I am no expert on German philately so please be kind on constructive criticism..Heres the information i have...German soldiers during World War 2 received 2 military airpost stamps per month.Some would not use two per month but would send one home in hopes of receiving a letter. Covers sent by the soldiers are fairly common, the ones to the soldiers using the MC1 are scarcer. As you can see by the city postmark, this one was sent by a civilian. I believe the rubber stamp says the letter returned as undeliverable.
"Feldpost stamp issued from 20th April 1942 onwards.
Every month the soldier received FOUR of these stamps, two were for his own use,
and the other two he would probably send to his family, so they could answer his post.
From May 1943, the soldier would be given eight stamps per month, four to send home and
four for himself. However, he now required two on every letter and one on every postcard.
He could now send two letters per month or four postcards. Of course he could save them
up over the months or a comrade who had no one to write to, could give him his."
What does MC1 mean by the way?
Looking at that address, it perhaps is no wonder it was returned. That number is at best a unit number. If it is just a (soldier's) serial number, there was no chance this would get anywhere.
If it was possible to decipher the last word on the second line, the reason might be slightly clearer, but probably not. I get:
An Absender zurück.
Keine Anschrift abr.......?
Return to sender.
No address ?........... possibly a word similar to 'specified'.
Hello Ningpo, thank you..MC1 is the catalog number that the Scott catalog gave it. I notice my scanner gave the cover a reddish tint...i don't know enough about it to know if the scanner is giving up or if the reddish color is correctable..it does make it almost impossible to scan items for auction with a incorrect color. phil
BuckaCover.com - 80,000 covers priced 60c to $1.50 - Easy browsing 300 categories 21 Nov 2016 01:30:34pm
re: MC1 Military Airpost cover
"if the scanner is giving up or if the reddish color is correctable"
It looks like the scanner may be applying an "auto color correction" feature. Look for a check box in the scanner driver interface, and try scanning without it checked.
Roy
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I think that the number on the cover is the soldier's Feldpost or Fieldpost number and with that number, the system would be able to direct the cover to the recipient's location. I don't think that any other information would be needed, especially if the soldier was in the battle lines; his location would be secret.
The cover may have been returned because the soldier was killed or missing or the feldpost number is incorrect?
There may be someone here who has more knowledge here about Feldpost numbers but as far as I know, depending of course on the unit a person was assigned to, the numbers remained the same from 1939-1945 unless they were discontinued for one reason or another.
I have seen numbers that have a suffix appended: as far as I know these would only be letters.
So, for example, if you were assigned a Feldpost number which we know was located in France but were then transferred to a new unit in Russia, your Feldpost number would change--it would not remain the same. The Feldpost number in France would still be the same though if your unit was transferred from France to Russia.
I do not know if anyone else googled feldpost 26382.i found kaserne(barracks) Wilhelmshaven..if the feldpost number changes with location he may have been moved.
That reference you found may be a red herring. I looked at all the results for that Feldpost number(and the barracks) and they don't specifically refer to a Feldpost. But they all refer coincidentally to:
I did find this; but no location details. It seems to show that Feldpost 26382 served different units over time.
I remember my late friend Peter Shobloch from the stamp club when he was 17 he was part of a local antiaircraft battery..they had captured Russian guns that they bored out for the larger German shells.. he said he was glad they were never fired as the barrels probably would have burst. He was from the Eastern part of Germany and found a job with the British forces..the old displaced person story ..he made his way to America and was a manager at IBM. Of course he was a good guy...he was a stamp collector.