During his years of exile in the Netherlands (1918-1944), the Emperor not only felled countless trees and held hours-long conversations, but he was also an enthusiastic letter writer. In my First World War collection, his correspondence now has a (modest) place...
Wilhelm II was the last German Emperor. Born on January 27, 1859, he not only became head of state of the German Empire, but was also King of Prussia. He was the grandson of British Queen Victoria, but...
There are people who believe that the KNBF must have a solution for everything that is going wrong in the world of philately. For a while, for instance, we were bombarded by someone who felt that the Association...
In the summer of 1914, the threat of war in Europe increased rapidly. Countries could remain neutral, choose the Entente (England, France, and Russia), or join the Central Powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary). The Netherlands chose neutrality. On...
During the Second World War, Dirk Ernsting found a parachute in his orchard in the Beemster (Zuiderweg 62), with a tube attached containing a live carrier pigeon. The intention was that such pigeons, equipped with a message, would be released again...
After the war, Piet and Dirk J. Ernsting, two fruit growers living next to each other on the Zuiderweg, both received this beautiful sign. The back bears the name of the maker, Niek van Diepen, an artist and, during the war, a courier for...
In the days when Jan Kluft (chairman of the Posthoorn, Zaanstreek for centuries) still regularly scoured archives, he stumbled upon a remarkable document. He had some copies made and came across them again recently when he was...
Two Veth stamps that you would leave in the penny books and three postage due stamps with a minimal catalogue value: they formed the basis of a philatelic masterpiece. In January 1934, baker Bus from Zuidoostbeemster received an express postcard from the Tin Factories of...
Dutch neutrality during the First World War ensured that our country was spared much misery, although we did not emerge from the conflict entirely unscathed. Occasionally a gun would go off, in which case a clumsy soldier would injure himself or a colleague...
In the previous episode, I described how the highest military leadership during the First World War was constantly on the lookout for overly critical voices and reports. As the war dragged on, those voices grew louder and louder. Riots broke out against the...
Writing about the First World War almost always means a story about the horrors of the battle, the trenches, the bombardments, the development of new, increasingly destructive weapons: tanks, airplanes, mustard gas, the tens of thousands of dead, killed or maimed far from home. In...
A beautiful holiday snapshot – sent to Germany – from a city whose name would secure a permanent place in the history books after June 28, 1914. On that day, a Bosnian Serb extremist splinter group attempted an assassination of Franz Ferdinand and his...
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