A dissertation on sources of written information for research into Austrian Postal History, based largely on a presentation given by Dr H Moser to a joint APS-PKMI meeting at WIPA 2008 and on Andy Taylor’s personal experiences in some of Vienna’s less touristic corners. All the sources discussed are “public” in that anyone may read them. However, many are extremely rare, or are found only in an archive to which you must travel. Extraction and publication of the information is the goal of much work currently in progress. Note: all of the illustrations (except a map) have been resized as 800 pixels wide; some have had areas of white space removed. They are large enough even so!
Contents:
Non-official sources
- Maps
- Philatelic literature on Post Offices
- Philatelic Literature on Postablagen
- Görig
- Bartl
- Web sources
- Philatelistenklub Merkur Innsbruck
Part 1: Official sources
The State Archives in Vienna
The “Laws of Austria”, or most of them, are made available to the public in two ways: on paper, and on line. Especially before 1900, a wide variety of titles was used for governmental laws, decrees, edicts and the like, such as Entschließung, Gesetz, Kundmachung, Octroi, or Verordnung. The official repository has at various times been called Justizgesetzsammlung, Reichsgesetzblatt, Staatsgesetzblatt, and Bundesgesetzblatt. The State Archives in Vienna contain paper copies of all that has survived. Their web site tells the persistent researcher what is there.
Every information source has its limitations and problems! Those for the State archives include:
- Many but not all of the National Archives are in the central archive at Nottendorfer Gasse, A-1030 Vienna. If possible obtain advance guidance by email on the existence and location of what you seek – especially if you plan to travel to Vienna for your research. Carefully read the page “How to use the archives”. Beware of local and national holidays: check when it’s open!
- You have to go there (U3 to Erdberg), register (passport!), and pay the modest fee.
- If you know the archival reference for what you want, you fill in a document request form; if you don’t, the Duty Archivist will assist as best they can. You hand in the form “and come back later” – it takes at least 2 working days to fulfil a request. This is why emailing in advance is useful!
- Some items are referred to in other items but are neither in the index nor in the bundles, so cannot be located.
- There are understandable restrictions: no photography or scanning; no eating, drinking, smoking etc (there is a “recreation zone” for this!); photocopying of older documents has to be done for you; etc.
- A reference such as “Z.12345” means “Zeile 12345” and is the serial number of the document in the index of the filing system of the branch of government which produced it – sometimes invaluable if you are in the State Archives in Vienna though pretty useless elsewhere. [NB: in Fraktur, in which the older Laws are printed, a ‘Z’ looks like a figure ‘3’.]
The Laws on-line
There is an indispensible Austrian web site called “ALEX“ which contains the laws of Austria arranged by year. It contains mainly Justice Ministry material up to 1848, after which its coverage expands.
- Note that ALEX contains images of pages, not searchable text. Each page is downloadable as a PDF file so if you don’t have broadband find a friend who does, or that Rara Avis a public library! Download the image by right-clicking in the usual way; or select a range of pages and do a block download. Change the file name (eg to year hyphen page) before saving.
- The alpha and date indexes contain two numbers; the first is the law number, the second in bold is the page number on which the law begins.
- To aid navigation, open the index in one tab and the pages in another. To view another year, it’s usually quicker to start again from the home page!
- There are said to be text-search capabilities, but they are not obvious.
- Note that in 1934 (when Dolfuss took over) there were two series of laws, both numbered from 1.
- Note that some pages are intentionally blank apart from a frilly top margin.
- The database after WWII is arranged differently, and considerable ingenuity can be needed unless you already know the references of what you seek.
- Unsurprisingly, the laws are printed in Austrian. Some were dual-published in other languages of the Empire, eg Italian or Czech – but not English.
The Laws and the Post Office
Until 1938, changes to the regulations governing the post were first announced in full in a Law approved by the Emperor, and then repeated (usually verbatim) in a variously-titled Decree from the Ministry responsible for postal matters. Indeed, in the beginning the law itself would be reissued in each state of the Austrian Empire, possibly with slight variations in wording and often reset (the photocopier hadn’t been invented!). As the Laws are accessible on-line while the Decrees are not, it is easier to follow the changes as Laws; cross-checking against the Decrees is essential but not yet done.
