Two labels: A failed experiment (1)

According to the dictionary, internment is the deprivation of liberty on grounds of public interest and/or general or special security. Internment is usually applied in wartime when soldiers cross the borders of a neutral power or unintentionally end up in neutral territory.

During the First World War (1914–1918), the Netherlands was neutral.

Heavy fighting took place in our neighboring country to the south. Soldiers, primarily Belgian but also British and German, regularly crossed our border. Especially when the Germans had surrounded the city of Antwerp, a large number of soldiers fled into our country in panic. These soldiers were housed in internment camps here. These internment camps were located in the following places: Assen, Gaasterland, Harderwijk, Kampen, Leeuwarden, Loosduinen, Nunspeet, Oldenbroek, Urk, Vlissingen, Wierickerschans (near Bodegraven), Zeist, and Zwolle. Several of these camps were closed or merged during the period 1914–1918. By far the majority of interned soldiers were held in the Zeist and Harderwijk camps. Overview of the Harskamp camp near Oldenbroek

Generals, conscientious objectors, tennis players, and troublemakers

The Belgian generals and their servants were housed in the Zwolle camp. Urk was the residence of officers who refused to give their word of honor that they would not escape. French, British, and Belgian officers were initially housed in the Wierickerschans, followed later by German officers. During a recent visit to this fort, I discovered the remains of a tennis court used by these predominantly British “gentlemen.” A special “internment depot” was established in Vlissingen. Here sat “those elements among the internees whose presence in the other depots was undesirable.”

It got out of hand

Around 1906, the Universal Postal Union decided that interned soldiers, like prisoners of war, would be exempt from postage for their correspondence. Most of the aforementioned internees took advantage of this arrangement, and an extensive correspondence with the homeland developed. The German occupiers in Belgium complained that too much mail for internees was being sent from the Netherlands to Belgium. The censorship officials (for this mail was censored) could not handle it. Intervention was necessary.

Introduction of etiquette

On February 3, 1916, Service Order No. 49 of the Head Office of the PTT was issued. EXEMPTION FROM POSTAGE. The military authorities intend to make available, for correspondence between internees and persons in places located in the German-occupied part of Belgium permitted to postal traffic with the Netherlands, labels bearing the inscription: AUG. 1914 KINGDOM OF THE NETHERLANDS INTERNATION CAMPS Items bearing such labels are to be sent to Utrecht. The date stamp is to be imprinted partially on the item and partially on the label. Furthermore, as before, the stamp is: PORTVRIJ FREE OF PORT Foreign military personnel interned in the Netherlands printed on the documents.”

Commentary on Service Order 49

• The issuance of the labels is not handled by the PTT, but by the Ministry of War on behalf of the German occupiers of Belgium.
• The only involvement of the postal service with this issue is that instructions are given regarding the stamps to be used and the method of cancellation.
• Nothing can be found in the archives of the Ministry of Defence regarding the introduction of these labels. They probably had more important matters to attend to and did not preserve the documents that undoubtedly existed concerning this matter. Perhaps they were also ashamed that the whole thing had to be done on the orders of the not-so-popular Germans.
• The date August 1914, which had to be stated on the labels or the internment stamps, as they were later called, refers to the date of the start of the First World War, not to the issue date of February 1, 1916.
• Letters bearing the first internment stamp had to be sent to Utrecht. The Netherlands-Belgium Expedition Office was located there. This office therefore functioned as an exchange office.

Two labels for one cent

It is remarkable that the internment stamps had already been printed before Service Order No. 49 was delivered to the post offices. The distribution of the first label by the Ministry of War to the various internment camps had also already taken place by then. Every interned soldier could purchase two labels for the price of 1 cent, which could be used to send two pieces of mail in the month of February 1916. In this way, the number of letters to be sent was limited. A new adhesive stamp would be issued for the month of March 1916. Internment stamp no. 1

The Green and the Brown Virgin

The first internment stamp depicted the Virgin of the Netherlands with a standing Lion and Flag. The stamp was to be produced in green and was intended for the month of February 1916. The second (for the month of March 1916) was brown with a very small amount of light yellow. It depicted the Virgin of the Netherlands with a reclining Lion and Flag, with part of an internment camp in the background. Both stamps were produced by order of the Commander-in-Chief of the Dutch Army. The direct client was the Internment Service in The Hague. The order was placed with the printing firm J. van Boekhoven in Utrecht. The railway timetables were also being printed there at the time. When this printer was asked for information regarding the production of the labels, they stated that they had indeed received the order, but had not proceeded with printing the internment stamps. Nothing could be found in the archives regarding who had designed the labels or who the actual printer was. It is thanks to the Amsterdam philatelist KE König that much more is known about this today. Around 1950, he placed letters to the editor in the trade journals Drukkersweekblad and Graficus to gather information about this case. He even wrote a short piece in Libelle to resolve the ambiguities.

