Airmail
Airmail (historically and in philately also airmail ) is the transport of mail by air freight or carrier pigeons . Airmail is sometimes only transported against payment of increased postage fees, which in the past were sometimes collected by franking with special airmail stamps. The scientific examination of airmail history and the systematic collection of airmail stamps and vouchers is called aerophilatelie .
Historical development
The beginnings of airmail
Even in ancient times , messages were delivered by air mail , using carrier pigeons as messengers. For the first time, pigeons were used to deliver messages in ancient Egypt . Military, political and also economic consideration was given to this particularly fast way of delivering messages. In 1279 BC In the 4th century BC the news was spread of the coronation of the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II by four released doves. Carrier pigeons were also used by other advanced cultures . The Roman general Julius Caesar made use of the special skills of the carrier pigeon. He had news of unrest in conquered Gaul delivered by his own messenger pigeons in order to be able to command his troops as quickly as possible.
The carrier pigeon was also used as a messenger in the Middle Ages . The Caliph of Baghdad , Nur-Eddin , set up his own pigeon post . However, it was stopped again after the destruction of Baghdad in 1258 by the Mongols . Egyptian sultans also set up their own state pigeon post in the Middle Ages . Crusaders brought carrier pigeons back to Europe from the Middle East in the 12th and 13th centuries .
The first flying machines
At the time of the Renaissance , the first serious designs of flying machines appeared in Europe. The best known come from the Italian universal genius Leonardo da Vinci . However, the first airworthy constructions came into being over 250 years later. The Montgolfier brothers discovered by chance that hot air is strong enough to lift a paper bag into the air. This discovery was the basis for the development of the first hot air balloon , the Montgolfière . On November 21, 1783, a person's first ride in a hot air balloon took place.
The invention of the hot air balloon had a major impact on the history of airmail. Just one year after the first manned balloon flight, the pilots took small messages or messages with them on their trips. However, the balloon mail story did not actually begin until 1793. From the two besieged fortresses Valenciennes and Condé in France , messages were released in small balloons for the allies of the trapped. However, these messages were intercepted by the enemy . In the decades that followed, balloons were also used to transmit messages during war.
The most famous example among philatelists around the world is the Paris balloon mail . The connection between Paris and unoccupied France during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 and 1871 could only be maintained through a clever interaction between balloon mail and carrier pigeons . In addition to 2,500,000 letters and postcards , the balloons from Paris were given a total of 363 carrier pigeons so that they could return later with replies or other messages. Similar attempts were made in Metz during the Franco-Prussian War to use balloons to send messages to allies (compare Metz balloon mail ).
The first official balloon mail flight took place on July 17, 1859 in the USA . This led from St. Louis to Henderson in New York, 1290 km away . The pilot John Wise had 123 letters on board. Only one of these post-historical documents has survived. In Germany, the first official balloon mail flight took place as part of the Leipzig trade fair in June 1897. After landing, the pilot Louis Godard handed the postcards over to the Reichspost for forwarding. The cards received private confirmation stamps.
Until the end of the 19th century, such airmail transports always took place in the context of special events or for military reasons. The German postmaster general Heinrich von Stephan , however, pointed out in a much-noticed lecture the possible importance of airmail for everyday mail transport in 1874. This lecture was even published as a book under the title "World Post and Air Shipping" .
The invention of the airplane
Nothing had a greater impact on the history of airmail than the invention of the airplane . After Otto Lilienthal's first attempts at flight with his Derwitz glider in the spring of 1891, the world's first motorized flight ( Wright brothers ) took place on December 17, 1903 . Five years later, mail was first transported by airplanes: on August 12, 1909, special stamps were issued for a sightseeing flight over Milan as part of an air exhibition . A month later, on September 20, 1909, on the occasion of a sightseeing flight over the Italian city of Brescia, documents flown along with the flight were given a similar special stamp. However, at these two events the mail was not forwarded.
