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Postcards and Picture Postcards
It was the Secret Councillor of the Prussian Post, Heinrich von Stephan, who had the idea of printing postcards. His proposal was not accepted by the Prussian post or by the Fifth German Postal Conference held in October, 1865, in Karlsruhe. This idea though, was taken up by Professor Dr Emmanuel Herman of Vienna. On the 26th January, 1869, he published an article in the daily paper New Freie Presse recommending the introduction of postcards. The Austrian Postal Administration accepted his proposal, and on the 1st October, 1869, the first postcards appeared with a yellow stamp of two kreuzer printed on them. In Germany, postcards were introduced in 1870, shortly after Heinrich von Stephan became Postmaster General of the North German Confederation.
During the hundred odd years of their existence, postcards have hardly changed at all. In addition to the normal postcards, double postcards were issued soon afterwards, their second half being intended for the reply. On the basis of international agreements, these reply postcards could be used anywhere in the world. British reply postcards, for instance, could be found used and cancelled in Germany, France or other countries and sent back to Britain. Another development of the postcard was the letter-card. More recently, postcards were printed with drawings or photographs on the front next to the address, the whole of the reverse of the postcard being reserved for the message.
Postcards had an important task in times of war; they were used as early as the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 – 1871, but mainly during the First and Second World Wars. The reasons for this were that they made it possible to write a short message quickly and also because the censors preferred them. The control of postcards was much easier; letters had to be opened. For security reasons in war time, printed texts on postcards were used frequently. Only a few words had to be added to the printed text and the inapplicable passages deleted. Pre-printed postcards were also used for the mail from prisoner-of-war camps handled by the Red Cross.
The British post, for instance, used during the Second World War pre-printed forms for cables with a certain number of standard messages. The sender just deleted the texts he did not want and so it was sufficient to telegraph only the address, the numbers of the sentences and the signature. It was a great relief for the telegraph and wireless network over-burdened by a flood of cables from soldiers and their families. After all, the cables and wireless had first of all to serve military and government needs.
The picture postcard is the sister of the postcard. Here, only half of the address side is reserved for the message, whereas the other side is taken up by a drawing or photograph. Sometimes, picture postcards were printed with political drawings and cartoons. Picture postcards were not usually issued by the General Post Offices and, therefore, stamps had to be affixed to them.
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