I was pleased to have the opportunity of purchasing Roger Harris`s excellent work “Pioneer Aviation in the Channel Islands” Volume 2. Due to work constraints my collection is limited to the Occupation of Guernsey. However, this is not restricted just to stamps and covers, because I feel that this does not give a true story of what happened in the Channel Islands and to its occupants between 1940 and 1945. I also collect ephemera which extends to the various forms, posters, newspapers, Red Cross communications and internee letters. I am also trying to expand my postcard collection of that era.
To increase my knowledge I purchased Roger’s book because I wanted to know more about the propaganda leaflets which were dropped over the Channel Islands during WWII and as a result since purchasing the book I have been able to acquire a number of those leaflets.
Firstly, for anyone that is also interested in this area of the occupation, I urge you to consider this excellent publication. Another area of interest that the book covers is all the various wire and airport photography, copies which I am now looking to acquire.
Something that stood out in the book, was the “Der Adler” magazine postcard Roger mentions. He also referred to this in the June 2023 journal article on page 23. In that article he highlighted the fact that this was the only postcard of the Channel Islands published during World War II, possibly in either 1941 or 1942.
A few months ago, I purchased an extremely good copy of the postcard illustrated at Figure 1, and decided to try and establish when it was actually published. After some detailed research I found a website www.german-philately.com and contacted Paul Voller who has an entire collection of the Der Adler Magazine and calendars.
He informed me that the postcard was not given away in one of the issues but was issued in a calendar. Four Calendars were produced annually for the years 1941 and 1944, issued late in the preceding years and as well as being sold in Germany, the magazine and calendars, were also available to soldiers in France, Portugal and most likely Holland.
The postcard above is an aerial view of a Dornier D.O.17 twin engine bomber flying over the cliffs of Guernsey. The postcard was available in the 1942 calendar, for the week commencing the 4 January, as shown.
The calendars were split into weekly pages and on the top of each page was a tear off postcard.
Although this may be the only postcard published and printed of the Channel Islands by the Germans, there has been much debate about photographs taken during the occupation that were printed as postcards and exactly when they may have been issued. As we all know Norman Grut was a prolific issuer of such postcards, and the most popular seem to be those showing the aftermath of the bombing at the harbour of St Peter Port. I would be interested to know if anyone has proof whether any of Norman’s photographs were sold as postcards during the occupation or directly afterwards.
The Guernsey Press also issued some postcards, a number of which show a German Military band marching past Lloyds Bank in Smith Street, St Peter Port and other places in St Peter Port, following their concert at the Candie Gardens on the evening of 16 August 1940. I hold some of these in my collection and have always assumed that due to paper shortage these were issued after the occupation. But having recently purchased an original copy of the Evening Press dated 17 August 1940 (see Figure 2 below), I see that the article states that from the official photographs taken, including the one shown in this article, a number of postcards were issued by the Guernsey Evening Press and made available to the general public to buy from their ”Press Stationary Department” at a cost of 2d. Lastly if anyone has occupation ephemera, official German photography or in postcards, which are surplus to requirements, I would be very interested in hearing from you and can be contacted by email: neilmumford@hotmail.com.
