Monday, September 26, 2016

Mažeikiai 1943





Bahnhof Mazeikiai?

This is cover sent in 1943 from Moscheiken (now Mažeikiai, Lithuania), Ostland to Riga, the present Latvian capital. It has been sent from a Bahnsleiter (station director) of Mažeikiai station (as you see on the back of the cover) to a Reichsbahninspektor (Reich Railway inspector) in Riga. The postmark cancelling the Ostland overprint says Moscheiken, the official German name of Mažeikiai in Ostland, but what surprised me was the Nazi cachet that says "Bahnhof Mazeikiai" and NOT Moscheiken. As you can see from the fact that the station director uses himself the name of Mažeikiai on the back, the use of Lithuanian name was not prohibited but we are talking about Nazi cachet which usually Germanizes every place name. It is possible that the cachet was made before the renaming process but still...

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