The first official mail delivery flight between two locations took place on February 18, 1911 during an arts and crafts exhibition in India . The young French pilot Henri Pequet transported around 6,500 letters from the Allahabad exhibition site to Naini, about eight kilometers away. Henri Pequet needed about 13 minutes for this route with his summer double-decker . The documents flown with the flight were stamped First Aerial Post, U. P. Exhibition Allahabad 1911 .
A year later, on May 19, 1912, the first official mail flight of the Deutsche Reichspost between Mannheim and Heidelberg took place (however, most mail was not transported by airship, as planned, but by the conventional route). With the approval of the Reich Post Office on June 1, 1912, airmail transport with zeppelin and aircraft and semi-official airmail stamps, the so-called airmail on the Rhine and Main , was then approved from June 10 to 23, 1912 as part of a charity event . Before that, there were several private mail deliveries in Germany by air without the approval of the Post. The first event of this kind was held in Berlin on November 13, 1911 .
At the flight around Berlin , postcards for collectors were taken on the flight. The second event of this kind was a flight of eight kilometers between the places Bork and Brück . Air tickets were issued for the first time at this flight event. They were used exclusively to finance the event and had no postal value. The initiators of the campaign were the Berlin dentist and chairman of the Borkheide tourist association, Kurt Schaefer, and his friend Hans Grade, who was an entrepreneur who produced the first aircraft at the time. A Grade aircraft took off on February 18, 1912 and thus carried out the first airmail transport with flight stamps in Germany from Bork to Brück.
The Swiss aviation pioneer Oskar Bider transported the first Swiss airmail on the Basel - Liestal route on March 9, 1913 .
In the following years, until the outbreak of the First World War , there was intensive cooperation between the Reichspost and the organizers of postal flights (see for example airmail on the Rhine and Main ). In other countries, however, even during the war work was being carried out on building a civilian airmail network. The world's first airmail stamps were issued in Italy in 1917. These were used to pay the postage for airmail transport on the Turin - Rome and Rome - Palermo routes . It was still a trial run. In Austria , on March 31, 1918, the first regular air mail line was set up between Vienna , Krakow and Lemberg . Own airmail stamps were also issued for this. This regular mail delivery by airplanes is considered by many philatelists as the actual beginning of the airmail history. But even during the First World War, attempts were made to set up a military airmail system with the aim of supplying trapped soldiers with information from home. The flight from Austro-Hungarian pilots to the soldiers in Przemyśl, which was surrounded by the Russians, in October 1914 can be described as the first military air mail .
The first regular state airmail connections under German direction were established towards the end of the First World War on the Eastern Front in Russia and the Baltic States. The history of civil airmail in Germany began on February 6, 1919. The occasion was the opening of the constitution of the National Assembly in Weimar . From that day on, planes of the Deutsche Luft-Reederei took off twice a day in Berlin-Johannisthal to transport mail - especially newspapers - from the capital to the conference location in Weimar. For the time being, this airmail connection could only be used by the members of the National Assembly, which had moved to the then Thuringian capital because of the revolutionary situation in Berlin. A few months later, this air mail line was also opened to the public.
In March 1919, the Junkers aircraft factory in Dessau set up regular flight service to Weimar. In the same year regular mail flights were also set up in Bavaria.
In the following years there was a rapid expansion of airmail connections in Germany as well as throughout Western Europe and the USA. On August 11, 1920, the first airmail flights from Germany abroad were carried out. The destination that was flown to was the Swedish port city of Malmö .
From 1921, the Deutsche Reichspost introduced special flight mail confirmation stamps and flight mail stickers. In 1922 there were already 13 different airmail routes. In May 1923, Germany's first airmail mailboxes were set up in Berlin . These special, blue painted letter boxes were only used for dropping airmail items and were intended to enable the airmail items to be processed and forwarded more quickly. In 1924 the first night air mail between Berlin, Copenhagen and Stockholm took place.
