Postby Mike_Oettle » 24 Feb 2015, 20:39
Germany clearly did not regard the loss of its colonies in the early stages of the 1914-18 war as being final. Not only did it continue with its plans for colonial coats of arms, but it also carried on printing postage stamps for the colonies.
In fact, in the case of German South West Africa, an entirely new value, three marks, was added to the key plate series illustrating the Kaiser’s yacht Hohenzollern right at the end of the war and issued in Berlin in 1919.
New stamps for Samoa, in five values, were issued in 1915, and for the Marshall Islands in 1916. A five-mark stamp was issued for Togo in 1915, and new stamps were issued for the Mariana Islands in 1916 (one value) and 1919 (again just one value). The same pattern is repeated for Kamerun, the Caroline Islands, German East Africa and German New Guinea.
However, this pales into insignificance against a story I read in the 1960s or ’70s, when it was discovered that a department of the Italian government that had been created in days of yore to provide weather forecasts for the Italian colonies was still functioning, even after Italy’s last foreign possession (Somalia, then a UN Trust Territory) had gained its independence.
Regards,
Mike
The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life.
[Proverbs 14:27]