Berlin Stamps

These are postal tax stamp meant to raise revenue to pay for the support of West Berlin during its isolation inside of East Germany. They are often called blue fleas. There are many varieties of this stamp. Most of them are very common. There a couple of varieties that have some value. These are only cataloged in a German language catalog. The difference in the varieties are minute. You will need a German specialist to determine if the stamps you have are worth more than a few cents. The overwhelming likelihood is that yours are very, very common varieties.

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When looking through selections of post-war German stamps and covers, one will often find the ubiquitous small blue Notopfer Berlin tax stamps. Notopfer approximately translates as "disaster victims". The stamps do not appear to be listed in Scott, but can be found in a separate section in the Michel German Special catalogue and are also listed in the smaller German catalogues at the end of the Bundesrepublik Deutschland section. Look in the index.After the end of thewar Germany wasdivided into fourzones, American, British, French and Russian. Although Berlin was located in the Russian zone, it was also divided into four sectors under a control commission. Allied land access to Berlin was blocked by the Russians on 24 June 1948, resulting the allied use of the air corridors, the Berlin Airlift, which started on 26 June. The blockade ended on 4 May 1949, but the airlift continued until 30 September. The Notopfer stamps were used in the Bizone (American and British Zones) from 1 December 1948. During 1949 some what different arrangements were made for their use in the French zone. In Württemberg, for instance, the stamps were required from 10 January 1949 until 31 May. Subsequently, from Notopfer Berlin - July 1949 until the end of the year, the stamps were overprinted in red with "Wohnungsbau-Agabe", a compulsory contribution towards building homes. From August to October a totally different 2 Pf. tax stamp for "Wohnungsbau-Agabe" was used in Württemberg - Hohenzollern The use of the blue Notopfer stamps was extended to the whole of West Germany on 1 January 1950 and lasted until 31 March 1956. The 2 pfennig stamp was a tax stamp, rather than a postage stamp, and was required to be used on all mail including packages originating in the Bizone for other parts of West Germany. Only one stamp was needed for each letter or packet. Mail without the Notopfer stamp was returned to the sender. The money raised from the stamps went towards the rebuilding of West Berlin. The stamp was not compulsory on foreign mail or mail to the Russian Zone, although it can often be found on such mailings.Obviously vast numbers of the stamps were produced, which is reflected in the price of the common varieties. The German catalogues have eight listings. The differences are mainly in the printing, particularly the thickness of the lettering in "Steuermarke", the N in "Notopfer" and the alignment of R, N and E at the end of the lines. There are also perforation and watermark varieties. With such large quantities printed there are hundreds of plate flaws. A vast field of study.

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SG lists at least 19 versions of these depending on watermark and perforation. They also have notes about private perforations and other varieties that they don't list. SG's used prices range from 30p to £550!

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The origins of this stamp are in the June 21, 1948 Currency reform by the western zones of Germany, which caught the Soviet with their pants down and lead to a rushed currency reform in the Soviet (and Berlin) on June 24th (June 25th in West Berlin). Emergency stamps were over- printed in many post offices (the so-called "District Handoverprints") every night to meet the next day's demand, until machine-overprinted stamps became available on July 3rd.

This immediately lead to the Soviet Blockade of West Berlin and the Berlin Airlift (Operation Vittles). The population of West Berlin suffered greatly during the time of the blockade, which was not lifted until May 12, 1949. (The Airlift continued until Sept. 30.)

As a means to defray the costs of this massive resupply operation and to provide continuing assistance to the people of Berlin, the German parliament (with military government approval) passed a law requiring a 2 Pfennig tax on various classes of mail. (Covers franked contrary to this law exist, e.g. Notopers used to pay postage and ordinary stamps used to pay the tax.)

The tax was to be paid ONLY by the "blue flea" stamp, first issued on Dec. 1, 1948 and inscribed "NOTOPFER / 2 BERLIN / STEURMARKE". This translates to "Emergency Victims / 2 Berlin / Tax Stamp". Although this is technically a tax stamp, it was in fact sold by the post office and it had no use other than on mail.

Covers franked contrary to this law exist, e.g. Notopers used to pay postage and ordinary stamps used to pay the tax.  The Notopfer was not required on all pieces of mail. Initially, the Notopfer was required only in the Bizone (combined American and British zones). It was later used in the French Zone (see below). It was never used in Berlin itself. It was not required on mail to Berlin, on mail to the Soviet Zone and on mail to foreign destinations. Examples used inadvertently to the Soviet Zone or Berlin were often defaced and returned by the Soviet Zone authorities (and are very collectable).

For mail that was not exempt per the above, initially every class of mail required the Notopfer. This represented a 10% tax for letter mail, but was a whopping 50% for printed matter. Businesses complained loudly about this and printed matter was later made exempt.  Even official mail that was otherwise free required a Notopfer!

The period of use for the Notopfer was Dec. 1, 1948 to March 31, 1956, thus surviving the transition from occupied Germany to Federal Republic. Overall, more than 10 billion of the "fleas" were printed. Depending on how specialized one wants to collect these, a collection could consist of dozens, hundreds or even thousands of stamps. And then there's the postal history ...

The French Zone was a bit of a maverick. They at first elected not to participate. When they did, it was sporadic and with a few twists: Baden used the Notopfer on July 1-2, 1949 and again from July 17 on. They also designated that a portion of the funds would go to the relief of Kehl (another interesting story).

Rhineland-Pfalz used the Notopfer in Feb. & March, 1949, and again from July 1 on.  Wurttemberg used the Notopfer from Jan. 10 to May 31, 1949. For the rest of the year they used overprinted Notopfers or specially printed stamps, the proceeds of which went into a fund for housing reconstruction. From Jan. 1, 1950 on they reverted to the use of unoverprinted Notopers.

The area around Lindau caught a break, as the use of the housing reconstruction stamps was not required there. This part of Bavaria had been given to Wurttemberg so the French could have a corridor to their zone in Austria.  The Notopers were even used in parts of Austria! - the mountainous border areas that were served by the German post office since there was no land access to the rest of Austria.

Getting back to basics, the Michel catalog, or a specialized handbook by Peter Harlos, lists the various permutations of watermark and perforation that makes this issue so interesting. I won't go into the details here, except to mention one particular perforation used early on.

The sheet of 200 Notopfers was the same size as a sheet of 100 (pfennig value) Buildings Series stamps. One of the first attempts at perforating the Notopfers was to use the Comb 14 perforator used for the Buildings and supplement it with a Line 12 perforation between each vertical pair. Such stamps are very interesting, but alas they are really cheap.

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A customer of mine who specialized in these issues (years ago) had multiple albums and stockbooks. They were a study unto themselves, and were a very popular study - according to him anyway! It seems that the papers, perfs and printings were quite varied.

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No real paper varieties that I'm aware of, but ...

2 different printing methods. 4 different design types.

3 watermarks, with a total of 7 watermark positions.

16 official perforation varieties (plus imperforate).

An almost uncountable number of postmaster and private

perforations and roulettes (Michel does not even begin to

scratch the surface here).