On January 6, 1926, Deutsche Luft Hansa Aktiengesellschaft was founded (since 1934, Deutsche Lufthansa ). Until then, Aero Hansa AG, Deutsche Aero Lloyd AG and Junkers Luftverkehr AG were responsible for airmail transport. However, since the Reich, the federal states and the municipalities threatened to cut the subsidies for companies that were fighting ruinous competition , they joined forces to form the new airline under pressure from the banks and the state. Luft Hansa had to undertake to keep enough space free for the transport of mail on every flight. The constant expansion of the worldwide flight network and the constant further developments in aircraft led to a rapid expansion of airmail. Before the beginning of the Second World War , the majority of international shipments were already carried by airplanes. Nevertheless, the airmail transport over long distances was extremely expensive due to the comparatively short range of the aircraft. For example, mail was transported to and from South America in several stages via Bathurst ( Gambia ) and Natal (Brazil) . The Atlantic crossing between West Africa and Brazil takes place with a flying boat and a stopover on the Atlantic at an air base ship . The stopover was necessary to maintain and refuel the aircraft, sometimes to replace them.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was one of the most famous air mail pilots of the time .
The Second World War and the temporary end of the German Airmail
During the Second World War , air mail became one of the most important means of communication between the front and home . In almost all participating countries, the airmail network has been significantly expanded and airmail has been further developed. In the German Reich, air mail was primarily intended to be used on fronts far from home. Between April 17 and May 9, 1942, the first starting point for German airfield mail was set up in Biała Podlaska near Brest-Litowsk . The destinations flown to were based on the respective front line. The Junkers Ju 52 was mostly used as a transport aircraft. In May 1944 the starting point was moved to Litzmannstadt (Łódź) . A few months later, on July 6, 1944, the German airfield mail service was finally completely discontinued.
From April 18, 1942, the German Reich issued its own registration stamps for airfield mail letters. Every German soldier received four such postage stamps per month , after a postage increase in May 1943 eight registration stamps . This enabled him to post a total of four letters or postcards home. The stamps were issued to soldiers on sections of the front in the east, in the Balkans and in Scandinavia , provided they were connected to the airfield mail network. In addition to the German Reich, other countries also issued their own air field mail stamps during the Second World War. In June 1943, the allied Italy even issued its own express air mail stamps .
The Allies had a similarly strong air field mail network as the German Reich. The allied Airgraph service ( V-Mail ) of the British and American armed forces existed during the war years 1941 to 1945. On April 21, 1941 the first field post line from Cairo to London was opened by the Airgraph service. The soldiers wrote the messages to be sent on special forms, which were then recorded in a photomicrograph on cine film. After the narrow films arrived at home, the individual messages were again delivered enlarged to the recipients. The civilian aerogram later emerged from the military principle of the most weight-saving transmission of information via aircraft .
After the defeat and surrender of the German Wehrmacht on May 8, 1945, airmail traffic in the now occupied German-speaking areas of Austria and Germany was taken over by foreign companies. In Austria there was a regular airmail service already two years after the end of the war; in Germany, all residents of the Federal Republic of Germany could not post airmail until October 20, 1948. In 1954, Deutsche Lufthansa was re-established in the Federal Republic of Germany, which had ceased its flight operations after the end of the war. From April 1, 1955, there were regular German airmail flights again. A short time later, on May 17, 1955, international destinations were once again connected to one another by post through the West German Lufthansa. In the GDR there was also an airline called Lufthansa, which was also responsible for airmail.
The airlift to Berlin
The airlift to Berlin is a special chapter in the history of airmail . Here, for the first time, airmail could not be supported or replaced by any other type of mail. The airlift to Berlin was built by the Western Allies with airplanes to supply the largest German city with essential goods. This could only be done by air, since the Soviet occupying power set up a complete blockade of West Berlin from June 24, 1948 .
