German Western Front year 1916 MH/ Used stamps
In 1916, during World War I, the German military forces issued special postage stamps for use by soldiers and personnel serving on the Western Front in occupied areas of France, Belgium and Luxembourg. Here are some key details about these German Western Front stamps from 1916:
Design: The designs featured the State Coat of Arms of Prussia – a crowned black eagle on a white background. They were starkly simple bicolor typographed designs.
Inscriptions: The stamps were inscribed “GERMANIYA / BELGIEN” for use in occupied Belgium, or “GERMANIYA / N.W.” for the Northwestern front areas of France and Luxembourg.
Values: Denominated in German currency – pfennigs up to 30pf and marks up to 5M – to meet the postal rates for soldiers’ mail.
Paper/Printing: Printed in sheets using typography on ungummed paper without watermarks. The stamps had to be affixed to letters/cards with seal adhesive or wetting.
Purpose: Allowed German military personnel to send mail from the Western Front areas back to Germany by using authorized German issues rather than having to use remaindered stamps of the occupied territories.
Rarity: While millions were printed, relatively few have survived due to the harsh conditions these stamps endured in active war zones over 100 years ago. Stamps with neat cancels and not heavily soiled are considerablerareties today.
The 1916 German Western Front occupational stamps are significant for their role providing postal services to German forces in Belgium and Northern France during the fierce trench warfare of World War I. They are prized by military postal history collectors and WWI philatelists.
