal so the stamps were not gummed. The original 1913 stamp printing plates were used so they looked exactly like the genuine postage stamps. Several denominations were printed; the most common are the 10, 15 and 20 kopeks. The Germans counterfeited the 15 and 20 kopek, stamps changing the last three lines to an anti-Russian message on both stamps. The purpose was to undermine the value of Russian money and to destroy confidence in the Imperial Government. The back of the genuine Russian stamps had a five-line message stating: Has the circulating equivalent of silver coins. The two forgeries have the last three lines changed to alter the message: Has the circulating equivalent with bankrupt silver coins. Has the circulating equivalent of a robbing deceitful ruler. I bought a single 20 kopek counterfeit in 1984 for $300. I bought the 15 and 20 kopek counterfeits se-tenant (Connected) in 1989 for $583. In May 2006, a pair of 15 and 20 kopek counterfeits was sold for US $350 each by Raritan Stamps Auctions. In May 2012, Cherrystone Auctions of New York sold a pair of the counterfeits for US $1,900. After the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, several peoples fought the new "Red" regime. The Don Cossacks elected a "Ataman," the official title of the supreme military commander of the Cossack armies. On 15 December 1917, the "White" Cossack Army occupied the important city of Rostov-on-Don. During 1918, a number of Russian postage stamps were surcharged for the use in the Don area. A stamp with a face value of 25 kopeks was planned depicting Ermak, a legendary Cossack leader of the 16th century, but was never issued. In July 1918, a currency token in the same design with a face value of 20 kopeks in olive green color was printed by the Rostov-on-Don section of the State Bank. On the front it was inscribed "Ermak." The back bears the imperial eagle and the text: Change stamp issued by the Rostov-on-Don branch of the State Bank In 1919, the Bolsheviks printed a propaganda forgery of the "Ermak" currency stamp. It is printed on yellowish thick paper and the wording on the reverse had been changed to refer to the period when the Don Cossacks under their "Atamans" ruled over the area. The new text was: Change stamp issued by the Rostov-on-Don office of the Ataman gang A copy was offered by Raritan Stamps in September 2008 and sold for US $800. In May 2011, the same auction house offered a block of four for US$ 1000 that did not sell. My thanks to Wolfgang Baldus who corrected my own write-up of this "stamp" with better background information and an improved translation. The propaganda parody appeared in the 1920s and was a forerunner to anti-Semitic propaganda. The genuine Austrian 1920 80 heller stamp is rose or red-orange, perforated, and bears the Austrian eagle and text Deutschosterreich (German Austria). An unknown party produced an interesting parody of this stamp in a slightly deeper red, known both perforate and imperforate, with the Austrian eagle and the text changed to Judischosterreich (Jewish Austria). The parody is a good copy of the original. Aside from being obviously anti-Semitic, the origin and motivation for this parody is unknown. The stamp has been offered at auction a number of times on at least three covers, usually on an envelope franked with genuine stamps and often postmarked Wein (Vienna). We should note that although Germany is often considered the center of post-WWI anti-Semitism, Austria can contest that title and produced hundreds of anti-Semitic postcards and other items. For instant, the Jewish-owned Bruder Kohen Wiener Institut (B.K.W.I.) produced countless cards depicting tongue-in-cheek caricatures illustrating various aspects of Jewish life. With the rise of the Nazi Party, the Germans reprinted selected cards that portrayed Jews in an especially unfavorable light. For example, for the Der ewige Jude (Eternal Jew Exposition) one card depicted a very unflattering caricature of composer Oscar Strauss.

Perhaps one of the most pictorial of all the Austrian anti-Semitic postcards is the one entitled Mander s'ischt Zeit! The card depicts five people, three of whom have a distinctly Jewish look, fleeing an array of Nazi flags. The title is Tyrolean slang: "Men, it's time!" a quote from Andreas Hofer, a 19th Century Tyrolean freedom fighter. The title on the address side is Abzug des Herrn Schuschnigg und seiner Verbundeten ("Departure of Herr Schuschnigg and his allies"). This refers to Kurt von Schuschnigg, the mildly fascist but anti-Nazi Austrian chancellor just prior to the Anschluss, (German annexation of Austria) who appears in the central position of the group of five. The other four are a monk, representing the Catholic Church, an aristocrat, a boy wearing an Austrian armband, and a Jew carrying his moneybox. Austrian Chancellor Schuschnigg was forced to resign on March 11, 1938 after the annexation and was imprisoned by the Nazis shortly thereafter. He survived the war and was liberated by American troops in May 1945. The card was designed by Artist is F. Kock. Card exists in two printings, one on bright white paper and the other on gray paper. Artist is F. Kock.

World War II During World War II the PWE printed a series of French stamps. I first wrote about these in an article entitled "Propaganda Forgeries of WWII in Linn's Stamp News of November 14, 1966. Although there are eleven forged denominations in all, there are just four actual vignettes; Mercury, Iris, Petain bare-headed and Petain with cap. All but the scarlet 30 centimes Mercury are printed in perforated sheets of 20 (5 x 4); the Mercury is printed in a sheet of 16, with four blocks of four separated by gutters. The genuine stamps are perforated 14:13 1/2, as are the forgeries with the exception of the 30 centimes Mercury, the 1 franc 50 centimes Iris and the 1 franc Petain with cap, which is perforated 15:14. Imperforate sheets exist for all values. Each item is identifiable by a "secret mark" or its perforation. Whereas the secret marks may have been intentionally introduced for an espionage purpose, it is more likely that they are unintentional. These forgeries were initially produced in 1942; some "H-numbers" are known. Illustrated and discussed in L.N. and M. Williams, Forged Stamps of Two World Wars, published by the authors, London, 1954, pages 15-19. A "Most Secret" memo from Dr. Beck (head of PWE's French desk) to Rex Leeper (head of SOE's SO1 propaganda unit) reports on black propaganda to France for the week ending 23 May: about 1000 letters per week containing La France Libre and Weekly Times are being distributed in France. The memo further states that "We are now adopting the method of using fake business envelopes to avoid the internal censorship. (Specimens attached for information.) Stamps are manufactured by ourselves." This almost certainly refers to the forgeries of French stamps. The specimen business envelopes are from "Compagnie Generale des Tabacs, Marseille (H.69)," "La Voix de France," and "La Nationale, Paris (Ixe)." The covers were intended to be inserted into the French mail system, where they would be postmarked by French postal service. It seems that none of these covers survived the war, but this memo provides evidence that the forged stamps were actually used in France. The "Most Secret" memo was discovered in the British National Archives by Lee Richards in 2002 during his research for his book The Black Art. He also supplied the majority of the PWE "H" code numbers and printing statisics for this article. In further research in the British National Archives Lee found evidence that over a thousand propaganda envelopes a week were sent into France, and one of the regular enclosures seems to have been the propaganda leaflet Lettre d'Angleterre. There were requests for additional envelopes (9,000 in three different colors) and even requests for additional stamps: 1.20 franc brown Pétain (2nd type with Képi),70 centimes same type (orange or dark blue - which one has yet to be decided) - engraving of first type - used for values under 40 centimes - has also been ordered. Lee points out that the postage stamps were forged for the French section of the Political Warfare Executive and their job was propaganda, not agent-running or intelligence-gathering. The letter-writing unit was distributing thousands of envelopes inside Vichy France and Northern France. The letter-writing unit was shut down in 1942; the forged French postage stamps ceased being produced soon afterwards.

There are two British forgeries bearing the image of Mercury. The 25 centimes green Mercury of 1938-42 is PWE No. H.156. 10,000 copies were delivered to the French Section on 12 October 1942. There is also a 30 centimes scarlet Mercury 1938-42.

The 1 franc 50 centimes red-orange Iris 1939-40 is the only forgery with this image.

The 30 centimes scarlet Petain bareheaded 1941-43 is PWE No. H.195 (November 1942). It was retouched and reprinted as PWE No.H.355A in April/May 1943. 15,000 copies of H.195 were delivered to the French Section 5 November 1942; 10,000 copies of H.355 were delivered on 11 March 1943. The 1 franc 50 centimes red-brown Petain bareheaded 1941-43 is PWE No. H.191. 10,000 copies delivered to the French Section 21 October 1942. The 2 francs green Petain bareheaded 1941-43 is PWE No. H.271 (November 1942); retouched and reprinted as PWE No. H.355B in April/May 1943. 10,000 copies of H.271 delivered to the French Section on 30 November 1942. We depict the 2 francs above because it is one of the rarer denominations.