Although the airlift was initially only intended for the transport of essential goods, mail was soon also carried in both directions. No additional fees were charged by the Allies for this. The West Berlin Post used two specially created postmarks for these special items of mail . These machine stamps bore the inscription Luftbrücke Berlin or Kauft vom Blockierte Berlin . In addition to these two official postmarks, however, numerous private confirmation stamps were still in use.
After the Berlin Airlift had existed for almost a year, the Soviet Union finally had to admit that it guaranteed supplies to Berlin and could continue indefinitely. They therefore decided to lift the blockade of West Berlin on May 12, 1949 at 0.01 a.m.
The modern airmail and the influence of philately
At the time of the first mail flights from airplanes, people were still happy to accept high airmail delivery charges in order to receive such a special letter . A nice example of this is an airmail letter from Ensign Edwin Müller , who later became one of Austria's most famous philatelists . On the back of an airmail receipt from 1918 he wrote:
- "I would very much like to have a Budapest-Vienna airmail letter - that would be all that is missing for my happiness."
Over time, however, the aircraft lost its special status and eventually became something very common. Among other things, this led to the fact that airmail is now perceived as something taken for granted. Most European countries have long since stopped paying an additional airmail fee. However, such fees still exist in the United States . This is due to the fact that in the USA there is strong competition between private courier services such as FedEx and UPS and the state postal service " United States Postal Service ". Therefore, these companies must always be careful to offer their services cheaper than the competition. As a result, the lower costs of mail transport that takes place by land or ship are passed on to the customer.
In most European countries there is not such strong competition between public and private companies. This can mostly be traced back to existing or recently disbanded postal monopolies . Private courier services in Central Europe usually rely on faster but more expensive mail delivery.
The airmail volume in Germany, but above all from Germany to non-European countries, is constantly increasing. This shows how important airmail is for quick postal connections between places that are far apart. It is of particular importance in regions of the world that - apart from airplanes - are difficult to access. Australia , in particular the areas in the center of the continent away from the large metropolitan areas on the coasts, is one example .
Most air mail is now in the context of other modes of transport such as railway mail or sea mail used [proof?] To ensure the fastest possible, but also cheap delivery of the mail. The importance of airmail is much higher in countries without rail and ship mail than in Central Europe, since there is no real alternative to airmail. This applies above all to parcel shipments , as pure message transmissions are no longer dependent on the post nowadays.
Today airmail is carried out almost exclusively by air. Other types of airmail transport mostly have philatelic backgrounds and no postal significance. “Rocket mail” should be mentioned first of all for these modes of transport. Although serious attempts have been made by individual postal services to transport mail using rockets , this mostly takes place on private initiative and has no postal purpose whatsoever. The first rocket mail took place in 1931 by the Austrian Friedrich Schmiedl . In addition to rocket mail, there is also balloon mail, zeppelin mail, helicopter mail and similar types of airmail that are carried out specifically for philatelists.
Today an airmail letter in the countries of the EU is regarded as a letter that reaches the recipient within 48 hours. Whether the letter was transported by air or by road only plays a secondary role. [Receipt?]
European airmail is currently subject to changes in European liberalization. In the past, an airmail letter was transported by the state airline for the state, monopoly-secured postal company. In Europe, the state airlines are more and more forced to cut costs due to the price offensives launched by low-cost airlines. As a consequence, smaller aircraft are used that can no longer transport as much cargo as required.
With the disappearance of the monopoly on the transport of letters, the formerly state-owned postal companies also see themselves in competition and develop an ever greater interest in profit-oriented work.
The competition between the airlines and the competition between the postal companies has meant that letters are only transported by air to a limited extent. More and more letters are called airmail, priority or A Mail, depending on the country, and are being moved overland with vans between European countries.
philately
Forms of shipment of airmail
Ordinary mail
Strictly speaking, there is no difference between airmail and ordinary mail . Airmail is just as much a letter , postcard or parcel as normal mail, except that it has covered part of the transport route in the air and received appropriate evidence. In the past, airmail was sent with the words "By airmail" or a special sticker with this label on it. Usually, extra postage was also due for airmail transport. Since the establishment of the night airmail network , a significant proportion of the total mail volume has traveled part of its route by plane, but has not received a special flight confirmation note. By eliminating airmail charges, the sender can only seem to have an influence on the type of mail transport.