The first Law is the BRIEFPOSTORDNUNG, 1838 RGB302 (which means: Reichsgesetzblatt number 302 of 1838). It begins at the bottom of the page and continues for a further 21 sides. This prescribes in great detail all aspects of the letter post. “1850 RGB149” covers the introduction of adhesive stamps. Various changes were made by various laws, until 25 Nov 1899 when RGB231 prescribed the changes caused by the new currency and introduced an 8-page POSTTAXORDNUNG, 1899 RGB 231, for inland mail, effective from 1 Jan 1900.
Amendments in 1902 and 1905 were followed by a new 6-page POSTTAXORDNUNG, 1906 RGB 251. Conveniently, it gives the RGB references of the previous Posttaxordnung and its amendments, which it repealed. It was reprinted as PuTVBl 114/06. It in turn was on 22 Sep 1916 replaced by the POSTORDNUNG 1916 RGB317, which had grown to 82 pages; it repealed “all previous laws” without listing them. This “new starting point” may be why many subsequent laws refer back to it.
On 5 July 1922, a 64-page Postordnung appeared as 1922 BGB 406 replacing the 1916 version and also repealing the amendments of 1918, 1919, 1920 & 1921.
A parallel series of Postordnungs and amendments dealt with the postage of newspapers, eg 1922 BGB 707
17 Nov 1926 saw the issue of 64-page 1926 BGB 329, a new Postordnung listing and repealing its predecessors. One of its concerns was the change to Schilling currency. Amendments appeared in 1927, 1929, and 1930.
It seems that in 1931 the 1926 Postordnung was reprinted (perhaps for internal use only) in a version incorporating all the intervening amendments; see the discussion below under “Dienstvorschrift”. Further amendments appeared until the Anschluss. Careful cross-checking of the text shows that (for the 1926 issue at least) each amendment applies to the Postordnung as previously amended; ie they are cumulative. That means that a researcher who misses an amendment will fall into error.
All of the above RGB and BGB were, we believe, reproduced verbatim as Post Office instructions, mainly Postverordnungsblatt. This practice persisted until 1938.
Here are the Verordnung des Handelsministeriums of 13 October 1909 giving the details of a rate reduction for Braille items in the inland post; and a subsequent Verordnungsblatt of 1910, extending it to Bosnia-Herzegowina. As the Verordnung des Handelsministeriums is dated 13 October 1909, was published on 31 October, and came into effect on the 1st of November, ie the day after publication, it is unclear how the postal staff knew in time. This oddity is quite often found, and remains without factual explanation.
Finally, don’t be put off by the apparent complexity of the Laws and the Post Office! A surprising level of detail can be found there, and pursuing a topic as it develops over the years can leave behind a trail of PDF files!
Postverordnungsblatt (PVOB)
These were issued by the k. k. Handelsministerium (the Ministry of Trade, responsible for postal matters) in Vienna. As examples, here is the Title page of the collected PVOB from 1876 and Postverordnungsblatt 26 53 of September 1850 12 introducing special stamps for posting newspapers.
Postverordnungsblatt have their own problems:
- Inadequate contents list or index
- Sometimes difficult to locate
- Very few collections exist and not all of these are generally accessible.
- The numbering system is obscure
- Sometimes, a change is announced after its date of introduction, posing the question “how did the Post Offices know about it so that they could implement it on the correct date?”
Postverordnungsblatt are a primary source for Austria-wide regulations, instructions, & international postal matters.
The Postal Directorate in Innsbruck issued its own versions of a few pre-1894 decrees. From 1895 these form an important secondary source for local events, useful for verifying the Zirkularverordnungen that are discussed below.
A virtually-complete series of Postverordnungsblatt is in the Library of the Vienna Technical Museum. It’s essential to arrange (eg by email) for the volumes you need to be brought from the store to the reading room, which takes 2+ working days. Each year’s book is typically 1-2 inches thick – don’t be overambitious! Note also that the library’s opening hours are less than those of the Museum; you need to make an appointment; and entry to it is free if you ask at the front desk. As always, carrying your passport is useful (as well as a legal requirement for non-Austrian citizens). Photocopying may be available: ask for guidance at the library’s reception counter.
