Here are a couple of curious covers that I recently acquired:
This is just a cover front, but sent from Trieste in American-occupied Italy on May 17, 1947, and censored by the AMG.
Sent from the Bielefeld in the British occupation zone to Copenhagen on October 1, 1947 and censored by British authorities in Germany. All the dark spots on the cover are paper inclusions, indicating the poor quality paper used for the envelope.
I have done no research yet on the senders/recipients...
I find censored covers between countries that are not at war with each other to be a curiosity. They seem to speak to a persistent suspicion. I wonder what conspiracies were actually uncovered by these censoring activities. What actions were taken? How was history altered by censoring?
Presumably, covers that did NOT pass censoring were retained in some official file for investigation, and perhaps thus, a collecting rarity.
Both these cases are from areas under direct military government.
Bear in mind that during the periods here the authorities were still looking for "war criminals" and censorship just might be just one tool in locating fugitives ( or their accomplices ). The authorities were also looking for "loot".
"Careless talk costs lives"- a famous wartime slogan could perhaps be extended to cover "loose words in letters inform the searchers".
