July 20 commemorative stamps: These stamps went through everyone's hands

In the end it was "uniformly a nice gray".

This is recorded in a memorandum from the Federal Postal Ministry dated July 5, 1963, on the discussion of the first draft for the inscription on the commemorative sheet commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the assassination attempt on Hitler.

A year later, on July 20th, the Deutsche Bundespost issued the block of stamps with the inscription "To the German resistance on the anniversary of July 20th".

The eight stamps, stylized portraits of selected resistance fighters, were designed by the then 34-year-old Wuppertal graphic artist Gerd Aretz and his wife Erika, who was the same age.

Aretz, a professor at the Bergische Universität who died in 2009 and whose handwriting, which usually relies on photographs, shaped the face of German stamps up to Johannes Rau (2006),

The prevalence of the 1964 stamps cannot be overestimated;

A total of 6,941,000 blocks were printed in the Berlin Federal Printing Office, the value of the individual stamps, uniformly 20 pfennigs, corresponded to the domestic postage for letters at the time.

Probably every German citizen will have come into contact with the brands.

All of those portrayed were depicted for the first time on Bundespost stamps.

The first stamp designed by Aretz, which commemorated the 150th birthday of the socio-politically committed Bishop of Mainz, Emmanuel von Ketteler, is representative of the long-dominant staff there.

The historian René Smolarski (Jena), who made valuable contributions to philately as a neglected historical auxiliary science, has now published in the "Quarter year booklets for contemporary history" (Vol. 70,

Issue 3 / De Gruyter) tells the history of the "special edition in block form for the 20th anniversary of July 20, 1944".

He proceeds from the finding that the National Socialist propaganda image of the conspirators as a clique of officers consumed by ambition continued to have an effect;

"The widespread rejection" was "also clearly reflected in the corresponding surveys" - the Allensbach survey cited as evidence was, however, already published in 1954.

The idea came from an SPD member of parliament

After all, a stamp was issued in 1963 for the inauguration of the Catholic memorial church Maria Regina Martyrum in Berlin “for the martyrs of freedom of belief and conscience in the years 1933 to 1945”.

The motif "Cross of Golgotha ​​with darkened celestial body (stylized)" almost embarrassingly avoided giving the resistance a face.

The graphic artist Otto Rohse, creator of the valuable permanent series “German Buildings from Twelve Centuries”, probably had to take into account the specifications of the “Art Advisory Board” formed in 1954 at the Post Ministry.

As an official explained to Deutsche Welle in 1964, a tribute to the resistance fighters was seen as "flammable" - the image will not only be considered inappropriate because of the means used by Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg.

The concerns about the "highly political issue of stamps" were justified by the fact that "the older living generation" had "lived on" the events.

Representative, on the other hand, was the permanent series “Significant Germans” issued in 1961, which drew on a seemingly harmless canon from Albertus Magnus and Elisabeth von Thuringia to Luther, Schiller and Beethoven.

The Bundespost also often took into account church topics such as church conventions, the Heidelberg Catechism or the Eucharistic World Congress, an indication of the strong position of the churches at the time as apparently the only large organization that remained morally intact.

This can also be read indirectly on the block from 1964.

Representative, on the other hand, was the permanent series “Significant Germans” issued in 1961, which drew on a seemingly harmless canon from Albertus Magnus and Elisabeth von Thuringia to Luther, Schiller and Beethoven.

The Bundespost also often took into account church topics such as church conventions, the Heidelberg Catechism or the Eucharistic World Congress, an indication of the strong position of the churches at the time as apparently the only large organization that remained morally intact.

This can also be read indirectly on the block from 1964.

Representative, on the other hand, was the permanent series “Significant Germans” issued in 1961, which drew on a seemingly harmless canon from Albertus Magnus and Elisabeth von Thuringia to Luther, Schiller and Beethoven.

The Bundespost also often took into account church topics such as church conventions, the Heidelberg Catechism or the Eucharistic World Congress, an indication of the strong position of the churches at the time as apparently the only large organization that remained morally intact.

This can also be read indirectly on the block from 1964.

the Heidelberg Catechism or the Eucharistic World Congress, a reference to the strong position of the churches at that time as apparently the only large organizations that remained morally intact.

This can also be read indirectly on the block from 1964.

the Heidelberg Catechism or the Eucharistic World Congress, a reference to the strong position of the churches at that time as apparently the only large organizations that remained morally intact.

This can also be read indirectly on the block from 1964.