Here for an example is PVOB of 4 April 1876 concerning the opening of a Post Office in Heiligenblut. Note the Taxfeld and Taxquadrat numbers; these were used in the calculation of postage rates.
Recently, a restricted range of Postverordnungsblatt has been made available on the ALEX site, here: Post- und Telegraphen-Verordnungsblatt für das Verwaltungsgebiet…. Some years are alleged to include an index, but which is a secret.
Postamtsblätter
These are written records which were kept by individual post offices. Typically, they are a ledger or diary of anything deemed important. They bring many problems:
- Old documents (hence fragile etc)
- Inconvenient sizes
- Difficult to read
- In various languages and dialects
- Prone to errors
- Not easily accessible as they are in private hands.
Postamtsblätter are a primary source; the Decrees etc referred to can be cross-checked from elsewhere. Here is a typical Postamtsblatt from Worgl.
Zirkularverordnungen (ZVO) of the Postdirektion (PD) in Innsbruck
These instructions were produced by the Postal Directorate in Innsbruck from 1 July 1894; from 1911 they were published in the Amtsblatt of the k. k. Post- and Telegraph Direction for Tirol and Vorarlberg. Its particular problems are:
- Useless contents lists
- Some issues difficult to find
- The file numbers and dates are those of the Innsbruck Postal Directorate, and may well differ from (usually, be later than) the corresponding dates in documents from Vienna.
Zirkularverordnungen form a primary source for local postal history; sometimes they can be cross-checked with the corresponding Verordnungen in the PVO or Postamtsblättern. A comparison of creation dates of several Post Offices after 1894 between PVO and ZVO shows that the ZVO dates are mostly earlier than those of the same post-office given in PVO. Such ‘creation dates’ do not tell when an office started effective operation. Our conclusion is that the dates given in PVO may be considered as a more or less close estimate of the start of operations. Here is The 1901 cover page
Because the Innsbruck Directorate covered Süd-Tirol, some instructions (such as this for the opening of a Postablage) were produced in dual-languages: German and Italian. These Instructions also served to keep postal employees in touch with their colleagues (promotions, retirements, dismissals and deaths appear) and to advertise posts to existing staff.
Post-Almanach
The Post-Almanach is a compendium of all the information that a postal employee might require. Up to 1877 it was called the “Post-Beamten-Kalender“; then it became the “Post- und Telegraphen-Almanach” or the “Post- und Telegraphen-Status”. It contains much information of interest, difficult to find elsewhere; it is a surprisingly good source for the instructions for special duties. Dates and names need cross-checking elsewhere.
It seems to have been officially approved, but published as the private initiative of a senior official! The publisher was Wilhelm Krauss from 1870 to 1908, and Franz Czuba from 1909 to 1913. The Ministry of Trade took it over in 1914. Problems with the Post-Almanach include:
- The chapter titles keep changing, as does the physical format.
- The changes in the structure and arrangement of the contents make a systematic study difficult. For 1909 & 1911, only Part 1 has been found. Extensive searches (by PKMI) in the Staatsarchiv, Technisches Museum, Bibliotheca of all Austrian universities, and the Postarchiv have led to the conclusion that Part 2 of the 1909 and the 1911 issues of the Post-Almanach seem not to have been produced.
- There are many errors in names and dates
The 1881 Post-Almanach is 105×140 mm with 173 pages. This page from the 1881 issue is part of the listing of “k. k. nicht-ärarische” (ie privately owned and run) Post Offices in the Postdirektion Innsbruck’s area. And this is the 1881 “k. k. ärarische” (ie state-owned and run) offices.
This is the title page of Krauss’ 1899 issue, which is 105×140 mm with 359 pages. This one lists the k. k. nicht-ärarische offices attached to the Innsbruck Directorate (note the inclusion of Liechtenstein); their date of opening; the income in 1897 from postal and telegraphic transactions; and the name of the person(s) in charge. Krauss’ last Almanach, for 1908 was 145 x 190 mm and had 607 pages. Here is one, a page of the 1908 list of Post Offices. Next to the year of opening of each office is the Class and Ranking, the name of the person in charge, and the numbers of official positions.