The 1 franc 50 centimes rose-carmine Petain bareheaded 1941-43 is a very rare color oddity. Only 4 sheets (3 perforated, 1 imperforate) were printed. One perforated sheet is in the Paris Postal Museum; the other 2 perforated sheets were broken up. Therefore, at most 80 copies exist. The 1 franc 50 centimes red-brown Petain bareheaded 1941-43 is PWE No. H.191 (reprint). 10,000 copies delivered to the French Section 21 October 1942. The 2 francs green Petain bareheaded 1941-43 is PWE No. H.271 (November 1942); retouched and reprinted as PWE No. H.355B in April/May 1943. 10,000 copies of H.271 delivered to the French Section on 30 November 1942. The "Petain with cap" was forged multiple times. The first is the 50 centimes green Petain with cap 1941-43. The 70 centimes red-orange Petain with cap 1941-43 is PWE No. H.172. We don't know the code of the 1 franc scarlet Petain with cap 1941-4 The 1 franc 20 centimes red-brown Petain with cap 1941-43 is PWE No. H.171. 10,000 copies were delivered to the French Section 12 October 1942. There are some interesting reprints of these British forgeries. In 2011 some of the values appeared on gummed paper in blocks of four. They were identified as "France 1942 Resistance forgeries." One buyer suspected they might be essays. One never truly knows about such things but they appear to be fakes. Fakers seem to like blocks of four. I have never heard of Ellic Howe doing any blocks of four, and believe the quality is much too poor to be British. And of course, the color is not right either. The above stamp should be green. There was also a 1.50 F Petain bare-headed block of four on gummed paper in red in this lot. There are already numerous fake blocks of four of the American OSS "death's head" parodies of the 12 pfennig Hitler stamp. They appear in various colors, perforated, imperforate, and on covers. Although these fake stamps were made for profit in Austria somewhere in the 1950s, this watercolor did not appear until 2014. It seems to name the artist and town at the top but since the text has been cut in half we can only guess who and where was identified. We see the artist’s name as Atelier hack, with the first word meaning “Studio” and the second the name, which could be Hackmann or something similar. We do not know. The street or town below the name is Schelling. As a town it could be Schellingstrasse or Schellingweg. Researcher Wolfgang Baldus did a search for such streets years ago and found that there was only one Schellingstrasse in Austria, a small street in Ansfelden in Upper Austria. The British also prepared a propaganda parody of the France 1941-43 30 centimes scarlet Petain bareheaded. They added a sinister Nazi-collaborating Prime Minister Pierre Laval peering around from behind Petain. The vignette implies that Germany is running the French government. It was probably produced in November/December 1942. It is perforated 14 and printed in a sheet of 20. Pierre Laval met an ironic death. As the end grew near, he fled first to Germany, then to Spain, then to Austria, where he was arrested and sent back to France to be tried on the charge of treason. He was sentenced to be shot by firing squad on 6 October 1945, but swallowed cyanide before the sentence could be carried out. A physician saved his life so that he could be stood up in front of the firing squad and executed a little less than two weeks later. The British also forged at least one French 80 centimes postcard. Little is known about this item but it can be identified by three shading lines in the mustache instead of the usual 5 lines of the genuine. One of the more interesting British propaganda operations involved a PWE black propaganda overprint on the French Morocco 50 centimes and 1 franc stamps of 1939-40 overprinted Deutsches Reichspost in Marokko. The overprinted items were produced in May/July 1942 in an attempt to persuade Petain and Laval that their Nazis masters were deceiving them and were preparing to occupy French possessions in North Africa. The overprint exists on two stamps, in both thick (Type I) and thin (Type II) forms; the two types are usually found vertically setenant. One authority maintains that proofs of the thick and thin overprints were prepared, with the thin overprint being chosen for production. The story is that 1 sheet each of the two denominations were sent to the United States Embassy in Paris, who then showed the stamps to Petain or Laval. We should mention that this use of an overprint in a propaganda operation was used as early as WWI. Although the origin is uncertain, and may be nothing more than a practical joke, there is a Germania 10 pfennig red stamp overprinted with the denomination Schweiz 10 Centimes and a Germania 20 pfennig ultramarine stamp overprinted with the denomination Schweiz 25 Centimes. They were apparently intended to persuade neutral Switzerland that they were about to be invaded and become a German puppet state. The stamps were first depicted in the French Newspaper Le Matin ("The Morning"), 12 December 1914. The article claimed that there were a number of other denominations in the set. The German embassy in Berne refuted the charges and said that the paper had been hoodwinked. Another overprint that is certainly a fake is a Germania 10 pfennig red stamp overprinted with Die Welt ("The World"). These stamps appeared shortly after the Marokko stamps and were intended to show the world that Germany expected to conquer all. The Marokko productions are certainly genuine British PWE products, and we can probably say with assurance that the Schweiz and Welt overprints are complete frauds. In 1992, two se-tenant pairs with the Morocco overprints sold for $9,000. In October 2009, two pairs of the Morocco stamps in se-tenant pairs showing both overprints sold for $18,000. However, because of the value of these parodies, forgeries do exist. In April 2009, a fake pair of the stamps with the dark overprint were offered on EBay for $4.95. The vendor received no bids.

The PWE produced two black "Himmler" parodies of the Germany 1941-1944 6 pfennig violet Hitler-head stamp that depicted SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler full-face. Both were printed typographed in violet in sheets of 20 (5x4), perforated 14:14 1/4 comb. I first wrote about and illustrated the parodies in "A philatelic view of Heinrich Himmler," The American Philatelist, February 1970. The first, PWE No. H.279 (December 1942), has facial shading of narrowly spaced lines that are rough and ill-defined with white uncolored patches around the eyes, cheek, and chin. The hair is poorly defined and appears to run into the background. The second, PWE No. H.388 (April/May 1943) has facial shading of widely spaced lines, sharp and clear; the hairline is well defined and stands out clearly from the background. The wide-line variety is by far the more handsome parody, and resulted from a redesign of the narrow-line variety. However, because the wide-line item was reported first, it was designated Type I, and this nomenclature has persisted and confused philatelists for 50 years. Let me say again, the attractive stamp is type I; the crude stamp is type II. 5,000 copies of the wide-line variety were delivered on 3 May 1943. A complete mint sheet of the wide-line variety was offered in a June 2008 auction estimated at 15,000 Euros ($23,395 dollars). Proofs of the Himmler exist in black and in violet. Above, we depict proofs of the Type II Himmler parody stamps. They originate from a German collector who found them in Denmark decades ago. They are printed in black on heavy, smooth, very white cardboard with a chalky surface that resembles an old, hard photo paper. The better looking parodies (Type I) exist in sheetlets of four (2 across x 2 down), sheetlets of eight (4 across x 2 down) and as single stamps. A German friend told me many years ago that he was offered a sheet of four of the type I proofs for $2250. Three different imperforate proof sheets of 8 (4 across x 2 down) exist of the narrow-line variety (type II) with hand-written comments "V. Rough Proof - 1st Print" and "2nd Proof." The third proof was almost perfect and is nearly identical to the finished parody stamps in black ink. British Stamp dealer Ron Shelly owned the proof sheets, which were said to have come from the estate of an assistant to Sefton Delmer. In 1976, he sold the sheets to a collector in Arizona apparently using dealer Zbigniew Bokiewicz of Continental Stamp Supplies Company of London as a middleman. The proof sheets are discussed in L.N. Williams, "Britain's black propaganda bogus stamp," British Philatelic Bulletin, August 1986; the sheets are depicted in Werner Bohne, GPS Reference Manual of Forgeries, Release #26, April 1988. A single proof stamp of type II was sold by a London firm who purchased it in 1980 from a "Mr. Stephens who claimed to have been in Intelligence during the war at the head of some 20 colleagues and in that position to have taken part in making the plate for printing the Himmler stamp..." The British forger Ellic Howe first used a small printing shop called Index Ltd at 56 Victoria Street, London, SW1. The Managing Director was George Critchley, who had been the Secret Intelligence Service's printer since WWI. David Stephens managed the shop. Eventually, Howe took over the engraving process and spread out the jobs to Fanfare Press for printing, Spicer's for the paper, and the Monotype Corporation for loans of the various matrices which were otherwise unavailable in England. By 1943, Stephens was in charge of Howe's private process engraving plant off Chancery Lane. A British PWE report dated 7 January 1943 states that the parodies were submitted to the SOE for quantity order on 15 December 1942, but that an order had not been received by the time of this report. The order from SOE was placed on 15 January 1943. The PWE began the operation in the first week of April 1943. The parodies were prepared by Ellic Howe under the direction of Sefton Delmer. An obituary for British stamp dealer Julian Clive in Linn's Stamp News, September 1993, credits Clive with the idea of the Himmler parody. The intent was to spread a rumor that Himmler was preparing himself to be Führer and had ordered the printing of the parodies, thereby fueling Hitler's paranoia. Delmer recalls in Black Boomerang: The next document I asked Hull to produce for me was utterly beyond the bounds of possibility, and I ought never to have ordered it. This was a set of German postage stamps showing, instead of the head of Hitler, that of Himmler. From the counterfeiting point of view it was a masterpiece. The Himmler head was engraved in exactly the same style as the head of Hitler on the ordinary German postage stamps. Which was not at all surprising. For Hull had been producing scores of thousands of Hitler postage stamps over the past three years. We used them for our posting jobs in the Reich because our agents quite understandably felt it beneath their dignity to subsidize the German war effort with even the price of a postage stamp. Unlike the stamp itself, however, the story that went with it was entirely unconvincing. Philatelist Himmler, it said, eager in his vanity to taste in advance the pleasures of Fuhrerdom, had secretly ordered these stamps to be made in readiness for the day of his accession. He loved looking at them. But owing to the mistake of a subordinate official a few sheets had been prematurely issued to the Post Office and the public and despite the frantic efforts of trusted Gestapo and SD agents to hunt them down and retrieve them, quite a few were still in circulation. My friends of the underground went into operation with considerable enthusiasm for this silly Delmer stunt and posted letters and newspapers bearing the Himmler stamp in letterboxes all over Germany. S.O.E. agents delivered German newspapers with wrappers bearing the stamps with counterfeited cancellation marks to subscribers in Sweden and Switzerland who we knew were regular recipients of German newspapers. But no one noticed the Himmler stamps. Not even when in my gloom at the lack of an echo to the operation I asked that the newspaper wrappers with the Himmler stamps should be delivered to known philatelists. The trouble was that Hull's counterfeit was far too excellent, the Himmler stamp much too similar to the Hitler stamp, and the public-including the philatelists-far too unobservant. Finally, in sheer despair, my friends in S.O.E. sold some wrappers to stamp dealers in Stockholm and Zurich, and that way, the story of the Heinrich Himmler stamp did at last percolate into the neutral press. But as an operation that stamp campaign had most sadly and badly misfired. Not, however, for the stamp dealers. A set of these Himmler stamps commands a high price in philatelistic auction rooms today. I wish I had some.