Airmail receipts are the heart of every aerophilatelistically oriented collection. The collector pays attention to a number of special features in these documents. This includes the stamps used and the stamps on the mailpiece. The collector also pays attention to whether it is a special flight, for example an opening flight . Special "delicacies" are mail from crashed aircraft that could be rescued. These are usually provided with their own stamp.
Special mail
In the course of time, a number of types of mail developed specifically for airmail. The first in this series are balloon letters from the time of the Paris balloon mail. The advantages of uniform airmail deliveries were particularly evident during World War II. From this knowledge the aerogram developed , which is comparatively rarely used today. In Great Britain , however, specially designed Christmas aerograms are published annually .
Airmail stamps
Official airmail stamps
The world's first official airmail stamps were issued in Italy in 1917 . They can only be used to postage postage paid for airmail and, due to the more expensive airmail postage, have a higher face value than normal postage stamps. In this way, the individual postal services in the world wanted to take account of the initial peculiarity of this mail transport. Nowadays most countries have stopped issuing airmail stamps, and ordinary postage stamps have taken their place . However, some countries continue to issue their own airmail stamps in order to increase their income by selling them to collectors.
Airmail stamps are an integral part of any aerophilatelist collection. The most famous airmail stamp among collectors is also known to many non-philatelists. This is the US American stamp misprint " Inverted Jenny " from 1918. This rare misprint differs from the original stamp in that the plane, a Curtiss Jenny, was printed upside down in the center of the stamp motif. So far only 100 copies of this philatelic rarity have become known. The Inverted Jenny is the crowning glory of any aerophilatelic collection.
Many different forms of official airmail stamps emerged over the years. The Central American state of Guatemala , for example, issued foreign airmail stamps that could only be used for mail sent abroad , and similarly issued domestic airmail stamps . Russia issued its own airmail stamps that were used to pay for airmail shipments from the Russian consulate.
Air tags
In contrast to airmail stamps, air tickets were always issued privately. These are brand-like vignettes that existed before the first airmail stamps. They were used to finance flight events in which air mail was carried. To do this, a flight ticket had to be bought from the organizer and stuck on the shipment to be transported. If the addressee wanted further transport after the aircraft had landed, the mail item also had to be franked with postage stamps.
Such vignettes appeared, for example, at the beginning of air mail in Germany and Switzerland. After the popularity of the aircraft sank again after a while, the number of such flight events also dwindled. In 1933 the last air ticket was finally issued in Germany.
Air stamps are not included in their collections by all aerophilatelists because these stamps never had a postal meaning. However, since they were mostly approved by the post office, other collectors speak of semi-official flight stamps and make them an integral part of their collection.
Airmail sticky notes
Strictly speaking, airmail labels are not postage stamps. With their perforation , shape and rubber coating , they have the appearance of a postage stamp, but they have no postal value. The stick-on notes are provided free of charge by the post office and are only used to identify items to be transported by airmail. Airmail sticky notes are mostly blue and have no motif besides the inscription "With airmail" . In addition to the national language, this inscription is usually given in French , more rarely in English . This is due to the fact that the Universal Postal Union "UPU", founded in 1874, chose French as the universal postal language. This means that every piece of mail addressed in French should theoretically be delivered worldwide without any problems. This explains the addition of " Prioritaire ", which indicates the priority of the shipment.
However, airmail stickers do not necessarily have to be stick-on pieces of paper in postage format. In Aerogrammen and other special airmail envelopes they are already imprinted. However, shipments without airmail stickers are usually transported by airmail in the same way as shipments with such vignettes. Nevertheless, unlike the other types of airmail stamps, they have held up to this day.