Ranking of Post Offices
Post Offices were ranked by income, and divided into three 3 Klassen (categories), I (the top), II, and III. The head of a class III post office was a Postexpedient. There is a subdivision (Stufe) from 1 down to 6, depending on the income of the office. A newly-opened post office was always III/6 and depending on its income in the following years it could progress up the ranking to III/5 & on to III/1. A prosperous post office could also jump straight to III/4 or III/2; it didn’t have to pass through every subdivision. At a certain income the head of a post office had to be a Postmeister (who had to pass additional exams). In Class II there were subdivisions II/4, II/2 and II/1. (A II/3 has not been seen so far.) Class I post offices had a similar classification from I/4 to I/1.
Title page of 1912 Post-Almanach, published by Franz Czuba. 160 x 230 mm; 611 pages. And here a page from the 1912 issue. Next to the year of opening of each office is the Class and Ranking, the name of the person in charge, and the establishment numbers of office staff, town postmen, and rural postmen
Official Announcements in newspapers.
It’s worth trying your luck with the Wiener Zeitung – rarely, some decree is published there and nowhere else. Start here
In Innsbruck a newspaper was produced called the “Bote für Tirol und Vorarlberg”. It contained laws of the Tirol government, notices about postal matters, and similar material.
Intra-government correspondence
The Land Archives (eg the Tiroler Landesarchiv) often contain correspondence between local government, central government, and the local and central postal authorities. That is, between the Statthalterei (which later became the Landeshauptmannschaft), the Handelsministerium (Postal section), and the Postal Directorates. The correspondence can concern letters from communities asking for a new post-office and/or postal routes; the opening of a Post Office or Postablagen; the appropriate name for a new post-office or Postablage; orders for postmarks and others. One can find agreements between Postal authorities and private persons on a Special Post Office. Offices opened for military manoeuvres, and others whose opening was agreed but prevented by wars (especially in 1914) also leave traces in these archives. Useful index terms are Post, Telegraph and Telephon.
The Stempelprotokollbuch
This was a series of books in which strikes were collected of all cancellers issued through Vienna in the period 1880s to 1918. A full discussion of these is in the late Dr Christine Kainz article in Wurth’s Handbook volume XVI. Most regrettably, many of the books have vanished, some have been extensively robbed, and all are too fragile to be handled. However, thanks to Dr Kainz, photocopies of most of the surviving pages [Galicia, Bukowina, Dalmatia, Bosnia-Herzgowina, Kustenland, Krain] are in the possession of the APS and/or PKMI. A typical piece of these books is illustrated here.
Directories and Lexicons
Various members of PKMI in Austria and APS in GB and USA have identified several Directories and Lexicons issued to assist the work of postal staff and customers – and a few physical copies exist in our hands!
The 1906 book entitled Allgemeines Postlexicon was published by the KK Handelsministerium and contains 1568 pages. As well as listing localities and alternative names, it gives (inter alia) Province; Bahnhof; Bezirksgericht; Ortsgemeinde; and the nearest post office.
The Hungarian equivalent, A Magyar Szent Korona Országainak Helységnévtára, was published in 1907 by the Hungarian Trade (?) Ministry and runs to 1541 pages. The information given is similar; it makes use of “strange graphic symbols” that impede optical character recognition.
In 1910 the Trade Ministry published a Directory of all Post Offices in the Empire. This is a key reference work; unhelpfully it uses many unusual symbols which makes a searchable electronic version almost impossible to construct. The APS has published a CD containing enhanced scans of the 550 pages. Here are the Directory’s cover and a typical page..