It is interesting to note that although Delmer was an excellent spy-master, he wasn't much of a philatelist. He says that the parody was "a set," when it fact it was a single stamp, later reprinted to improve the image. He also says that they are identical to the Hitler stamps and yet the pose is quite different with Himmler in full-face rather than in profile. We find this over and over in wartime biographies, when individuals try to discuss stamps and actually know very little about them. Delmer acknowledges that the propaganda effort was a flop. However, postwar information shows that samples of the parody were delivered to Himmler, who, enraged, retaliated in 1944 by initiating Unternehmen Wasserwelle (Operation Watermark), the German parodies of British stamps. In my original article I point out that although Delmer did not fool any philatelists, he did fool the American Office of Strategic Services. I quote a report to Washington that mentions the stamp and suspects that there is a pro-Himmler, anti-Hitler underground at large in Germany. Those gullible Americans! Allen Dulles to Washington D.C.: As to the Himmler stamp, I do not know whether there are any copies available. Far as I know, only one turned up in Switzerland…It may have been a black propaganda stunt by one of our allies or it may have been a slip by Himmler or some of his friends of which they quickly refuted. On 10 June 1944 Berne reported to Washington D.C: The Himmler stamp may have been a trick pulled by some of Himmler's enemies to make trouble for him, or it may be that some enthusiast in the Ministry of the Interior thought it might be nice to honor Himmler this way…In any event, the mystery of the stamp has not been cleared up. Speaking of the Americans, we now know that General Donovan of the OSS sent American President Roosevelt at least one Himmler parody with a Stuttgart cancellation. He sent the stamp to Roosevelt on September 29, 1944. A "thank you" note from Roosevelt says: October 5, 1944 Dear Bill, Ever so many thanks for the Himmler and Hitler stamps. I had heard that there was such a stamp as the Himmler one and it will be an interesting addition to my collection. My best to you, Very sincerely yours, "F.D.R" What is interesting is that as we have just shown, the Himmler parody was produced by Armin Hull for the British Political Warfare Executive starting in December 1942. One wonders if Donovan took credit for this stamp as an American product, or did he tell the President that it was made by the British years before. Fredric Boyce says in SOE's Ultimate Deception: Operation Periwig, Sutton Printing, UK, 2005, that the Himmler stamp was produced as part of the black Operation Periwig campaign to convince the German people that there were anti-Nazi resistance movements within the Third Reich. However, since we know that the Himmler stamp operation started in April 1943, and the deception campaign started about November 1944, it would appear that the author is incorrect. Charles Cruickshank mentions the Himmler stamp and other forged documents in The Fourth Arm: Psychological Warfare 1938 - 1945, Davis-Poynter, London, 1977: Black leaflets included a whole range of ingenious forgeries: posters purporting to be of German origin; currency notes; clothing coupons; ration cards; postage stamps, usually imitations of the real thing, but including one issue with Himmler's head to support the rumor that he was angling to become Fuehrer; official notices headed "Heil Himmler!" for the same purpose... The Rumor Campaign Of course, the British did everything they could to make this rumor appear to be genuine. In an attempt to raise the morale of occupied Europe and lower the morale of the German military, civilians and their allies, the secret British "Underground Propaganda Committee" produced well over 8,000 thousand rumors, (they called them "Sibs" from the Latin sibalare - to hiss). Researcher Lee Richards mentions the whisper campaign and many of these rumors in his book Whispers of War, Psywar.org, 2010. In regard to British propaganda rumors about Himmler wanting to replace Hitler he lists several moral-destroying rumors. I have selected a few of the more interesting ones: 20 August 1943 - Take the line that Himmler is trying to negotiate with the generals in order to succeed Hitler... The generals want to make peace with Britain and the U.S.; Himmler wants to make peace with the USSR, renaming himself Gauleiter of Soviet Germany. 27 August 1943 - Himmler has established himself in so strong a position that Hitler had to accept his explanation about the Himmler stamp which was prematurely released... 17 September 1943 - Continue to push the line that Himmler is trying to make peace with Russia... 1 December 1944 - An attempt was made to assassinate Hitler. Himmler organized it. Himmler is preparing to canonize Hitler and prepare the way for a new leader - himself. There are a number of PWE black propaganda envelopes and postcards franked with the "Himmler" parody (PWE No. H.388) of the 6 pfennig German Hitler-head definitive issue of 1941-1944. In 1943, Ellic Howe prepared a number of covers for distribution to individuals in the neutral countries of Switzerland, Sweden, and possibly Portugal. The covers and cards were franked with one or more of the Himmler parodies and one or more of the British forged Hitler-head definitives. British forgeries of German cancellations, censor strips, and censor handstamps were applied to the covers. Most items show typewritten addresses, but at least one cover shows a handwritten address and at least one unaddressed cover is known. These covers and cards were probably placed into the mailboxes of the addressees by British agents operating in the neutral countries. The covers could not have gone through the German mail system since (a) at that time, all mail from Germany to neutral countries had to be presented unsealed and without any stamps to the post office, where the identity of the sender would be checked and postage would be applied by the postal clerk; (b) the covers (as contrasted to the postcards) do not show the mandatory name and address of the sender. A letterhead and rubber stamp were prepared (PWE No. H.389) for use in the Himmler postage stamp operation. The letterhead bears the text "Der deutsche Volkswirt / Berlin-Charlottenburg 2 Kantstrasse 162" and other business text in black ink on white paper. Researcher Lee Richards reports that in an attempt to ascertain the effects of its clandestine psychological warfare, the British Political Warfare Executive routinely monitored neutral and enemy media looking for comment and reaction to its radio broadcasts, underground rumor-mongering and leaflets. The comments of enemy prisoners of war, captured documents and other intelligence sources were also studied. Any comebacks to PWE propaganda campaigns were circulated to interested parties through Evidence of Reception reports. The following reports mention the Himmler parody: August 1943: The stamp bearing the head of Himmler has now been referred to in the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, which carries a reproduction of it in its issue of 28 July 1943 with the comment that it is very unusual for a politician's head to be used on a stamp during this lifetime when he is not the leader of the country. November 1943: A paragraph in Stanley Gibbons Stamp Monthly (October 1943) refers to a Lisbon report that Himmler had ordered the arrest of the director of the department responsible for printing German postage stamps. Himmler had ordered the preparation of stamps bearing his effigy but they were printed too soon, and some of them leaked out. Himmler therefore vented his wrath on the printing department. The paragraph continues by pouring ridicule on the whole story on the grounds that the preparation of a stamp involves dozens of people, and in a spy-ridden country like Germany the news of such work would be bound to leak out. A similar story was sent by a journalist in Lisbon to the Editor of the North American Alliance on 14th September. December 1943: The Himmler postage stamp has had considerable publicity this month. It arose from the arrival in Switzerland of a letter franked with this stamp and postmarked "Stuttgart - 23 September 1943." An article appeared on it in the National Zeitung, Basle (22 December 1943) and also in the Berner Briefmarken Zeitung. The Daily Telegraph (1 January 1944) under a Zurich dateline reports that the German radio had announced that a batch of these stamps, not yet in circulation, had been stolen from the Stuttgart GPO. Swiss philatelists were said to have paid as much as £35 for a copy. February 1944: The Himmler stamp continues to be a subject of discussion in the Swiss press. The Berner Briefmarken Zeitung has further correspondence about it and declares that an official notice from the Reichspostminister has denied the authenticity of the stamp. The Journal de Geneve (28 January 1944) connects Himmler's possible wish to liquidate Hitler...The Daily Mirror (29 February) gives a long story about the stamp under a Lisbon dateline, and winds up by saying that it is estimated that a couple of the stamps in good condition would fetch $5,000 in America. March 1944: The Himmler stamp continues to provide news and the Evening Standard (11 April) claims to have unearthed the "facts." It is a normal issue of the German Post Office, and forms one of a series of four, designed to commemorate Hitler's tenth anniversary, the other three bearing portraits of Hitler, Goebbels and Ley. April 1944: The Himmler stamp continues to be talked about. The Swiss paper Journal D'yverdon (3 February 1944) tells the usual story about it, and adds that it caused the disgrace of Himmler and the coming into power of Martin Bormann. It is also mentioned in the Weekly Illustrated of India (26 March) which says it is puzzling British Intelligence Officers. We mention the envelope addressed to Dagens Nyheter above. I have more data on that cover from a 1978 letter from the individual that opened the envelope. He said: “My own Himmler stamps arrived on a brown envelope. The envelope contained a number of stenciled pages containing information on the situation in Germany… Unfortunately, I cut the stamp off the envelope on arriving home… The franking was very poor, and consisted of a few undecipherable lines…. ” It is interesting to note that the British production of these Himmler parodies apparently led directly to the Germans producing propaganda parodies of British stamps. Adolf Burger, one of the Jewish counterfeiters held by the Germans in Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp says in the Devil's Workshop: a Memoir of the Nazi Counterfeiting Operation, Frontline Books, 2009: In the middle of 1943 stamps turned up in the Ruhrgebiet that were purple imitations of the real 6-pfennig Hitler stamp. However, they did not bear the image of the Fuhrer, but that of Heinrich Himmler. The Gestapo discovered the stamps and handed them over to headquarters in Berlin, together with a counter-intelligence report which stated that the stamps had been found after an attack by British planes. As usual we (the counterfeiters) were shown the Himmler stamps as a model. Anyone who thought that Himmler would be delighted to see himself unexpectedly on a stamp was mistaken. On the contrary, he was indignant and felt that he and the National Socialist state were being mocked, and started looking for revenge. He knew exactly how it was to be carried out. He intended to strike back using the same weapon as was used against him, namely stamps. For more on this propaganda campaign see "Operation Watermark" below, in the German section of this article. Postwar fabrications of covers bearing the Himmler parody are known. Numerous postwar forgeries exist of both types of the parody. Most postwar frauds of the parody are clumsily prepared and are easily identified. One dangerous fraud may be detected by the presence of 6 distinct dots in the small rectangle on Himmler's forehead. The legitimate parody has only 5 dots; a horizontal shading line extends into the rectangle's upper left corner. In the past, the parodies sold for about $100-150 each. In October 2009, a lot bearing the two types of Himmler parodies sold for $1300 at auction.

