The German Post Offices Abroad were a network of post offices in foreign countries established by Germany to provide mail service where the local services were deemed unsafe or unreliable. They were generally set up in cities with some sort of German commercial interest. In the earliest period when such offices were open, stamps used there can only be identified by their cancellations. Such stamps are known as "Vorläufer" ( forerunner) stamps. Later stamps issued for use at a post office abroad can generally be identified by overprints even when not postally used. Germany began issuing distinctive stamps for use overseas beginning in the late 19th century, and the number and variety of issues reached its heyday at the beginning of the 20th century. All German Post Offices Abroad were closed down during or shortly after World War I. It was not unusual for countries to maintain such offices and Austria-Hungary, China, France, Greece, Italy, Japan, Poland, Romania, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States all did so. In the latter part of the 19th century and into the 20th century, having extraterritorial post offices was one indication of a nation's international power. Stamps from German post offices abroad are popular with collectors and some are quite valuable. In a 2006 auction, a 40 Pfennig Germania hand-stamped "China" (Tientsin issue) stamp from 1900 realized 100,152 Euros.

History

German post offices in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

(German: Deutsche Post in China) started to operate in 1886. Initially

definitive stamp A definitive stamp is a postage stamp that is part of the regular issue of a country's stamps, available for sale by the post office for an extended period of time and designed to serve the everyday postal needs of the country. The term is used in ...

s were used without

overprint An overprint is an additional layer of text or graphics added to the face of a Postage stamp, postage or revenue stamp, postal stationery, banknote or Ticket (admission), ticket after it has been Printing, printed. Post offices most often use ...

; such a stamp used in China is only recognizable by its cancellation. In 1898 stamps were issued with a diagonal overprint reading "China". From 1900 onwards, stamps of the

Germania Germania ( ; ), also called Magna Germania (English: ''Great Germania''), Germania Libera (English: ''Free Germania''), or Germanic Barbaricum to distinguish it from the Roman province of the same name, was a large historical region in north-c ...

definitive series A definitive stamp is a postage stamp that is part of the regular issue of a country's stamps, available for sale by the post office for an extended period of time and designed to serve the everyday postal needs of the country. The term is used in ...

were issued with new style of horizontal "China" overprint. After 1905, a third "Gothic" style of "China" overprint was applied to Germania stamps which also obliterated the stamps' face value as stated in German

mark Mark may refer to: Currency * Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark, the currency of Bosnia and Herzegovina * East German mark, the currency of the German Democratic Republic * Estonian mark, the currency of Estonia between 1918 and 1927 * Finn ...

and pfennig values, and replaced them with equivalent face values in Chinese dollars and cents. All German post offices in China closed after China declared war on Germany on 16 March 1917 if they were still operating on that date. Some had closed prior to this.

Post offices opening year

Post offices operated in these towns from the listed dates: 1886 * Schanghai (Spelled "Shanghai" in pre-1906 cancels) 1893 *

Tientsin Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popul ...

1900 * Tschifu * Futschau * Hankau—located in what is now the city of

Wuhan Wuhan (, ; ; ) is the capital of Hubei Province in the People's Republic of China. It is the largest city in Hubei and the most populous city in Central China, with a population of over eleven million, the ninth-most populous Chinese city a ...

* Itschang—post office in operation until September 1908 *

Peking } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

* Tongku—post office in operation until April 1906 1901 * Shanhaikwan—post office in operation until October 1902 * Tschinkiang * Tschinwangtau—post office in operation until March 1906 1902 *

Amoy Xiamen ( , ; ), also known as Amoy (, from Hokkien pronunciation ), is a sub-provincial city in southeastern Fujian, People's Republic of China, beside the Taiwan Strait. It is divided into six districts: Huli, Siming, Jimei, Tong' ...

* Kanton (spelled "Canton" in pre-1913 cancels) * Weihsien—post office in operation until September 1914 1903 *

Nanking Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and the second largest city in the East China region. T ...

* Tschingtschoufu—post office in operation until December 1905 * Tschonsun—post office in operation until January 1904 1904 * Swatau * Tsinanfu

During the Boxer rebellion

In addition, during the

Boxer Rebellion The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, the Boxer Insurrection, or the Yihetuan Movement, was an Xenophobia, anti-foreign, anti-colonialism, anti-colonial, and Persecution of Christians#China, anti-Christian uprising in China ...

(1900–01) ten military mail offices were maintained. Disruptions in stamp supplies and postal operations caused by fighting at this time led to unoverprinted German stamps and stamps from the German colony of

Kiautschou The Jiaozhou Bay (; german: Kiautschou Bucht, ) is a bay located in the prefecture-level city of Qingdao (Tsingtau), China. The bay has historically been romanized as Kiaochow, Kiauchau or Kiao-Chau in English and Kiautschou in German. Geogr ...

being used at these military offices as well as at the German post offices open to civilians. Such uses occurred primarily, but not exclusively, at Peking, Tientsin, and Shanghai. The unoverprinted German and Kiautschou stamps used at any of these offices are referred to collectively as "Petschili" issues.

Kiautschou territory

Stamps printed for use in the German post offices in China but with a bilingual cancel reading "TSINGTAU-KIAUTSCHOU" or " TSINTAU CHINA" in the period 1898-1901 are actually forerunners of Kiautschou ''Pachtgebiet'',Michel Briefmarken-Katalog Deutschland 1993/94, Deutsche Kolonien. which did not issue distinctive stamps of its own until early 1901.

Notes

References