| Date | Author or source | Title | Publisher |
| 1851 | Cours-Bureau der k.k. Generaldirection für Communicationen | Topographisches Post-Lexikon des Kronlands Österreich unter der Enns | K.k. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei |
| 1906 | k.k. Handelsministerium | Allgemeines Postlexikon der im Reichsrate vertretenen Königreiche und Länder und des Fürstentums Liechtenstein. Nachträge I, II, IV, XXIII | K.k. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei |
| 1907 | A Magyar Szent Korona Országainak Helységnévtára | ||
| 1910 | Postkursbureau des k.k. Handelsministeriums | Verzeichnis der Post- und Telegraphen-Ämter in Österreich, Ungarn und in Bosnien-Hercegovina sowie der österreichischen Postanstalten im Fürstentum Liechtenstein und in der Levante | Druckerei- u. Verlags-aktiengesellschaft vorm. R.V. Waldheim, Jos. Eberle & co. |
| 1919 | D. ö. Generalpostdirektion | Verzeichnis der Postämter in Deutsch-österreich und Liechtenstein (mit Ämtern d. PD Aussig, Troppau und in Italien) | Druck Paul Gerin, Wien |
| 1928 | BM f. Handel und Verkehr, Generaldirektion f. Post- u. Telegraphenverwaltung | Postlexikon der Republik Österreich 1928 | Druck und Verlag der Österreichischen Staatsdruckerei |
| 1941 | Reichspostzentralamt Berlin | Ortsverzeichnis I mit Ergänzungsheft: Verzeichnis der Postämter und –amtsstellen sowie der Bahnhöfe der Eisenbahnen, der Schiffsanlegeplätze und Flughäfen in Großdeutschland | Reichsdruckerei Sept. 1941 |
| 1944 | Reichspostzentralamt Berlin | Ortsverzeichnis I: Verzeichnis der Postämter und –amtsstellen sowie der Bahnhöfe der Eisenbahnen, der Schiffsanlegeplätze und Flughäfen in Großdeutschland | Reichsdruckerei Mai 1944 |
| 1944 | Müller Friedrich | Ortsbuch für die Ostmark (Österreich). 3. Auflage, Januar 1944 | Post- und Ortsbuchverlag Wuppertal-Nächstebreck |
| 1954 | BM f. Verkehr u. Verstaatlichte Betriebe, Generaldirektion f. Post- u. Telegraphenverwaltung | Postlexikon der Republik Österreich 1954 | Druck und Verlag der Österreichischen Staatsdruckerei |
Austrian National Library
Rarely, the Austrian National Library will hold the answer to your question. (So may the Vienna City library, and many others!) The process is much the same as for the state archives: use the on-line catalogue to find what you seek and preferably print out the details; carry your passport; go in person to the Library at Heldenplatz; put your coat, bag etc in a locker in the cloakroom upstairs on the right as you enter (needs a coin); register on the computer screens; choose your ticket (1 day or longer) and pay for it; go down the corridor to the left and ask at the desk for your item; if it is “large” it’ll be downstairs but their asking-desk is further down the upstairs corridor. Once you have submitted your request, either sit in the waiting area, or a reading room, for 2 hours min while your item is retrieved – or go away and come back later in the day. It’s better to arrive early in the day, in case they haven’t found your item before closing time and the expiry of your 1-day ticket!
The 1931 Dienstvorschrift
In 1931, a manual was published by the Trade Ministry, entitled “Dienstvorschrift für die österreichische Post- und Telegraphenanstalt / II. Abteilung 5. Band 4. Ausgabe / Die Postordnung“. It contains a 12-page contents list followed by 223 sections in 170 pages, and according to Dr C Kainz was a reprinting of the 1926 Postordnung incorporating the subsequent amendments. As it is the 4th edition, there must have been previous editions (!), and sight of these could be informative. 24 of its 131 pages are shown here. [NB: the file is 7Mb so may be slow to load!. Here are the front cover; a typical index page (XII); and page 1 showing handwritten annotations.
It is not known to us if the Dienstvorschrift was issued routinely; nor what if any relationship it had to the Dienstbücher discussed next. At least one other Dienstvorschrift is known, issued in 1929 by the “BM f. Handel u. Verkehr, Generaldirektion f. Post- u. Telegraphenverwaltung” and titled “Dienstvorschrift f. d. österr. Post- u. Telegraphenanstalt II. Abteilung, 2. Band / Das Portofreiheitsaufhebungsgesetz nebst den Durchführungsverordnungen”.
