The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was an intelligence agency of the United States during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branches of the United States Armed Forces. Other OSS functions included the use of propaganda, subversion, and post-war planning.
Black propaganda is a form of propaganda intended to create the impression that it was created by those it is supposed to discredit. Black propaganda contrasts with gray propaganda, which does not identify its source, as well as white propaganda, which does not disguise its origins at all. It is typically used to vilify or embarrass the enemy through misrepresentation.
During World War II, the Political Warfare Executive (PWE) was a British clandestine body created to produce and disseminate both white and black propaganda, with the aim of damaging enemy morale and sustaining the morale of countries occupied or allied with Nazi Germany.
Reichspost was the name of the postal service of Germany from 1866 to 1945.
The Psychological Warfare Division of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force was a joint Anglo-American organization set-up in World War II tasked with conducting (predominantly) white tactical psychological warfare against German troops and recently liberated countries in Northwest Europe, during and after D-Day. It was headed by US Brigadier-General Robert A. McClure. The Division was formed from staff of the US Office of War Information (OWI) and Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the British Political Warfare Executive (PWE).
In general, philatelic fakes and forgeries are labels that look like postage stamps but have been produced to deceive or defraud. Learning to identify these can be a challenging branch of philately.
In philatelic terminology a letter sheet, often written lettersheet, is a sheet of paper that can be folded, usually sealed, and mailed without the use of an envelope, or it can also be a similar item of postal stationery issued by a postal authority. Letter sheets derive from the form in which written correspondence was made up before the mid-19th century—letters were written on one or more sheets of paper that were folded and sealed in such a way that the address could be written on the outside.
Wilhelm Ohnesorge was a German politician in the Third Reich who sat in the Hitler Cabinet. From 1937 to 1945, he was the Reichsminister of the Reich Postal Ministry, the German postal service, having succeeded Paul Freiherr von Eltz-Rübenach. Along with his ministerial duties, Ohnesorge also significantly delved into research relating to propagation and promotion of the Nazi Party through the radio, and the development of a proposed German atomic bomb.
Postage stamps and postal history of Baden refers to the postal history and postage stamps of the German state of Baden from 1851 to 1871.
This is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of Germany and philatelically related areas. The main modern providers of service were the Reichspost (1871–1945), the Deutsche Post under Allied control (1945–1949), the Deutsche Post of the GDR (1949–1990), the Deutsche Bundespost (1949–1995), along with the Deutsche Bundespost Berlin (1949–1990), and are now the Deutsche Post AG.
The Vineta Provisional is a German postage stamp made on 13 April 1901 on board the cruiser SMS Vineta. The postal officer had not been supplied with 3 Pfennig Germania stamps, so he bisected his 5 Pfennig stamps and stamped them by hand with a "3 PF" mark. Mail with the Vineta provisional stamp was sent from Pernambuco to Germany on 17 April 1901. Only 600 stamps were issued, making this provisional stamp one of the rarer stamps in German philately.
The German Post Offices Abroad were a network of post offices in foreign countries established by Germany to provide mail service where the local services were deemed unsafe or unreliable. They were generally set up in cities with some sort of German commercial interest. In the earliest period when such offices were open, stamps used there can only be identified by their cancellations. Such stamps are known as "Vorläufer" (forerunner) stamps. Later stamps issued for use at a post office abroad can generally be identified by overprints even when not postally used. Germany began issuing distinctive stamps for use overseas beginning in the late 19th century, and the number and variety of issues reached its heyday at the beginning of the 20th century. All German Post Offices Abroad were closed down during or shortly after World War I.
Barbara Lauwers, later known as Barbara Lauwers Podoski, was a corporal in the Women's Army Corps (WAC) and a recipient of the Bronze Star after one of her operations led to the defection of 600 soldiers from behind Italian lines and the withdrawal of their support from the Germans. She was stationed at the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Morale Operations (MO) headquarters in Rome, Italy.
This is a survey of postage stamps and postal history of the German colonies and part of the postage stamps and postal history of Germany, as well as those of the individual countries and territories concerned.
Temple Hornaday Fielding was an American travel writer from in the Bronx who published the Fielding Travel Guides starting in 1948.
Morale Operations was a branch of the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. It utilized psychological warfare, particularly propaganda, to produce specific psychological reactions in both the general population and military forces of the Axis powers in support of larger Allied political and military objectives.
Forgery is used by some governments and non-state actors as a tool of covert operation, disinformation and black propaganda. Letters, currency, speeches, documents, and literature are all falsified as a means to subvert a government's political, military or economic assets. Forgeries are designed to attribute a false intention and aspirations on the intended target. They force the targeted government to spend a large amount of resources to refute the forgery. Forgeries are an effective tool because of their ability to hold influence even after being proven false.
Wolfgang Baldus is a German graphic designer, artist, and philatelic writer. He is known for authoring and publishing books on cinderella stamps in the series History and Background Stories of Unusual Stamps and for his works on the philatelic forgeries and propaganda parodies produced by both sides during the First and Second World Wars.
The Rohrpostin Berlin, was a pneumatic tube postal service, which existed from 18 November 1865 until 1963 in West Berlin and in East Berlin until 1976.
The Sauerkraut missions were secret service operations planned and carried out by the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during the Second World War from July 1944 to at least March 1945. The aim was to enable rapid dissemination of Allied propaganda material by the use of German prisoners of war.
