| 1935-1946 Various Issues Covers |  Top |
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240682 "View EXACT ACTUAL Image"){kind=small} |
181 or 184 [1938/39 15 øre Reindeer] (VF) on 22 July 1939 picture post card [real photo, Oslo City Hall from the water] to Sweden. Excellent "FROGNERSÆTRA" CROWN / POSTHORN cancellation and "OSLO BR II" dated bridge side postmark. Very early use of this C/P cancellation (was in service 1937-1976); early non-philatelic uses are scarce. NK Postal rarity factor 3. ACTUAL item. |
35.00 |
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401711 "View EXACT ACTUAL Image"){kind=small} |
Scott #186, 196 [1939 30 øre Tourism; 1941 20 øre Lion With Shorter Nose on "2" (Facit #226b)] (VF) on a VERY RARE 16 March 1944 AIRMAIL cover from "ØVRE-ÅRDAL" with bridge-style town cancellations, to Paris, France. GERMAN "f" [Frankfurt] CENSOR TAPE and handstamp, along with small censor markings including special on-site censor markings (see below), and one blue CHEMICAL (SECRET WRITING) DETECTION TEST SWIPE on the reverse. There are a couple inconsequential, normal, small opening tears and wear. At this time, airmail covers leaving Norway (thus censored) FROM SMALL VILLAGES are remarkably scarce. Furthermore, WWII-era covers from any size village, town, or city, and especially airmail, TO FRANCE are also remarkably scarce. However, this cover is MUCH MORE RARE... The return address is "Andre O...." / "B21-Z9 / A/S Nordag / Øvre Årdal / (Sogn) / Norge". The "A/S Nordag" is described by Google AI as a "massive, frantic German wartime industrial project to build an aluminum plant and a 13-kilometer supply railway run by A/S Nordag, relying heavily on thousands of Norwegian construction workers alongside ... over 1,000 Soviet / Ukrainian prisoners and more than 600 French civilian forced laborers were quartered in harsh local camps. ... The French civilians in Årdal were primarily young men conscripted under the [French] Vichy regime Service du travail obligatoire (STO). They were rounded up and deported to support the German war industry. While [the French men] were legally classified as "civilians" and permitted to send heavily censored letters home to family, their service was entirely compulsory, enforced under threat of imprisonment or execution for resistance. ... Unlike Soviet and Ukrainian prisoners in Øvre Årdal -- who were treated with extreme brutality and strictly denied outside contact, French STO workers were legally granted limited mail privileges. [This envelope] represents one of [the] rare, surviving lifelines sent from an occupied fjord back to wartime France." ... "The alphanumeric string [in the return address] is a military postal and camp classification code. "B" or "Barakke": indicates a specific wooden barracks building within the multi-camp complex in Øvre Årdal. "Z9": The letter "Z" was frequently used by German camp administrators to categorize Zivilarbeiter (civilian workers) or Zwangsarbeiter (forced laborers) to separate them from standard military POWs (who used Stalag/Oflag designations). [One of the many reasons for the German occupation of Norway was to gain access to the tremendous potential for Norwegian electric energy generation because of the many high-fall, high-volume water sources well suited to hydro-electric generation. Aluminum production, which was absolutely critical to the German war effort, required enormous amounts of electricity. Massive amounts of electricity were also needed to produce "heavy water" which was used in the German nuclear weapons program.] In 53 years, I have never before even heard of this relatively small group of French "STO" workers held as forced laborers in Norway, and I have certainly never knowingly seen a cover sent by one of them. This is a rare piece of WWII postal history! ACTUAL item. |
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