A less-classic British PWE parody of Himmler depicts him shackling a civilian. This parody of the German 9 November 1944 red Hitler Putsch stamp shows Himmler leading a manacled civilian man, who represents Germany in the chains of Fascism. The stamps were printed offset in sheets of 20 stamps (5x4). They are known both perforated and imperforate, although the latter are quite rare. Postwar forgeries exist. The parody was probably produced in December 1944. I first wrote about this parody in "A philatelic view of Heinrich Himmler," The American Philatelist, February 1970.

The PWE produced a parody of the genuine Hitler stamp, instead depicting Hans Frank, the General Governor of occupied Poland. I first wrote about this parody in depth in "The Hans Frank stamp parody," S.P.A. Journal, February 1970. The stamp is a black parody of the General Government 1941 20 groschen sepia Hitler-head stamp showing Hans Frank full-face. The propaganda parody is PWE No. H.308. The design was started in early January 1943. It was printed by Waterlow & Sons in sheets of 20 (5x4), perforated 12 1/2 comb. 5,000 copies were delivered on 11 March 1943. The British airdropped the Frank stamps in containers between the end of January and the end of April 1943, during the RAF's second drop period, which had the code name "Intonation." In June 1943, the Polish Underground prepared a small number of canceled covers bearing the Frank parody and two genuine General Government 2-groschen Hitler-head stamps and containing a propaganda leaflet. The sheets are also known imperforate. The image used on the Frank parody is found on several Allied propaganda leaflets. This one is entitled "Announcement." It is gummed so that it can be stuck on a wall or a lamp pole. Some of the text is: It is our intention to administer a just and effective punishment to the leaders for the organized murder of thousands of innocent people and for the cruelties which violated all principals of Christian faith. Franklin D. Roosevelt

President of the United States. The "Action Frank" envelopes were prepared by the Polish Underground for occupied Poland and had a British PWE 20 groschen Hans Frank stamp parody (PWE No. H308) and often a propaganda leaflet. In June 1943, a small secret group called "Wawerczyke" (loosely, "Pinprick Sabotage Organization") that was a part of the Polish AK (Armii Krajowej - the Home Army) prepared and distributed the letters in an operation known as "Action Frank." This action was a part of a larger operation known as "Action N" (the "N" stands for "Niemcy," which is Polish for "Germany"). Each letter was stamped with one copy of Ellic Howe's Hans Frank parody and two copies of the 2 groschen Hitler-head issue of the General Government. The covers were addressed to individuals in various Polish towns. Inside the envelopes was placed a printed leaflet with voluminous text on both sides. A cover with original insert sold for $6850 in a mail sale of November 1990, and for $3150 in another sale of September 1998. A cover (without insert) sold for $5,250 in an auction of summer 2000. When I first wrote my article on this parody we knew of about a half-dozen covers. We now know of more than 30. Many of the covers contained this black propaganda message. It is entitled "Germans of the Reich." It pretends to be written by a group of Germans living in occupied Poland. It berates the Nazi Party for the "wild, thoughtless and indeed stupid methods" used against the Poles which have just made them more fanatical in their hatred toward Germany. Some of the extremely long text on both sides of the leaflet is: At this time when everything is at risk and the Russian Bolsheviks infiltrate the hinterland of the front with saboteurs and gangs it is a purely irresponsible action on the part of the High Police Director to have entire villages in the district of Zamsoc forcefully relocated... It is easy to explain and understand why resistance occurred. Prepared for the worst, the angry farmers turned to resistance. Police measures taken during this campaign caused 2000 innocent humans to lose their lives... This is the fruit of unpardonable and foolish PARTY POLITICS... To those of us Volksdeutsche who have lived peacefully and untroubled among the Poles for decades, these measures are so alienating that they provoke only true terror at the thought of this degeneration of German culture... British Political Warfare Executive Leaflet G.49 uses the same portrait of Hans Frank in a wanted poster. The Royal Air Force airdropped it over the enemy for two consecutive nights starting 9 August 1943. The leaflet is printed in black and red and the "G" in the code indicates it targeted German military and civilians. The folded leaflet opens up on one side to show German troops supervising the digging of mass graves for murdered Polish civilians with the caption: Justice After a Mass Execution in the Lublin District Some of the text is: Will the war criminals ever admit that the war is lost? No, never. As long as they can find anyone stupid enough to die for them they will exploit this. They will never capitulate. Who in their position would do so? They will stop at nothing in order to make others die for them to the last possible moment, in order to prolong their own lives. For this they will be prepared to go to any lengths. They will lie as long as lies are effective. When lies no longer help them they will use brute force. For they have, according to Goebbels' own words "destroyed all their bridges behind them". The war criminals are the war prolongers. The other side of the leaflet is entitled: For them war means life, peace means death The leaflet depicts six documents with photographs of high Nazi officials charged with war crimes. They are Geppert, Alvensieben, Zörner, Fischer, Wächter and Frank. Beneath the Frank document is the caption: Frank Wanted for murder. The number of victims is not completely established; but probably more than one million. He is co-responsible for the mass murder of Jews in special extermination camps in Belzec and Treblinka. He is solely responsible among other things for the murder of 430 Poles in Iza, 23 in the district of Grojec (March 1943), 94 in Warsaw, 180 in the district of Miechow, 4 in the district of Milec, and 60 in the district of Sandomierz (May 1943). A similar leaflet is coded G.70 with the title "The Accounts are being Kept." It was airdropped by the R.A.F. from 22 September 1943 to 18 October 1943. This second leaflet was black and white and depicted just five wanted criminals instead of the six of G.49. They are Geppert, Zörner, Fischer, Alvensieben, and Frank. The caption beneath the Frank photograph is the same as G.49 above.

True to their word, the Allies executed Hans Frank by hanging after the end of WWII. This is his official photograph, released by the U.S. Government. Howard K. Smith wrote that: He was the only one of the condemned to enter the chamber with a smile on his countenance. Although nervous and swallowing frequently, this man, who claimed to have returned to his childhood Catholic faith after his arrest, gave the appearance of being relieved at the prospect of atoning for his evil deeds. In October 2009, a single copy of the Hans Frank stamp with margins on two sides sold for $1,000 at auction. There is an entire field of collecting that we call "Secret Posts." These are various secret addresses that were used during WWII to get mail to and from agencies in the Axis and Allied camps. They allowed people on different sides to correspond and conduct business. There are literally hundreds of such addressed, some to low value civilian organizations, and some to extremely important military agencies. The 22 February 1944 card above was mailed from German-occupied Warsaw, Poland, to Rus Alexandre Herculano 41 in Lisbon, Portugal. Since Lisbon was a hotbed of intrigue as a neutral country on the Continent, there are over 50 such addresses in that nation alone. This particular card would have been picked up and forwarded to the Polish Red Cross in London. This is a very important field and deserves an article of its own. We just show one card to whet the appetite of the reader.

I first wrote about this forgery in "Allied forgeries of the postage stamps of Nazi Germany," The American Philatelist, February 1971. The British forged the 1934 German 12 pfennig carmine Hindenburg medallion stamp to mail propaganda tracts to Germany. The forgery is printed by typography on unwatermarked paper in sheets of 4 (2x2), and possibly in sheets of 15 (3x5) or 20 (4x5). They were perforated 14 x 14 1/4 comb, very close to the genuine. The forgery is excellent, but may quickly be distinguished from the genuine since the unshaded area of the throat is wider in the forgery, and the forgery shows a red border around the head (particularly the face) that is absent in the genuine. A declassified memorandum found in the British Public Records Office by Lee Richards may cast light on this item. The text reads: 4 April 1941 - 10 April 1941 / German Stamps. We have sent D/H Section [SOE Balkans & Middle East Section] 5,000 12 pf. stamps, including a few genuine ones, for the purposes of posting letters in Germany, for use of the Middle East. This must refer to the Hindenburg forgery, as there is no other known British forgery of a 12 pfennig stamp. The SOE may have inherited the stamp forgery project from an earlier propaganda unit such as Section D under Major Lawrence Grand. Another probable reference to the Hindenburg forgery is in Charles Cruickshank's SOE in Scandinavia. Cruickshank reports the use of forged German stamps by what must have been Section D in Stockholm, and that section existed only from 1938 to July 1940. He also mentions a courier taking 10,000 envelopes with forged stamps into the Third Reich each week.

The Hindenburg forgery appears on envelopes containing propaganda messages. The propaganda messages are a series of numbered and dated pamphlets entitled "Tatsachen / Informationsblatt für Deutsche" ("Factual Information Sheet for Germans"). The German-language propaganda messages in the envelopes include the following subtitles: "German mothers: What will become of our children?"; "To Germany's thirty million Catholics"; and "German youth are on the march... but where?" The known titles of the propaganda fit well with the main propaganda themes used by Section D: attacking the Nazi-Soviet Non-aggression Pact, attacking the anti-Christian policies of the Nazis, propaganda aimed specifically at German women, and propaganda to cause division between Germany and Austria. Several envelopes containing propaganda and bearing uncanceled stamps exist. A single canceled example appeared in 1998 from Brachelen dated 26.4.41.

The British PWE produced a "Witzleben" black parody of the Germany 1943 24+26 pfennig brown-red Hitler Putsch stamp, PWE No. H.1227 (November 1944). I first wrote about this product in "More propaganda parodies," German Postal Specialist, April 1977. The parody shows General Field Marshall Erwin von Witzleben, whom the Germans hanged for his role in the unsuccessful plot to blow up Hitler. Text is "Gehangt am 8 Aug 1944: und ihr habt doch gesiegt," ("Hanged on 8 August 1944: and despite all you were victorious."). The British product parodied an earlier genuine German stamp depicting a Storm Trooper.