The designer

The first reaction König received regarding the designer was that it was a female designer. Hence his question in the column “Libelle weet 't”. This yielded four responses from – remarkably – men. Thus, it was revealed that the designer (so a man after all) was the graphic artist APW van Starrenburg. He worked from 1911 to 1939 as a draftsman and designer at – you wouldn't expect it – the printing house J. van Boekhoven. This artist produced countless lithographs, etchings, pastel drawings, woodcuts, and linocuts. The illustrations in the poetry collections of Adriaan Roland Holst were often created by Van Starrenburg. The Rijksmuseum owns several works by his hand. According to letter writers, the designs for the internment stamps were executed as pastel drawings. Those designs can no longer be found in the archives. The design of the labels was likely done under great time pressure, which is why the result is not aesthetically very successful. Internment stamp no. 2

The printer

Finding the printer of the stamps was also quite a task. The aforementioned König received a tip that he should look for a lithographic printing shop in Amsterdam. After much wandering, he ended up in the Jordaan. The labels were supposed to have been printed on Karthuizerstraat, but he found no printing shop there. Inquiries with local shopkeepers eventually yielded the name of the printing shop. It turned out to be “Steen & Boek Drukkerij JR van den Berg Karthuizerstraat 26 Amsterdam Telephone 49717”. The printing shop no longer existed, but former staff and family of Van den Berg were still alive. It turned out that the Van Boekhoven printing company had outsourced the commission to Van den Berg because the reproduction of the designs could best be carried out using lithography, a technique they did not master at Van Boekhoven. This shows the lengths one has to go to when matters from the past are not properly archived. A reproach may certainly be made to the archive managers of the Ministry of War in 1916. Thirty-five years later, almost nothing could be found anymore.

labels

It turned out that the JR van den Berg lithographic firm specialized in printing labels. Well-known labels at the time were those for the tomato jam Tomatorna and for (famous among drink enthusiasts) Vermouth di Torino. Both were printed at the lithographic firm that produced our internment stamps. I think that when Van Boekhoven received the order to produce “labels” for the Internment Service, he immediately thought of his colleague JR van den Berg, who was known as a skilled label printer.

Details about the printing of the labels

At the beginning of 1916, there were over 31.000 interned Belgians in our country. The green stamps were printed in sheets of 65 in 5 rows of 13 stamps. A total of 1.000 sheets were printed, and the print run of the Groene Maagd was therefore 65.000 copies. The brown stamps were printed in sheets of 72 in 9 rows of 8 stamps. In total, 900 sheets of 72 were printed, resulting in a print run of 64.800 Bruine Maagden. The stamps show numerous small and large differences. One could call these plate errors, were they not executed in lithography. Thus, “stone errors” would be more appropriate. Various nuances, such as lighter and darker stamps, can be explained by the printing of the stone on the paper being bolder or less bold, or by the fact that the printing did not take place consecutively on a single day, or because the printer had to re-ink the stone. Stories from former employees of the printing house reveal that the stones were ground down shortly after the production of the internment stamps so that they could be reused.

The distribution of the internment stamps among the camps

On February 1, 1916, the green labels were delivered by the Internment Service of the Ministry of War to the camps holding Belgian internees. The Camp near Zeist received the most, namely 23.252 stamps. As mentioned, the soldiers could purchase two per person for 1 cent. Note that this did not include postage costs. After all, interned soldiers could send their mail postage-free. These adhesive stamps were put to immediate use, as the first cancellations date from February 3, 1916. The brown labels were distributed in mid-February 1916 and were intended for the month of March. Therefore, these were not yet to be sold in February. Letter sent from the Camp near Zeist on 07-02-1916 with the violet stamp Zurück weil unzulässig

And then things went wrong

The stream of letters with the green labels arrived at the German occupiers in Belgium. After censorship, they were supposed to be delivered to the addressees, the family members and acquaintances of the Belgians imprisoned in our country. But… this did not happen. The Germans refused to have these letters delivered. On February 24, 1916, the Head Office of the PTT informed the Commander-in-Chief of the Dutch Army that the German military authorities in Belgium had refused and returned all documents bearing these internment stamps. The letters were sent back to the disappointed soldiers, bearing one of the stamps: *Zurück, weil unzulässig* or *Unzulässig zurück*. The brown labels, which had already been distributed among the various camps, never went on sale. We can therefore speak of a failed experiment. Letter sent from the Harderwijk Internment Depot with, among other things, the signature of the camp commandant and the violet stamp *Unzulässig zurück*.

Almost no letters with internment stamps left

The returned letters were generally poorly preserved by the disillusioned Belgian soldiers. The large green stamps were often sloppily affixed and sometimes extended over the edge of the letter. That is why the letters that have been preserved look unsightly. Not many have survived. In April 1916, during an unexpected alarm, most were torn up or thrown away. During this panic, the internees were advised to destroy everything they considered superfluous, so that they would have as little luggage as possible with them in the event of departure. A few soldiers quickly stuffed the letters into their knapsacks.

Why were those letters refused by the Germans?

The prevailing view is that the Germans were afraid that messages undesirable or less desirable would be placed under those large seals. The German occupiers were therefore afraid of espionage. I think the view expressed above is incorrect. It seems logical and also a bit romantic. But… While people here were busy designing, printing, and distributing the green and brown maidens, the Germans were working on a new idea. Paid reply postcards had existed since the 1870s. And the use of these postcards was much more efficient than the hassle (including a new label every month) with those internment stamps. Censoring postcards is much simpler than censoring letters. Moreover, text could be written on only eleven lines. This idea was therefore much simpler and clearer. That is why the German occupiers returned the letters with internment stamps uncensored, because they saw much more potential in their new idea. The Germans produced these cards and the Dutch Government paid the costs. Each internee received one card per month. From June 1916, these postage-free double postcards were used. These postage-free postcards with paid reply replaced the internment labels.

Remaining “virgins” not destroyed

Normally, we should have reached the end of the story regarding the failed experiment with the Dutch internment stamps by now. However, due to the lack of clear regulations and rules regarding what was to happen to the remaining green and brown “virgins,” the history of these labels continues. Read next week part 2 this story. Illustrations: Janneke Mens Text: Daan Koelewijn