Sticking it to the Nazis
When is a stamp not a stamp? When it was never meant to carry postage at all.
The striking designs shown here are wartime propaganda labels produced in England during the Second World War. Often mistaken for postage stamps, they were created to spread awareness of the Czechoslovak cause after the country’s occupation and the fall of France in 1940. Many Czech servicemen escaped to Britain, where they regrouped and reorganised as what later became known as the Free Czech Forces.
Dating largely from around 1942, these labels coincide with one of the most dramatic moments of the war in occupied Europe: the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague in May that year. The operation was carried out by Czech agents trained by the Special Operations Executive, and it sent a powerful signal that Czechoslovakia’s resistance was far from extinguished. (There was a superb film, Operation Daybreak, made about the event in 1975).
By this point, around 4,000 Czech military personnel were based in Britain, initially centred in Leamington Spa. These labels were affixed to everyday mail, not as valid postage, but as visual declarations of defiance. Slogans such as “Fights for Freedom”, “V for Victory”, and “Czechoslovakia – Britannia” reinforced unity and kept the Czech struggle visible on the home front.
Their bold red, white and blue designs, aircraft, flags, chains and flames, make them compelling artefacts today. Neither stamps nor ephemera in the usual sense, they sit somewhere between political messaging and graphic art, carrying the weight of a nation’s determination in a few square centimetres of paper.
As a footnote to the story, Heydrich himself was originally buried with full honours in Berlin, complete with ceremonial markers. As the war turned against Germany, these were removed and his grave left unmarked. Decades later his remains were located by looters and all of the militaria, including Himmler’s sword stolen.
BBC News article here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-50806873
