Airmail on the Rhine and Main

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Flight stamp for airmail on the Rhine and Main
On the occasion of "50 years of airmail transport" there was a postage stamp from Berlin in 1962 that showed a four-jet jet aircraft and before that the "Yellow Dog" from 1912 from the Euler works

The air mail on the Rhine and Main in 1912 is one of the best-known and earliest events in which mail flights took place between Frankfurt am Main , Mainz , Offenbach am Main , Worms and Darmstadt . It stands at the beginning of the German airmail history of the aircraft .

event

The air mail on the Rhine and Main took place from June 9th to 23rd, 1912. Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig and Grand Duchess Eleonore of Hesse and the Rhine took over the protection of honor . The proceeds went to the Grand Ducal Central Office for Mother and Baby Care in Hesse . Air mail was transported by the Schwaben airship and August Euler's Gelber Hund aircraft . In order to be able to transport the cards, they had to be provided with semi-official stamps, so-called flight stamps. Although these had no postal value, but were issued by the organizer, they received a post office cancellation .

First flight

On June 10, 1912 at 7:04 p.m. Ferdinand von Hiddessen flew in an Euler biplane, which was known as the “Yellow Dog” because of its yellow wings, from Frankfurt-Niederrad with 40 kilograms of mail to Darmstadt. He covered the 27-kilometer route in 13:27 minutes. A mail exchange took place in Darmstadt and Hiddessen now flew on to Worms with 79 kg of mail, where he landed around 9 p.m. This flight with the Yellow Dog is considered to be one of the first official mail flights worldwide and formed the prelude to the flight mail week, from June 10 to June 23, 1912, on the Rhine and Main, which in addition to Worms, Darmstadt and Frankfurt am Main also in the cities of Mainz and Offenbach took place. It is considered to be one of the first major flight events with official airmail transport in the world and thus marks the beginning of German airmail history. For the postage there was a flight post card made for this purpose, which had to be franked with an airmail stamp in addition to the regular postcard postage of 5 pfennigs.

literature

  • The archive , published by the German Society for Post and Telecommunications History ; ISSN  0947-9945 :
    • O. Kühndelt: 50 years ago: First postal service ; (Archive for German Postal History); Issue 1 from 1962; Pp. 3-12
    • Imke Schabel: The world's first mail flight - From Frankfurt via Darmstadt to Worms ; Issue 1/2 from 2002; Pp. 120-121
    • Tanja Neumann: An idea learns to fly - The August Euler Aviation Museum initiative ; Issue 2 from 2012; Pp. 40-41
  • Exhibition catalog: 100 years of airmail on the Rhine and Main; June 11, 2012

Web links