The parody was printed photogravure in sheets of 20 (4x5), perforated 14. 5,000 sheets were sent to Major Wintle for the SOE on 7 December 1944. In 1940, von Witzleben (1881-1944) was Commander of Army Group D in France, and was in overall charge of Army West when he was relieved by Hitler. Witzleben was an active conspirator against the Hitler regime, and was chosen as the military head of the resistance group that was to have formed a new government had the plot to assassinate Hitler succeeded. We mentioned earlier that spies seldom get it right when they talk about stamps. Ewan Butler was in charge of the German Section of the British Special Operations Executive in Stockholm, Sweden. In regard to the Witzleben parody, like Delmer, he calls the single stamp a set: London provided us with another set of forged stamps. These bore the head of Field Marshall von Witzleben, who had headed the military element of the plot, recorded the date of his execution, and a slogan originally devised by the Nazis to honor those who fell in the Munich Putsch on November 1923... A full sheet of 20 British parodies of the German Witzleben stamp was sold in June 2013 for 5,000 Euros ($6725 US) and another was offered in December 2013 for 9500 Euros ($12,835 US). THE WINTER RELIEF PARODY STAMPS



No mention of British parodies would be complete without a look at the "Winter Relief Fund" parodies. These stamps have been talked about in the philatelic press for years, the one stamp often called "Himmler talking his head off." I first wrote about these stamps in "A philatelic view of Heinrich Himmler," The American Philatelist, February 1970. The background story is wonderful with the image being used by both the British and the Germans, each for their own propaganda purposes. I also depict some of the items in my article on "Death and Disfigurement" as a PSYOP Theme here. The British PWE "Winterhilfe" black propaganda stamps were modeled vaguely after the Germany 1938 Winterhilfe stamps. The Nazi Party maintained a winter charity, for which there was an annual fund drive. Those who contributed received a variety of small items in return. The "Winterhilfe" had for a motto "No one shall go hungry or cold." Anyone could apply for aid, and according to their needs might receive cash or food, fuel, or clothing. The parodies are PWE No. H.292 (December 1942). Printed offset in booklet form, perforated 14 comb, in quantity 10,000 in January 1943 and delivered to the SOE on 7 and 8 January 1943. 100 additional booklets were sent to the Free French on 28 April 1943. The booklets were issued to Free Polish units operating aircraft in the Mediterranean area. The PWE also prepared propaganda covers bearing these labels, destined for Poland. The stamp and cover propaganda operation was halted, and the items recalled to Great Britain and destroyed. Only a few booklets and covers survived, retained by some of the Polish pilots. The stamps are not exceedingly rare but the complete booklets are. Several have been sold over the years. In 1987 a complete booklet was sold for $2,000. In 2013, another such booklet sold for $4,700.

A Belgian underground newspaper, "La Voix des Belges," No. 36, January 1944, has a short article (in French) entitled "Wintershilfswerk" that reports a correspondent who returned from Germany with two clandestinely sold vignettes that appear to be the British propaganda stamps. If true, this would be the only indication of the use of the stamps inside Germany. However, this report may have originated with British intelligence, who often inserted propaganda misinformation to encourage the resistance. An envelope exists dated 13 September 1943 that bears two of the parody stamps (heavily cancelled "O.K.I. 689" by a German administrative department) and a Belgian stamp addressed to "Headquarters in Nivelles." Philatelic specialists believe that this envelope was prepared by the Belgian Underground. Between 1941 and 1943, over a hundred British PWE and SOE agents were sent to Belgium, so bringing the parody stamps in would be no problem. We should add that the stamps did not just appear on the scene full blown. In late 1942, as PWE No. H235, the British produced a set of five 3x4 1/2-inch gummed leaflets using the Winterhilfswerk theme. The five leaflets show (H.235A) Goebbels talking; (H.235B) Himmler with a businessman; (H.235C) soldier with his face shot off; (H.235D) Himmler holding a gun and a collection tin; (H.235E) Hitler. Leaflets (C) and (D) depict the basic vignettes subsequently used on the stamp parodies. As a part of its counteroffensive in February 1945, Germany dropped a related leaflet on U.S. troops. The German leaflet bears the "face shot away" picture, as in leaflet (C), with a message on the horrors of war. I illustrate and describe this item in "Conversations with a master forger," Scott's Monthly Stamp Journal, January 1980 and here. GERMANY 50 PFENNIG RAILWAY FISCAL STAMP The British also parodied and forged a number of German stamps, labels and ration coupons. This is one of the rarest forgeries known. The British PWE forgery of a Germany 50 pfennig buff railway fiscal stamp, displaying a stylized imperial eagle within a circle containing text Deutsche Reichsbahn. The genuine stamp is No. M3a in Martin Erler & John A. Norton, Katalog der Stempelmarken von Deutschland (Catalogue of the Adhesive Revenues of Germany), Vol. 1: Deutsches Reich/Bundesrepublik, ORA Verlag, Icking, Germany, 1988. The forgery is printed in a miniature sheet of 4, perforated 14 3/4:14; the genuine stamp is perforated 14. The forgery was presumably prepared for use on forged Reichsbahn employee identity cards. The German identity cards required a current "evidence stamp." (In some cases, for instance with Ostbahn evidence stamps, there was a different colored stamp for each month.) Employees of the Reichsbahn (the German national railway) were issued an identification card with a stamp placed on it. A corner margin copy was offered at the 28th Henry Passier auction on 6 July 1968, but was not sold. It was offered again at the auctions of 28 June 1969, 31 January 1970, and 29 August 1970, before being sold at the 41st Passier auction on 8 January 1972 for DM 180. A 1972 DBZ magazine article reported that the buyer was C. von Schubert. This same item was sold by the 227th Interphila / Grobe & Lange auction on 29 June 2001, in a mixed lot of "private forgeries" that sold for DM 2100. The British PWE forged the German 1942 blue Luftfeldpost military air permit stamp, PWE No. H.349 (February 1943); reprinted as PWE No. H.516 (August 1943). I first wrote about this forgery in "Allied Forgeries of the Postage Stamps of Nazi Germany," The American Philatelist, February 1971. The stamp was printed typographed in sheets of 20 (4x5). Perforated 12 1/2 comb (the genuine item is perforated 13 1/4:14, rouletted, or imperforate). Although the quality of the forgery is excellent, it may be easily distinguished from the genuine by the presence of an open rather than closed radio antenna and by breaks in one of the shading lines in the sky behind the tail. (The breaks form "...-", Morse code for "V," and it has been suggested that this was introduced as "V for Victory" propaganda.) Under PWE No. H.349, 25,000 copies were delivered to the SOE on 23 March 1943, 37,500 on 2 April, and 62,500 on 5 April; an additional 12,500 were sent to the Free French on 28 April. Under PWE No. H.516, 30,000 copies were delivered to the SOE on 11 August 1943, and 50,000 on 16 August. The original German model was used to enable soldiers in Russia and Norway to communicate to and from their families at home by a faster method than the normal feldpost system. An early memorandum dated 26 February 1943 from Sefton Delmer describes the intended purpose of this and other forgeries: Memorandum re H.349... These air field-post stamps give soldiers the right to send mail home by air post. Distribution of these stamps among soldiers in occupied territories would not only prove very acceptable to the soldiers, e.g. as a bribe, but hamper the German field postal authorities, who, as part of a campaign for the isolation of the front from the home country, are cutting down, as far as possible, field post in general. It would also swell the volume of airmail, that is, burdening the German air mail to an extent undesired by the German authorities... Every forgery of this kind that we can get circulated increases the sense of instability and insecurity and has a demoralizing effect. It has been stated that the forgery was intended to be used to mail propaganda literature to Germany from occupied Norway. Whatever the intended uses, there is no evidence that mail bearing this forgery was ever sent through the German feldpost system.

The British also counterfeited the stamps of the occupied Netherlands. I first wrote about this operation in "Those Doughty Dutch Decoys," The American Philatelist, October 1970. The British forgery of the Netherlands 1935 1½ cent slate "seagull" stamp was produced in sheets of 20 (5x4). This was the standard pattern for the forgeries produced by Waterlow and Sons printers for the British Intelligence service, and thus the stamps are often called British products. The round head and point eye of the seagull (really a carrier pigeon) and the short height of the letters are similar to those in the redesigned series of 1941 [Mi.380-391], which does not contain a 1½ cent item. The time of production of this forgery is not definitely known, but is surely between April and November 1941: the redesigned series of Dutch stamps did not come into existence until April, and the quality of the work is too poor to attribute it to PWE's Ellic Howe, who began his work in November. The most probable originator is Section D. A.J. Pekelharing, whose article "British 'propaganda' forgery of World War II - The 1½ cent 'Lebeau'", is translated in The Cinderella Philatelist, October 1986, page 78, speculates that the British assumed that the 1½ cent would also be reissued in the new design, and mistakenly adopted the new design. I should add that the Dutch Government in Exile worked with the PWE and SOE in Great Britain and Abraham Elzas, the owner of one strip of the Seagull forgeries stated in 1974 that “These stamps were printed in England during the war by the Dutch Government in Exile and were handed to parachutists who were dropped over occupied Holland.” I have found no mention of this stamp being printed by the British, but that is not definitive since there are many black items printed by the British that were given no specific job number. On the other hand, A Dutch specialist told me in 1970 that a large group of about 240 copies of the forgery were sold by a former officer of British Intelligence who had been ordered to destroy them at the end of the war. I know that such an order was given because I spoke to Ellic Howe years after the war when he visited me and asked to photograph my collection because the government had destroyed all of his productions under the Official Secrets Act at War’s end. There were also a number of British forgeries of French stamps in the lot which does indicate a British hand in the project. A dealer by the name of Trager originally purchased the entire lot. A Dutch dealer named Manuskowski then purchased about 220 of the forgeries. The Dutch forgeries were all in vertical strips of four which indicate 12 broken sheets. No full sheets exist as far as we know. One alleged franked postcard was in the lot and sold to a South African collector. Some envelopes are known but considered post-war fakes. The Dutch Speciale Catalogus 2016 says that this forgery was fabricated during WWII by order of the British Ministry of War at Waterlow and Sons Ltd. Printers in London. I have no idea where they got that information though it is probably true. I have not seen that printed in any wartime documents. German specialist Wolfgang Baldus commented that the forged stamps could have been used by a parachutist to send a postcard to a contact stating that he had arrived safely since they were legal on postcards bearing no more than five words. Another theory is that printed propaganda was sent in envelopes inside the Netherlands franked by the forged stamp. The British forgery of the German Hindenburg stamp was routinely used for that purpose. The forgery is known used on cover addressed to a firm in Den Haag. A large (25x18 cm) business cover exists from Instituut voor Individueel Onderwijs, postmarked Gravenhage Station H.IJ.S.M. 20-5-43N, addressed to E. Rutsma-Brenks, Voorburg (Z-Holland) Princes Mariannelaan 32.

