STAMP STORY

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30977, 5 February 1966, Page 5

STAMP STORY

stead became a free State under the protection of the League of Nations. Thus Danzig joined the ranks of stamp-issuing countries in 1920. The early stamps were overprints on I German issues, but stamps in Idistinctive Danzig designs I came out the following year. Though politically indepen- | denit, Danzig was still linked I economically to Germany; hence Danzig was involved in the German inflation of 1923. This is the reason for stamps ■of such apparently high face value as the 500-mark stamp shown above. This was nothing to what came later, when the values soared for a brief period up to 50 million marks!

On September 1, 1939. Hitler attacked Poland and ■“swallowed up” Danzig. But less than six years later the wheel turned full circle. This time there were no half measures.

The entire German population (numbering about 400,000 in 1939) were deported, and the area became part of Poland under its Polish name of Gdansk.

Today many of the Danzig issues are still obtainable quite cheaply as mementoes of the troubled inter-war years in Europe. Certainly there can be few issues which better symbolise, in their outwardly uninteresting designs, both the settlement after World War I and the events which led up to World War 11.