Deutsches Reichpost Sudetenland Annexation 1938 Postcard - "Wir Danken Unserm Fürher"

 

DEUTSCHES REICHPOST on 4 December 1938 issued this first day cover Sudetenland Annexation Appreciation Postcard. The illustration contains a drop-shadowed map of Sudetenland with twenty-eight cities and towns identified, a black and white photograph in the centre of the map illustrating German Chancellor Adolf Hitler and Konrad Henlein, the Leader of the Sudeten German Party (SdP = a branch of the Nazi Party of Germany in Czechoslovakia), greeting a crowd of people, the map of Sudetenland surrounded by various cities in Germany, Austria, Slovakia and Poland, with the heading "WIR DANKEN UNSERM FUHRER" (We Thank Our Leader) below. On the reverse side, a 6 Reichspfennig stamp with black overprint, "zum 1. Mai Grossdeutscheland" (1 May, Greater Germany) is shown to the left of the stamp and address patch. The postcard was printed in four colour ink with gold speckles on the Sudetenland map, green and black inks on the reverse. It was printed by Brend'amour, Simbart & Company, Munich, and measured 105 mm x 148 mm.

This annexation came about under the Munich Agreement which was concluded at Munich on 30 September 1938, by Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy. It provided "cession to Germany of the Sudeten German territory" of Czechoslovakia, [despite the existence of a 1924 alliance agreement and 1925 military pact between France and the Czechoslovak Republic. Most of Europe celebrated the Munich agreement, which was presented as a way to prevent a major war on the continent. The four powers agreed to the German annexation of the Czechoslovak borderland areas named the Sudetenland, where more than three million people, mainly ethnic Germans, lived. Adolf Hitler announced that it was his last territorial claim in Northern Europe.

 

The terms "Sudeten Germans" and "Sudetenland" came into being around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. It had been used to describe the Old Austrians of German mother tongue and their settlement areas within the so-called "Lands of the Bohemian Crown", Bohemia, Moravia and Austrian Silesia, which had been part of the Habsburg Empire since 1526. The Sudeten mountain range, which stretches between Silesia, Bohemia and Moravia, gave it its name.

After the end of WWII, Czech Deputy Prime Minister Klement Gottwald was the first to make a public statement on 11 May 1945 regarding the "deportation" of the Germans, and Prime Minister Benes announced a few days later: "Our motto will be that we separate our country from everything German culturally, economically and have to clean up politically."

In a series of decrees, the Germans were disenfranchised. Indescribable atrocities were committed. Several hundred thousand Sudeten Germans died during the expulsion from hunger, exhaustion and the consequences of mistreatment in the Czech concentration and resettlement camps or due to death sentences from illegal people's courts on the gallows and on the roads to Austria and Germany or shortly after crossing the new borders. The number of women who died by suicide after being raped or the death of their family members, especially their children, was  particularly high.

 

Disclaimer: In displaying this postcard and stamps I must stress I DO NOT advocate, NOR wish to glorify the regime of Nazi Germany or any present day fascist organization/state. My sole intent is to illustrate the philatelic history of the period, one which I personally believe to have been evil and as such a plight in the history of Germany and their satellite allies at the time.