There is a private patriotic overprint Houdt Goeden Moed ("Have Good Courage") on two values of the Netherlands Queen Wilhelmina issue of 1940. The stamps are known in various arrangements of canceled and uncanceled, on and off cover, and on cover with or without address. They were produced by Mr. Pieter Jacob van den Ban, a Schiedam stamp dealer, using his remnants of two values of the still-valid Wilhelmina issue. To lessen the likelihood of casual detection, the overprints are applied with a light shade of the basic color of the stamp. I illustrated and discussed these stamps in "Those Doughty Dutch Decoys," The American Philatelist, October 1970. According to published data, 90 copies of the 5 cents dark green stamp with light green overprint and 45 copies of the 12 1/2 cent dark blue stamp with light blue overprint were produced. About ten copies of each stamp on cover are known. These stamps fall into a gray area. They were privately produced and that makes them suspect, but apparently van den Ban was a member of the Dutch Underground and as far as is known he never sold a stamp for profit. The copies on the market turned up after the war when his belongings were sold to pay his taxes. As a result, although made by a private individual. They probably can be considered legitimate propaganda parodies. Allegedly, the Dutch used the phrase "houdt goeden moed" as a test to detect German agents, since the Dutch "g" in "goeden" is pronounced with a harsh glottal "h" that was difficult for Germans to voice. The British PWE forged the Italian 1929-42 25 centesimi green Victor Emmanuel III stamp in sheets of 20 (5x4), perforated 14 3/4:14. The genuine stamp is perforated 14. Prepared by Ellic Howe, probably in 1942 or the first half of 1943, but possibly as late as summer or fall of 1943. It is possible that this stamp was prepared to assist in the dissemination from Italy of the so-called "Naples letters" (PWE No. H.298) in the first week of January 1943, although this has not been confirmed. I believe that it is common knowledge that the British counterfeited the 3, 4, 6 and 8 pfennig stamps of Nazi Germany. I have not bothered to add them to this story because they are fairly common and everyone is already aware of them. I wrote about them as early as February 1971 in "Allied Forgeries of German Stamps," The American Philatelist. The British placed the 3-pfennig forged Hitler head stamp on a number of different propaganda cards. The Robert Ley postcard is certainly the best known and most well referenced in the literature. I considered adding one of the rarer British productions such as the Scheel, Halder, or Schieber postcards to this story but the webmaster thought that we should depict the Ley card because there is so much information known about it. The British PWE black Robert Ley propaganda card is known in two formats, one imprinted Drucksache (printed matter) and the other imprinted FELDPOST. I first illustrated these and other British postcards in "Venomous propaganda post cards," The American Philatelist, May 1969; and later updated the story in "Black British Propaganda Postcards," The American Philatelist, June 1988. Also see my internet article here. Those imprinted Drucksache were often franked with the British forgery of the Germany 3 pfennig red-brown Hitler-head stamp. They sometimes have an address; sometimes a forged postmark. Large numbers of the Ley cards with forged stamps were dropped by Allied planes on 8-9 January 1944 in the vicinity of Hombourg, Belgium. The PWE code is H.623. It was prepared November 1943 to early 1944. 80,000 were sent to the R.A.F. on 1 December 1943. As Q24 it was balloon-dropped from 8 January 1944 to 19 March 1945. The front features an obviously well-fed Reich Commissar Ley giving a speech at the left and a 15-line message in German at the right: The Normal Consumer and Reich Commissar, Reich Leader Dr. Robert Ley, said in The Angriff of 12 October 1943: '...We National Socialists know no such thing as diplomatic rations. Every man, whether he is a Reich minister or a Reich leader, has to live on rations just like any ordinary workman, mechanic, and official. The normal rations are enough. I myself am a normal consumer and live on them... (See other side).' On the left of the address side is a lengthy German text citing the regulations that legalized diplomatic rations for Nazi officials. The text shows that officials received special rations. It says in part: ... (1) for themselves and their families... (2) for their co-workers, domestic and foreign... (3) for special unavoidable parties... The text concludes with a pun that compares a big meal to a hanging: Good appetite, Herr Ley - the last course is the heaviest. The Germans were aware of the propaganda postcards and forged stamps. The Sonderausgabe zum Deutschen Kriminalpolizeiblatt (Special Edition of the German Criminal Police Magazine), dated 2 May 1944, number 4868 says: Lately Anglo-American bombers have spread large amounts of propaganda postcards with forged 3 Reichspfennig post stamps. Description of the forgery: The printed section is just a little bit smaller than the original. The paper of the forgery is a little bit more yellow. In UV-light the genuine post stamps light blue, where as the forgeries light yellow. The original post stamp has sharper edges printed. The letters of the forgery are also of a less sharp printing. The hairs, eyes, nose chin and moustache are different. It has to be reported when these items are distributed or collected. No public warning should be done. The Ley Feldpost card does not bear the counterfeit 3-pfennig stamp. It was PWE No. H.641 and Q30. It was reprinted as PWE Nos. H.734, H.743, H.773, and H.792. Erik Gjems-Onstad (in charge of the British SOE Operation Durham in Norway 1943-1945) reports that his unit received 200 copies of H.641 on 11 August 1944. The GPS author and expertiser Werner Bohne had a Ley card stamped with the British Luftfeldpost forgery. He had sold it by the time I found out so there was no way to tell if this was truly a British product, or just an interesting conversation piece made by some collector who placed an airmail stamp on the card to make an instant rarity. Forged reprints of the Ley cards appeared in Europe in the late 1980s. The forgeries have darker printing of the picture and writing, and either have no stamp or have a genuine German 3 pfennig Hitler-head stamp.

Besides the British forgery of an Italian stamp; the PWE also parodied the Italian 1941 Italian-German friendship issue in perforated sheets of 20 (4x5). Both parodies call attention to the notion that Hitler is in full charge of the Axis partnership. They were probably prepared in fall 1943. I first mentioned these parodies in "More propaganda parodies," German Postal Specialist, April 1977. There are two British productions. The first is a 25 centesimi green parody, with Hitler snarling at a surprised Mussolini. The Latin text "Duo popoli / Un führer" ("Two peoples, one leader") replaces the original "Duo popoli / Un guerra" ("Two peoples, one war"). Mussolini's ceremonial axe and sword are chipped. It is known perforated 13 1/2 and imperforate. The second stamp is a 50 centesimi green parody of the Italian violet, with the German text "Zwei Volker / Ein Krieg" ("Two peoples, one war") inscription replacing the original Italian text "Poste Italiane." Otherwise, the rendition of the parody is faithful to the original. This is a more subtle expression of German dominance than the other parody. It is perforated 13 1/2 and known imperforate. Fakes have been offered for sale in bright green, described as fraudulent; and in washed-out green with oversize margins between the perforations and the stamp design, described as reprints. The British PWE produced two propaganda booklets depicting stamps of the Italian 1941 Italian-German friendship issue. The stamps depict Hitler and Mussolini. The 16-page booklets, in Italian, are entitled “Here are your allies” and “Here are our enemies.” It seems likely that these similar yet complementary booklets were intended to be dropped together, so as to provide the Italian recipients with an ironic comparison between the formal alliance of the two leaders and the actual effect on the people of the country. I first wrote about these items in the German Postal Specialist, April 1977. The 50 centesimi violet stamp is depicted on the booklet entitled Ecco I Vostri Alleati. (“Here are your allies”) showing Hitler and Mussolini smiling and talking in an open car. Code I.44. The 1.25 lira blue stamp is depicted on booklet entitled Ecco I Nostri Nemici (“Here are our enemies”), showing Hitler and Mussolini smiling and talking in an open car. Code I.52.