The first page of the 1931 Dienstvorschrift (see illustration) has at the bottom a printed list of the amendments to the 1926 Postordnung up to the date of the Dienstvorschrift’s publication. Careful cross-checking of the text shows that (for the 1926 Postordnung at least) each amendment applies to the Postordnung as previously amended; ie they are cumulative. That implies that a researcher who misses an amendment can fall into error. The amendments are:
- 1927 BGB060 = PVOB 17 Feb 1927
(ie Bundesgesetzblatt 60 of 1927, repeated in Postverordnungsblatt of 17 Feb 1927) - 1927 BGB203 = PVOB 24 Jun 1927
- 1927 BGB374 = PVOB 20 Dec 1927
- 1929 BGB039 = PVOB 18 Jan 1929
- 1929 BGB404 = PVOB 11 Dec 1929
- 1929 BGB405 = PVOB 11 Dec 1929 also
- 1930 BGB166 = PVOB 3 Jun 1930
- 1931 BGB162 = PVOB 20 Jun 1931
- Handwritten annotations continue the list of amendments:
- 1932 BGB232 = PVOB 18 Aug 1932
- 1932 BGB368 = PVOB 22 Dec 1932
- 1933 BGB177 = PVOB ? May 1933
- [1933 BGB355 is not mentioned; while it does amend the Postordnung it is concerned only with opening on Sundays, not with rates etc.]
- 1934 BGB(I)016 = PVOB 1 May 1934
[Beware! There are two series of BGB in 1934, both numbered from 1] - 1934 BGB(I)030 = PVOB 10 Jan 1934
- 1934 BGB(I)221 (no PVOB given)
- 1934 BGB(II)087 (ditto)
- [There is a gap here in the handwritten numbering (there is no 16th amendment listed) but none of that year’s laws from 88 to 150 are postal.]
- 1934 BGB(II)151 (ditto)
- 1934 BGB(II)417 (ditto)
- All amendments promulgated in the BGB from 1926 to 1934 are included in the above lists. There are later amendments, but evidently they were not added to this copy of the document.
- 1935 BGB291 (corresponding PVOB unknown)
- 1936 BGB030 (ditto)
- 1936 BGB162 (ditto)
- 1936 BGB398 (ditto)
- 1937 BGB009 (ditto)
- 1937 BGB182 (ditto)
- 1937 BGB199 (ditto)
- 1937 BGB268 (ditto)
- 1937 BGB293 (ditto)
- In 1938 things changed somewhat, and 1938 BGB036 concerning inland rates is signed by Seyss-Inquart, Reichstaatshalter in Österreich.
Dienstbücher
A variety of small booklets have been found, containing job-specific instructions to postal employees. It seems that there were many of these, perhaps 25; but few have survived. Many were re-published as PKMI Schriftenreihe. Those we have copies of are:
- “Dienstanweisungen für Postablagen” is here.
- “Dienst-Instruction für die kaiserlich-königlichen Poststationen” (1863)
- “Dienstbuch für den Postillion” (1893). We have found the 1906 revision, appended to 1906 PTVOB088, which repeals the (unspecified) previous version. It is dated 10 August. This is on the new PVOB site; the last entry is PTVOB Nr 51 dated 8 May, but this actually includes over 800 sides with all following PTVOBs up to Nr 148, the last for the year. We have downloaded and dissected this; here is the rather lengthy Postillion Dienstbook.
- One of the Postillions tasks was to sound his Posthorn to convey messages to his destination as he approached, and to command all other road users to get out of his way. The romantic view of these posthorn calls, and the reality, are explored THIS ISN’T READY YET here.
- “Dienst-Unterricht für die Briefträger der k.k. Postämter” (1880) is here.
- “3. Dienstanweisungen für die Zusteller bei den Postämtern”, Wien 1947 is here.
- “Instruktion für die Staats-Telegraphenboten in Wien” (1875); re-published as part of “The Pneumatic Post in Vienna”, APS 2005. The 1875 Telegraph Messenger’s Instruction Manual is a pocket-sized booklet with instructions for the delivery messengers and a schedule of which delivery offices served which streets (or parts of streets). It was found in Vienna Technical Museum Library as item B1359, and is presented here in two PDF versions: all of it, two pages to the sheet; and pages 17-30 being the Schedule enlarged and contrast-enhanced ‘one page per sheet’ , hopefully more readable.
Postvollzugsordnung
These are referred to, so must have existed somewhere!
Postgebührenweiser, Nachgebührenweiser
These are multi-page tables of rates for postage, for un- or underpaid mail etc. Many but not all are available; research continues on the question, “did the first issue after WWII actually exist?”.