Airmail sticky notes do not necessarily have to be present in an airmail collection. They are considered more than a fringe area of philately to which only a few collectors pay attention.
Airmail stamp in philately
Official airmail stamp
Official airmail stamps are normal postal stamps . However, they are only used to validate airmail items. The only difference to local postmarks is the inscription on the airmail postmarks. This usually contains a reference to the special transport of the document. For example, the inscription on an airmail stamp is * Vienna * / March 30, 1929 / (airmail) .
These days, airmail stamps are rarely used by the post office. They have mostly been abolished for reasons of easier handling. A special marking is no longer necessary nowadays, as this type of transport is almost always used for longer distances.
Confirmation stamp
In contrast to airmail stamps, confirmation stamps are rarely post office stamps. They are mostly made on a private initiative. The confirmation stamps are intended to provide additional evidence that a letter was sent in a certain way. For this purpose, the confirmation stamp is struck on the mail item, but never on a postage stamp. The first confirmation stamp of this kind came from February 18, 1911 on the occasion of the first official mail transport between two different places in India .
At the beginning of airmail through the aircraft, confirmation stamps were widely and gladly used. The confirmation stamps of the zeppelin mail in particular were and are very popular with philatelists. Nowadays, confirmation stamps are only used for special airmail transports, such as helicopter flights, which usually take place in a philatelic supporting event.
Failure stamp
A special type of airmail stamp is the failure stamp. This is used whenever a certain flight is canceled or postponed. Nowadays a replacement flight can usually be found. In the case of certain flights, for example announced opening flights, this must nevertheless be noted on the mail item with a cancellation stamp. This failure stamp is usually a rubber stamp that had to be produced without further ado.
Cancellation stamps are not a major philatelic peculiarity, since all mail items on a canceled flight are always affected. This means that, for example, a receipt for a canceled first flight can only exist with a cancellation stamp.
Disaster stamp
The rarest and most popular airmail stamps are the disaster stamps. These are always used when mail can be rescued after the crash of an airplane or zeppelin. Such mail items are usually provided with an improvised rubber stamp which provides information about the reasons for the wounds that are usually present in the mail items.
Since such documents are naturally very rare, they often fetch substantial prices at stamp auctions.
See also
- Mail plane
- Night airmail in Germany
- Short Mayo Composite , carrier aircraft as jump starter for mail aircraft
literature
- Heinrich von Stephan : Universal mail and air shipping. Springer-Verlag, Berlin 1874.
To airmail in general
- Burkhard Fiebig, Annegret Holtmann (eds.): 100 years of post flight. The first official mail flight in 1912. Published on behalf of the August Euler Aviation Museum , Darmstadt 2012.
- Robert Paganini: History of Airmail. Historical catalog of all air posts. Edmund Stein publisher, Potsdam 1920.
- Jochen Stenzke: Michel Zeppelin and flight mail special catalog 2002. Schwaneberger Verlag, Unterschleißheim 2002, ISBN 3-87858-536-5 .
To the historical balloon mail
- Günther Heyd: Paris par Moulins (The Ballons of Paris) 1870/71. Edgar Mohrmann publisher, Hamburg 1973.
- Wilhelm Hofinger: The oldest airmail in the world. Historical study based on original documents from the Paris balloon mail 1870/71. Johannes Scheer, Stockach 1976.
Web links
- Selected items from the airmail collection of the Museum Foundation Post and Telecommunications
- From glider to jumbo - the history of German airmail
- Airmail promotional brochures from the 1920s and 1930s
- Contribution to the International Airmail Exhibition (IFA) Vienna 1968 on Austria-Forum
- Documents on the history of airmail in Switzerland, approx. 1913–1973 in the database of the PTT archive
Individual evidence
- ^ Lothar Störck: Keyword dove. In: Lexicon of Egyptology. Volume VI, columns 240-241.
- ↑ 70 years ago - The first military airmail in the Austrian Aviation Archive, issue 4/84.