During WWII Verona was a hotbed of Axis propaganda. Many of the German and Italian PSYOP items were printed there. Apparently, after the fall of the Fascist government in Italy the Allies used the same printing plant. This U.S. Army propaganda postcard depicts a caricature of Benito Mussolini in an open car with Claretta Petacci (Bibi), his 33-year-old mistress. Text on the front in English, Italian and French is "Bibi's Escape." A suitcase in the open truck is labeled "Shining gold." Il Duce was denounced at a meeting of the Fascist Grand Council on 25 July 1943 and jailed, but rescued on the order of Adolf Hitler and returned to Northern Italy where he ruled a Republican Fascist state. On 28 April 1945, Mussolini, along with his mistress was caught by Communist partisans as he tried to escape to Switzerland. He and Claretta were summarily executed without judicial procedure and hung from lamp poles. Hitler was so shocked by the brutality of the execution and public humiliation that he ordered his staff to burn his body after his suicide. The back of the postcard bears the text: "Authorized 8-6-45 Psychological Warfare Branch - Press Office - Verona - Reproduction prohibited." I often add items other than purely philatelic pieces to my propaganda collection, especially if they are in the form of postcards or air letters. This very interesting piece was produced by the Germans and is in the form of a postcard to be used by prisoners to notify their family of their fate. I first wrote about and illustrated this item in "Postcards to the enemy," S.P.A. Journal, July 1971. The German postcard inscribed "Siegfried Frontline-Service," was delivered by rifle grenade to British and American troops at the Siegfried Line about July 1944. One side has space for addressee and sender, and has a small winged shell containing the text "By rifle-grenade mail" in the lower left corner. The other side has a space for a 15-word message, and instructions for use. The card is code numbered SW-31 and printed in bright red, white, and black. The postcard-leaflet was produced by the German propaganda agency Skorpion West. Before we leave the British propagandists I want to mention that it was not just stamps and postcards that were caricatured and forged. Besides philatelists, numismatists can also enjoy studying and collecting in this field. I always like to point out that the very same people that were producing the postage stamps were also producing propaganda and forged banknotes. When I exhibited I always added a few banknotes to the display frames to show the variety and the scope of the Allied and Axis propagandists. Just as the British produced black propaganda banknotes along with their stamps, the exact same people who were producing the parodies of British stamps that we illustrate below were also counterfeiting British currency. I have written 25 articles on propaganda currency for the International Banknote Society Journal that discuss this thematic in great detail. More detailed information on the banknote depicted above is found in my article "Psywar currency against Germany", Whitman Numismatic Journal, January 1967 and later in "Propaganda Currency of Great Britain and the Allies, IBNS Journal, Volume 24, Number 3, 1985. There are four different British PWE parodies of the German 50 reichspfennig armed forces auxiliary payment certificate with propaganda messages in German on back prepared under PWE No. H.692. The four notes are designated PWE No. H.692A through H.692D. The notes were reprinted as PWE No. H.917. All are red and brown on white paper, 12 x 6 cm. The parodies are excellent reproductions of the original certificate, complete with watermark. 10,000 each of H.692A through D were sent to the SOE on 24 February 1944; 80,000 each were sent to the R.A.F. on 1 March 1944. 210,000 of reprint H.917 was sent to the R.A.F. on 19 May 1944. They were also distributed by balloon from 13 March to 16 July 1944. I selected this note to depict because the text on the back is down to earth and very basic. I am a piece of Hitler's ass paper. Nobody accepts me because nobody can buy anything with me I said at the start of this article that I would show the reader many of the rarest propaganda stamps of WWII. This item is extremely rare, and I don't think it has ever been depicted before. It was originally in the collection of my friend Swedish Specialist Ulf Gunnarsson. I knew Ulf well and we had talked of writing an English-language book on propaganda stamps shortly before his sudden death. He had previously written a Swedish-language booklet on the subject. The above sheetlet was printed by the Czechoslovakian Government-in-Exile. The forgery is known from a single sheet of four. The construction of this sheet is highly unusual. The four items are separated by wide gutters, with line perfora­tions 13 3/4 passing through all the margins of the stamps. The forgeries are printed on pelure paper - a thin, tough, nearly transparent paper with a grayish cast, which allows a somewhat vague see-through view of material printed on the back side. Two side-by-side stamps separated by gutters are printed on each side of the sheet. For the pair of stamps on each side, the printing seems to have been done in two passes - a light red-brown print for the border color, and a slightly darker red-brown for the main design. A 1948 letter attests that the stamps were produced by the Czech government-in-exile in London during World War II in order to provide fake passports for Czech parachutists dropped into occupied Czecho­slovakia. This sheet is probably a proof of an item whose production was discontinued. The forgery is a faithful replica of the original 1938 Czech fiscal, except that the colored under printing for the stamp border is done on the top side of the stamps, rather than on the back side as in the original. As long as we are talking about Czechoslovakia we should mention another item that my old pal Herman "Pat" Herst Jr. mentions in his book Nassau Street. Years ago I used to visit him in Shrub Oak N.Y. and we would discuss these stamps while sitting around his pool. I am not saying that I believe the story, but Pat believed in and as a result I bought the sheets years ago and wrote about them in an article entitled "Secret Czech patriotic marks on Bohemia, Moravia stamps," Linn's Weekly Stamp News, 30 August 1965. According to Pat, there is a secret anti-Hitler message on the unofficial Czechoslovakian propaganda souvenir sheet produced by the Czecho­slovakian stamp trade for an exhibition in Brno on 19 September 1942. This sheet has a photograph of the back side of a statue of a large man with his buttocks exposed. Curiously, directly under the exposed buttocks one finds a copy of a 1942 Bohemia and Moravia stamp featuring the head of Adolf Hitler. Although the Germans were allegedly delighted with the honor, the message conveyed by the patriotic designers of the sheet was anything but complimentary. The sheet exists in green and brown.

The German Army occupied the Channel Islands on 1 July 1940. During the occupation, the letters "AAAA" and "AABB" were placed in the corners of the Jersey low value postage stamps. The letters AAAA appear in the four corners of the Jersey 1941‑42 1-pence red postage stamp and are alleged to represent the phrase Ad Avernum, Adolphe Atrox ("Go to hell, cruel Adolf"). The letters AABB are alleged to represent the phrase "Adolphe Atrox, Bloody Benito." The "A" appears in the two top corners, the "B" in the two bottom corners of the Jersey 1941-1942 1/2-pence green postage stamp.

This story sounds like absolute nonsense and I really do not want to believe it, but the British designer and engraver of the stamps, Colonel (then Major) N.V.L. Rybot, stated in a letter that he included the secret letters in an effort to lift the spirits of those few patriots who were in on the plot: I did not produce the stamps to support the enemy. The commission gave me the opportunity to play a trick on them. I inserted tiny "A"s in the corner meaning "Ad Avernum, Adolphe Atrox," that is "Go to Hell, Cruel Adolf" in Latin. When I engraved the 1/2d stamp I inserted "A...A" and "B...B" in the corner dots, meaning "Adolphe Atrox" and "Bloody Benito." I had always heard that the letters "AA" meant "Atrocious Adolf," but I think we must use the meaning that Rybot intended. Wolfgang Baldus points out that the letters are so small and often so blurred that they cannot be propaganda because without a magnifying glass they can hardly be seen. He thinks that propaganda that is undetectable is senseless. He concludes: Rybot's subversive act was just for his own satisfaction. The stamps are just a curiosity.



The French "Faux Petain" forgery The French underground produced a "Faux Petain" forgery of the France 1941-43 1.50 francs red-brown Petain bareheaded stamp. I first mentioned this stamp in "World War II's Most Mistreated Postage Stamp," S.P.A. Journal, November 1969. The forgery is rather crudely executed and is printed ungummed on poor-quality white paper that shows yellowing from age. The stamp was printed on several occasions and is found in nine shades of red-brown varying in the depth of the color and the degree of reddish cast. The forgery was printed in sheets of 96 (12x8) consisting of 4 panels of 24 (6x4) separated by gutters. The forgery is perforated 11 1/2, rather than the 14:13 1/2 of the original. It is also known imperforate and with various partial perforations. The back of each quarter-sheet panel of 24 stamps contains a hand stamp covering from 4 to 9 stamps, varying in color from red to violet and consisting of a 37 mm circle enclosing the Cross of Lorraine and the text "Defense de la France - Direction / Atelier des Faux" ("French Underground - Directorate / Forgery Bureau"). It has been suggested that the Faux Petain was produced by a Vichy-oriented resistance group in order to avoid acquiring postage from the French PTT, which was viewed as too closely allied with the FFI. The Faux Petain was produced in early 1944, and was allegedly used to frank clandestine literature from 25 January to 30 May 1944. The stamps were prepared by photogravure. Allegedly, attempts to perforate the stamps by a sewing machine and by using perforations called "bread coupons" were disastrous. Finally, an old perforation machine was found and used. The forgeries were left ungummed since no gumming machine was available; a glue pot was used to stick the labels to envelopes. Despite the poor quality of the forgery, which would seem to make actual wartime postal usage unlikely, several covers bearing the forgery, including one dated 22 May 1944 addressed to Madame Rollin of Paris, are in the collection of the French War Museum. The Faux Petain appeared on several postwar souvenir sheets for the Brussels Exposition in November 1945. On these sheets, the Faux Petain stamps bear a circular cancel "D.F. / Atelier des Faux." I call this the "DeGaulle Profile" because the French also prepared a DeGaulle stamp in "full face." The French underground - Forces Frangais ` l'Intirieur (FFI) DeGaulle parody of France 1941-1943 1.50 francs red-brown Petain bare-headed depicts Charles DeGaulle in left profile. I first wrote about this parody in "World War II's most mistreated postage stamp," S.P.A. Journal, November 1969. The parodies are of poor quality, printed in brown on pale cream paper or on grayish paper, in sheets of 9 (3x3) with clear margins all around. They are known perforated and imperforate. The denomination of the parody is 1.50 francs and the text in the central oval is "Postes Francaises," as on the genuine stamp used as a model. They were produced in Nice by the FFI Combat resistance group. Robert Thirin was the engraver; Georges Fonat and Mlle. Georgette Houde did the printing; Mlle. Houde did the perforation. The stamps were originally meant to be used in "pin-prick" operations - stuck on shop windows, doors, and prominent objects. The parodies were successfully used on some mail in 1944 among Nice, Marseilles, and Lyon in Vichy France, and many covers are thought to exist, bearing the parody and genuine postage. Canceled covers showing only the DeGaulle parody without proper postage are probably souvenirs prepared by the FFI. As I mentioned above, the Forces Frangais ` l'Intirieur also prepared a stamp showing General Charles DeGaulle in full face. This was a much more ambitious operation and the patriotic labels were placed between genuine stamps. Once again the propaganda stamp is a parody of the France 1941-1943 1.50 francs Petain bareheaded. It depicts Charles DeGaulle full-face, printed 10 per sheet in the vertical gutter between the central columns of genuine French Petain or Mercury stamps, thereby emerging "pre-per­forated." The denomination of the parody is 1.50 francs, as in the original model; however, the text in the central oval of the parody is "Republique Francaise" rather than "Postes Francaise." The parody appears on 4 different Mercury sheets and on 20 different Petain sheets. These parodies are of much higher quality than the left-profile DeGaulle production. They were prepared in May 1943 by the FFI in Marseilles. The full-face DeGaulle parodies were heavily used on mail in the Alps-Maritimes, which was under German occupation at the time, and in Paris, Lyon, Marseilles, and other centers of population. However, these parodies are quite rare, and covers are extremely scarce. One complete set exists in Europe.

