Germany airmail centenary

A wonderful cover from Tom ! - a re enactment of the flight 100 years later in Germany 🇩🇪 - the first passesnget airline flight in the world !! 

On February 18, 1912, the first official delivery of airmail by an airplane was made in Germany when pilot Hermann Pentz flew a monoplane made by German aviation pioneer Hans Grade from the German city of Bork to Brück. Germany came out with its first airmail stamps in 1919. 

On 9 November 1918, two days before the Armistice was signed, a senior politician named Muller had lunch at his Berlin club. Berlin at the time was an uneasy place. Violence and revolution were in the air and on the streets. The Army's rigid control seemed to be slipping. A week earlier, sailors of the German Navy had refused to take out the fleet for a final pointless set-piece battle with the Royal Navy. They deserted in large numbers. Soldiers too were throwing their rifles in the river and setting off home. 

The government was now in the hands of the Social Democratic Party, led by Ebert and Scheidemann, who must have felt that their hour had come at last. The current Chancellor in Berlin was aware that the situation was getting rapidly out of hand. So that morning the Chancellor took matters into his own hands. He announced to the world that the Kaiser had, in fact, abdicated. Then he resigned, and formally handed over his office to Ebert, the leader of the majority party and a respected conservative politician.

When Scheidemann learned what the Chancellor had done, he jumped onto a chair and yelled to the small crowd, "Long live the German Republic!" Ebert, though , was not pleased to have become Chancellor in the middle of a revolution. An election was held in January 1919. When the votes were counted, the Social Democratic Party had won more votes than any other, but the number was well short of the majority they needed to form a government. The Catholic Centre party had come second. The left-wing workers' parties were a poor third. Ebert's only sensible option was a coalition of the right and centre. Scheidemann took over as Chancellor, and Ebert became the new republic's first President. 

But volatile Berlin was not a safe place for a government instinctively opposed to any major reforms. Instead, they chose to meet at Weimar, a quiet country town near Leipzig, 150 miles to the south. The town's theatre served as the parliamentary building.

However, being so isolated from the capital meant that communications were difficult. With strikes on the railways and coal in short supply, it took four or five days even for an express letter from Berlin to reach Weimar. The Berlin newspapers were out of date by the time the politicians in Weimar could read them. The government had no real idea what the people were doing. 

The solution to the problem was air transport. There were plenty of serviceable aircraft around, though most of them had been designed to carry just one passenger. A company named DLR (Deutsche Luft Reederei) was given the contract to fly a daily schedule between Berlin and Weimar. Its first cargo, on 5-February 1919, was 4,000 copies of the Berlin morning newspaper. The new government was so proud of their new airline that a special stamp was issued to stick on the letters it carried. 

The first airmail stamp of Germany - a personal stamp with the image of this stamp is pasted on the re- enactment cover ! 

Air travellers in 1919 was very cold, and often dangerous. Still, there were a few who made the trip, usually officials putting duty before comfort. But DLR's aircraft regularly carried the mail, whatever the weather.

The Re- Enactment flight : 

The Re-enactment of the first official airmail in Germany was organised by Aero Berlin 2019 

The re - enactment was some using a Rockwell Commander 114B flight on 31-March-2019

The flight plan - take off from Eberswalde - Finow Airport ( 60 kms NE Berlin ) with stops at Berlin , Leipzig and finally land at Erfurt Weimar Airport ( Weimar ) 

The Rockwell Commander 114B are single-engine four-seat light touring aircraft with retractable landing gear produced by the US-American manufacturer North American Rockwell, later Rockwell International and later by Commander Aircraft Corporation. 

Stamps : 

A personal stamp with the image of the first German Airmail stamp of 1919

100 years of the first voting rights for women 

Postmark : 

100 years of the first official German airmail flight 

A technical snag : 

“ due to technical problems no landing in Weimar “ 

The re- enactment flight  had a technical problem and could not be landed in the Weimar-Umpferstedt airport which had a smaller runway and was landed safely at the more commercial airport - Erfurt Weimar. 

The cachet of the Erurt Weimar airport and the date of marking ( 31-03-2019 ) 

Thank you Tom for this wonderful cover !!