STADT BERLIN "Berliner Bär und Eiche" definitives were issued in the summer of 1945, under the Soviet occupation sector of Berlin. While the first sheets left the printing presses on 28 June 1945, they did not officially become valid for postal use across Greater Berlin until 3 August 1945.
The series was designed by the German graphic artist Heinz Schwabe (sometimes referenced as Alfred Goldammer in early provisional documentation).
Commissioned by the post-war magistrate of Berlin to replace Nazi-era imagery with new civic symbols, Schwabe designed the distinct motifs featured in this collection:
- The Berlin Bear depicted standalone on the 5, 8, and 20 Pfennig stamps.
- The Bear with a Shovel featured on the 6 Pfennig purple stamp, symbolizing the post-war clearance effort.
- The Bear with a Brick featured on the 10 Pfennig brown stamp, representing reconstruction.
- The Bear with a Beam featured on the 12 Pfennig red stamp, representing rebuilding structural frameworks.
- The Oak Sapling featured on the 30 Pfennig olive-green stamp, showing a new oak growing in front of the ruins of Belle-Alliance-Platz to symbolize the rebirth of the city
Following the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany in May 1945, the Allied powers divided the nation and its capital into occupation zones. The Soviet Union assumed administrative control over the eastern sector of Berlin and the surrounding state of Brandenburg.
Under strict Soviet military supervision, the Berliner Staatsdruckerei (Berlin State Printing Office) was tasked with creating a new series of definitive postage stamps. The primary goal was thorough denazification. These stamps were designed to permanently replace any remaining Third Reich issues depicting Adolf Hitler or the swastika.
The early design drafts included Cyrillic lettering reading "ПОЧТА" (Post). However, Soviet authorities dropped this to make the stamps more palatable to the native German populace, inscribing them purely with "Stadt Berlin".
The uniform cancellations on this cover letter bears the postmark "BERLIN-LANKWITZ 1 / 10.11.45-19" (10 November 1945). This in itself creates a fascinating historical intersection. Lankwitz is a locality situated in the southwestern borough of Steglitz-Zehlendorf. When the Allied sectors were formally drawn and occupied in July 1945, Lankwitz fell squarely under the American Occupation Zone, not the Soviet Zone.
Even though the "Stadt Berlin" bear stamps were printed and initiated by the Soviet sector administration, they were validated by the Inter-Allied Military Command (Magistrat) for use across all four sectors of Greater Berlin during the initial post-war months. This inter-zonal validity explains how a post office situated in the American sector (Lankwitz) was actively utilising Soviet-initiated stamps to process mail in late 1945.
In the ruined economy of late 1945, standard commercial mail was vastly suppressed, while inflation ran high. To preserve wealth or capitalise on the historic nature of denazified stamps, collectors and local post offices frequently produced "Satzbriefe" (complete set covers).
The perfectly aligned, uniform cancellations across the stamps indicate that this specific piece was processed as a philatelic favour or souvenir sheet to preserve a pristine, full run of the historic August 1945 issues right at the Lankwitz post office window.
The stamps themselves are highly likely to be genuine original 1945 prints, but the postmarks represent a classic, mass-produced philatelic souvenir/favour cancellation rather than standard post-office commercial mail.