This is not strictly propaganda; its ostensible purpose was to aid in the conduct of business during the liberation of France. However, it is so closely tied with the FFI's forgeries and propaganda parodies that I include it here. I first wrote about this item in an article entitled "Parodies of WWII French stamps," Linn's Weekly Stamp News, 11 April 1966. The "stamp" is a blue label with DeGaulle full-face and the inscriptions "Poste Speciale / F.F.I // M.L.N.". M.L.N. stands for Mouvement de Liberation Nationale (National Liberation Movement). It was prepared in Paris and used on covers to transport mail during one week of August 1944 when the normal post was not functioning and the Resistance took control. Many envelopes were prepared as souvenirs at that time and later. An FFI document exists entitled Explications des adresses portees sur les enveloppes ("Explanation of addresses used on envelopes"), presenting coded addresses for 14 FFI/MLN functions. The document further states that for reasons of security during the period of their clandestine activities, the FFI could not use the real addresses of service units. Some other addresses are; Credit Agricole pour la Region de l'Eure is really the Centre d'Action des Resistances Etrangeres, the Credit Foncier Lyonnais is the Corps Francs de la Liberation, and the Direction Affaires Orientales is the Direction de l'Action Ouvriere.

Just as the Germans were printing and sending propaganda postcards into France, the French were retaliating with their own postcards. The card above depicts a caricature of Hitler making a speech: Three years! Five years! Eight years! Below, two children ask: Please, Mr. Leader, how much longer will your Lighting War last? These cards were produced before the German occupation of France and were used by the French in airdrops on German civilian areas. I first described this propaganda postcard in "Postcards to the enemy," S.P.A. Journal, July 1971. Three French squadrons dropped 587,500 cards in 10 raids between 23 March and 8 May 1940. The invasion of France began on 10 May 1940. Two varieties of the card exist: a version with black and red printing (with red "Drei", "Funf', "Acht", and "Blitzkrieg"), and a later redrawn British version with black printing.



We have discussed "black" postage stamps so far, those whose origin was hidden from the finder. Sometimes the stamps are "white," or clearly marked so that the finder will know where they came from. The Norwegian stamps are a perfect example. They appear in the official Complete Index of Allied Airborne Leaflets and Magazines, and the finder would have no question but that they were British productions. I first wrote about these stamps in "Those Scandalous Scandinavian Labels," S.P.A. Journal, July 1967. Four different stamps exist. The British SOE (Department EH) propaganda labels for Norway, officially known as the "Norwegian Stamp Collection," were issued in 132x215 mm gummed sheets, with one large label and three or four smaller perforated postage 'stamp'­size labels. The sheets are SOE code number EH (N) 811. They were prepared 7 June 1941, and were circulated in Norway by agents and through two air drops. 200,000 sheets were printed by rotogravure, probably 50,000 of each type. Proofs of the leaflets were available on 9 May 1941. It is probable that the date of first drop was to have been 17 May 1941, Norwegian National Day, but delivery was delayed, and the drop was made over Bergen in daylight on 7 June 1941. The remaining stock was to have been destroyed on 19 July, but the sheets survived, to be used in a second drop on 19-20 September. In addition to Bergen, leaflets were found in Askoy, Osteroya, and Fusa Fjord. All four sheets have the common text in Norwegian "Essay for the Norwegian Postage Stamp Competition. Three others follow by air mail." Propaganda leaflets depicting the vignettes from the gummed labels were prepared at the same time. Sheet No. 1: 15 xre green, "Alt for Tyskland" ("All for Ger­many", a parody of the King's slogan, "All for Norway"), showing a fat Nazi officer with a pig under his arm, confiscating a Norwegian farmer's live­stock. Includes four small perforated labels. Sheet No. 2: 30 xre blue, perf. "Wir fahren gegen Engelland" ("We're sailing against England"), showing Hitler wearing a Viking helmet, swimming with the aid of a life preserver. Includes three small perforated labels. Sheet No. 3: 20 + 20 xre orange, "Lofoten 4 Mars 1941..." ("Lofoten 4 March 1941 / Contribution to the fine"), showing a sailor stuffing little Nazis into a bag. Includes three small perforated labels. The label celebrates a successful raid by British commandos on the Lofoten Islands off the northwest coast of German-occupied Norway. Sheet No. 4: 30 stk solv (pieces of silver) blue, "Vanaere og forakt har Quislings faerd ham bragt" ("Quisling's conduct has brought him dishonor and contempt"), showing Vidkun Quisling, the notorious Norwegian traitor, with a noose around his head. Includes three small perforated labels. I mention these stamps although there is some question what we should call them. They are not espionage forgeries or propaganda parodies, but they might be called "unissued stamps." They were apparently produced in good faith by Germany to be used by its Indian Legion. Hitler despised the Indian troops and was happy to send their leader to Japan. The stamps are interesting and we just mention them in passing and show a few of the vignettes. I first wrote about them in "The Azad Hind Labels," The SPA Journal, December 1971. That article was later expanded and became a booklet entitled Azad Hind and Chalo Delhi Stamps, published by Jal Cooper, Bombay, 1972. For those that are interested in currency, I also wrote about alleged banknotes of the Azad Hind movement in the International Banknote Society Journal, Volume 40, Number 3, 2001. According to the propaganda philately specialist Dave Ripley, the 1R + 2R image above depicts the most well-known Indian martyrs of the time: Sukhdev Thapar at left, Bhagat Singh as flag bearer and Shivaram Rajguru at right. All were all hanged on 23 March 1931 for violent acts against harsh British rule and their bodies were secretly cremated on the banks of the River Satluj. My good friend Wolfgang Baldus found five photographs in the German Bundesarchiv by a photographer named Aschenbroich. He photographed the swearing-in of Indian volunteers of the Propaganda-Ersatz-Abteilung Potsdam (“Propaganda Replacement Unit Potsdam”) in 1942. It appears that Axster-Heudtlass used some of these photographs for the stamp. Buyer beware! We should also note that reproductions of these stamps in India are known. One 2015 auction advertisement offered the above stamp (normally priced at around $100 U.S.) for $12.50 U.S. and said: Azad Hind Propaganda Postage Stamp on Japanese PSYOP during WWII India: Azad Hind, 1943, 1r + 2r Soldier with Free India Flag (Michel VII. Singer 8), imperforate copy, composed of green and orange. Reproduced Copy. The Azad Hind (Free India) stamps were produced by Germany in 1943 for Subhas Chandra Bose's Indian National Army movement. Under the direction of Bose and with the approval of the German government, the noted German team of Werner and Maria Von Axter Heudtlass designed the stamps; their "Ax-Heu" mark appears in the upper left corner of all the stamps except the 1 Rupee, where the mark is located at bottom left center. Twelve million stamps were printed and gummed by the Reichsdruckerei in Berlin (in the mid-1990s, some Indian sources have claimed Vienna as the origin). The failure of the Free Indian Army to achieve any military success left the stamps without a reason for use, and the entire issue was still in storage in Europe at the end of the war. The denominations known are 1/2 anna yellow-green; 1 anna lilac-red; 2 1/2 anna orange-red; 1+1 anna dark brown; 2+2 anna carmine; 2 1/2+2 1/2 anna dark blue; 3+3 anna red; 8+12 anna blue-violet; 12 anna + 1 rupee lilac-purple; 1+2 rupee black/orange/green; 1+2 rupee black; and 1+2 rupee black/orange. None of the stamps was ever placed in use. One million stamps of each of the low values were printed. The 1 + 2 rupees high denomination values are much scarcer, thought to be printed in the order shown above: 7,000 copies, 4,500 copies, and 2,000 copies. Postwar forgeries exist, printed offset rather than photogravure, with a washed-out and somewhat unclear appearance; in these forgeries, the "Ax-Heu" designers' mark is missing or very blurred. So-called "proofs" were produced by Sam Tiger Productions of Thailand in the mid-1990s. The Chalo Delhi Stamps There is a second set of stamps for the Free Indians; these known as "Chalo Delhi" ("On to Delhi"). I wrote about them in Azad Hind and Chalo Delhi Stamps in 1972, and later sent all of my reference notes to Andrew Freeston who wrote a booklet entitled The Azad Hind and Chalo Delhi Stamps of the Indian Legion and Indian National Army of Subhas Chandra Bose in 1999. A third booklet appeared in 2008 by Richard Warren entitled Chalo Delhi, the Real Story. The search for the real story has been difficult because there was very little known about the stamps and there were two sets, either or both of which might have been fakes. The story was that the issue was sponsored by the Indian National Army when the Japanese were preparing to attack Imphal. If true, these stamps would have been used when the INA returned to India. The denominations are 1 pice, magenta and 1 anna, green (there