Journal Articles

Many years ago, I bought this German registered letter envelope from a dealer in America.  It had been written up by the previous owner as a 1944 Fortress supply flight Feldpost letter from Guernsey, but this was obviously incorrect because it was not a Feldpost letter and the registered label was issued from the post office at Winterbach (SAAR) where the postage stamps had been cancelled on 11 November 1944.  There was a supply flight out of Guernsey on the night of 9 November, but the letter almost certainly had not been flown out of Guernsey on this flight and posted from Winterbach by the pilot, as the relief supply flights at the time were flown by aircraft of Luftwaffe Transport Wing 30 from Frankfurt/Main which is more than 200 Km north of Winterbach.

What could have led the previous owner to think that this was a letter from Guernsey?  The clue is on the back of the envelope where there is a double circle receiving postmark of Berlin-Charlottenburg, dated 14 November 1944.  The envelope was sealed with stamp selvedge, so the flap has been cut open with a sharp blade.  In the process, whatever was written on the flap has been lost except for part of a red crayon endorsement that clearly ends with the word “Guernsey”!  This of course could have made it just a simple fake except for the fact that the letter was also originally endorsed with a soldier’s name and Feldpost number 45636 that was indeed a Channel Islands Feldpost number in 1944.

I found the script of the German address difficult to decipher and failed to discover anything more about the cover until I attended a London CISS meeting some years later.  I displayed the cover to the members present who were unable to offer any further insight into it, but by lucky coincidence our German expert member, Michael Wieneke, was also visiting the meeting and he was able to decipher the address as that of the Berlin broadcasting radio station in Charlottenburg, but he was still unable to explain the reference to Guernsey.

I rushed home to consult my few examples of Atlantic Fortress Radio Message cards and although these contained messages received at the Kriegsmarine Intelligence Department radio station at the naval base in Wilhelmshaven on the north coast of Germany, from where they were also posted, the  address printed on the card to which recipients should send their replies was:

“Kameradschaftsdienst West, Gruppe PK”, Haus des Rundfunks,

(1)          Berlisn-Charlottenburg, Masurenallee.

Translation: (Comradeship Service West, Group PK, Broadcasting House,

(1)          Berlin-Charlottenburg, Masurenallee.)

This was the exact address written on my registered letter from Winterbach!

Finally, the conundrum of the registered letter was solved; it had contained the reply to an Atlantic Fortress Radio Message card for the KANALINSELN Fortress.  Replies to the Fortresses were addressed to the Berlin Broadcasting House where the “Comradeship Service” would sort them via their Feldpost number to the relevant Fortress.  The Feldpost number 45636 on the registered letter was recognised as being allocated to Guernsey and consequently the back of the envelope received the red crayon manuscript endorsement indicating that the reply message was intended for transmission to the Guernsey fortress.

I still cannot explain why the message was sent by registered mail as this was contrary to instructions printed on the Fortress Radio cards that stated that replies should be “in short form (telegram style) on an open postcard”.  The envelope could not contain anything other than a message as nothing could be delivered to the Fortresses.  The postal services within Germany in late 1944 were being disrupted by the Allied advance and bombing so the sender may have thought that a registered letter would stand a better chance of delivery than a simple postcard.

How did the Registered Letter reach the USA?

I can only conjecture what happened to the letter after it was delivered to the Broadcasting House in Berlin.  The message that it contained may have been transmitted from the radio station in Berlin and the envelope retained in the records there, or more likely it may have been sent in a ‘Guernsey batch’ to Wilhelmshaven for transmission by the Kriegsmarine Intelligence Department radio station.

Wilhelmshaven was captured by the Poles aided by the Canadians in April 1945 and the whole of Berlin was captured at the same time by the Russians.  Even when Berlin was divided by the Allies and Charlottenburg became part of the British zone, rather bizarrely, the Berlin Broadcasting House remained in the possession of the Russians within the British Zone.  It is unlikely therefore that the letter was a simple trophy picked up by an American GI and taken back or sent back home. 

In the search for war criminals, members of the Gestapo and S.S., much intelligence in the form of records and documents, especially from radio stations, was collected and sent for analysis either to Britain or the USA and I suspect that this rather important looking letter may have been amongst that “intelligence” sent to the USA. Of no significance, it was later probably discarded or released to the American collecting public.

A “reply postcard” addressed to the Berlin Broadcasting House for the Channel Islands Fortress has never been recorded, but I suspect that this Registered letter is a unique example of a reply intended for a German soldier of the Kanalinseln Fortress stationed in Guernsey.