Postbücheln
These are small booklets produced each Christmas for postal employees to give to customers (no doubt in hope of a tip). They contain basic information on rates and services, sometimes not available elsewhere. (They also contain adverts, essays and jokes.) The Vienna Technical Museum has an extensive collection (the ‘English’ button usually doesn’t work)
Part 2: Non-official sources
A detailed and comprehensive survey and appraisal of the published philatelic political and historical literature would also be useful; but this is not it.
Maps
A surprisingly large number of maps can be found in the darker recesses of the Internet. One of the most useful is the set of 1:200,000 maps of most of Europe, probably first made for the Austro-Hungarian Army. Note that:
- the master-map is in Hungarian, so for example Vienna is Bécs
- each map is a JPG of about 4Mb
- the “native size” is A2: print with care!
- some have been updated, and contain both old and revised country boundaries
- the zero meridian is Ferro not Greenwich
- copies of these can often be purchased at Freytag & Berndt, I.Kohlmarkt, Vienna.
- These maps are available on line at http://lazarus.elte.hu/hun/digkonyv/topo/3felmeres.htm. Here is the Master map for the 1:200,000 series.
Philatelic literature on Post Offices (Müller, Klein, Sottoriva etc).
These are in most philatelic libraries. Specific problems:
- The dates of opening sometimes differ (a good starting point is “Müller is usually right”!)
- The coding systems for cancellations do not provide the differentiation required by the specialist; conversely, they can introduce a distinction which did not exist in reality; and can be so complex as to be unmemorable, making it almost impossible to create a “wants list” suitable for use at a stamp dealer. You can’t conveniently carry a 5-volume listing in one hand!
- Some types and subtypes are not illustrated. For example: both Müller and Klein list only one type of cancel from “Bozen Stadt”. However, Gerhard Bock has found six visibly-different variations in the Stempelprotokollbook, shown here.
Philatelic Literature on Postablagen
The book “Postablagen in Österreich” by Gerhard Kühnel, in the green-covered second edition, is the indispensible source here. All its entries for Tirol have been verified as correct. Work by PKMI in the ZVO & Postamtsblätter has revealed new aspects of Postablagen: details exist such as the route-connections with the postal system, the delivery areas and frequencies, and sometimes the operator and her or his income.
Görig’s lists
In 1960 Erhard Görig made and typed the “Postaemter-Verzeichnis der Republik Oesterreich”, which is a 195pp list of all post offices within post-WWII Austria, extracted from the Post Office listings.
Then in 1963 he produced the 140-page 9527-entry “Verzeichnis der OT-Stempel die in der Gravuranstalt Joseph Schatz in den Jahren 1908-1938 ausgeführt wurden”; that is, “List of the cancellers created and/or repaired by Joseph Schatz’ engraving works between 1908 and 1938”. Schatz was one of the Official Canceller Repairers. As with the Stempelprotokollbuch, some of the cancellers were made and issued but seem never to have been used (eg the office didn’t actually open, for reasons including “permanently lost to the Russians in 1918”).
Bartl
In 1906, Herr Johann Bartl published “Handbuch für den ausübenden Postdienst in Österreich” in competition with the Post-Almanach. Unfortunately, while it is very useful it is also very scarce!
Web sources
The JewishGen Communities Database and JewishGen ShtetlSeeker web site provides useful resources to search for places by name in Central and Eastern Europe, using various search criteria; and to list all localities within a certain distance of a given latitude/longitude.
Many countries and regions have flourishing expatriate communities, notably in the USA. It’s always worth entering the name of some obscure location into sites such as Wikipedia or Google or austria-lexikon and seeing what turns up!
Philatelistenklub Merkur Innsbruck publications
PKMI’s publications include some additional sources:
Postgesetz 1838 + Beilage 1850 (A3) – a collection of postal laws
Postgebühren 1851 (A3) – postal rate tables for 1851
Weis & Stern: Eröffnungsdaten der Postämter, Telefonsprechstellen und Telegraphenstationen in Nord- und Südtirol, Vorarlberg und Liechtenstein bis 1900. This uses data from “Boten für Tirol und Vorarlberg” to list the opening dates of post-, telegraph- and telephone-offices.
See their web site for more details.