Feldpost of Croatian Armed forces

Feldpost of Croatian Armed forces

autor : Krešimir Musić

From the formation of Croatian state and its Armed forces up until the end of war several reorganizations of military were conducted. Formation of separate Military postal service-Feldpost was planned only with  the last  restructuring.

Description of structure and restructuring  of Armed forces is to big task for this blog , if you are interested in the subject i can recommend two books (both in Croatian language):
1) Damir JUG ; Oružane snage NDH : sveukupni ustroj Zagreb : Nova stvarnost : HINUS, 2004.
2) Krunoslav MIKULAN, Siniša POGAČIĆ, Hrvatske oružane snage 1941.-1945. (ustrojstvo, odore i oznake), P. C. grafičke usluge d. o. o., Zagreb 1999.

Briefly , in 1.1943 armed forces are made up of : Croatian Army(Domobranstvo), Air force(Bojno zrakoplovstvo) , Naval forces(Plovne snage) ,Ustasa Army(Ustaška vojnica) , Gendarmerie(Oružništvo) , Civil defence (Narodna zaštita), State Labour Sevice (Državna radna služba).

In the second part od 1944 new army restructuring was done, Domobranstvo and Ustaska vojnica were merged  and new Croatian armed forces are formed (Hrvatske oružane snage - HOS).
First unit to be formed on 09.10.1944 was 1.Croatian Storm division, which is known to philatelists by the famous Mini-sheet of the same name. On 01.12.1944 another 15 divisions were established, and later another two divisions, in total 18 divisions were formed.
Part of this restructuring was formation of  Feldpost(Bojna Pošta) of Croatian armed forces.

From the formation of army in 1941 up till the end of war Civil postal service is used for carrying  mail to and from military units and personnel.
In this context any mail traveled to or from military  units and soldiers is to be considered part of Croatian Feldpost. This mail was subject to regular postal charges usually personal letter were franked with ordinary stamps and official mail with official stamps but many exception to this rule can be found.
Important military mail ( like written orders) that was not allowed to be mailed by Civil post was carried by runners and is often marked by words "teklićem"( by messenger).

Only in the second half of 1944 formation of Croatian feldpost (bojna pošta) has started.
Military units were given Feldpost numbers in form:  H-XXXX where X stands for numbers. Unfortunately list of units and their respective numbers is unknown to me, it still remains mystery 75 years after the end of War.

Rule book of Feldpost regulations (Propisnik o bojnoj pošti) was published on 11.08.1944, organisation was planned as follows:

1)Glavna bojna pošta  - G.B.P - Main Military post.(Feldpost)
2)Glavna sabirna bojna pošta - G.S.B.P - Main collecting military post.(Feldpost)
3)Sabirne bojne pošte- S.B.P - Collecting military post.(Feldpost)
4)Bojne pošte - B.P - Military post (Feldpost)
5)Bojno-poštanski uredi -B.P.U - Military post(Feldpost) offices


G.B.P :  its duty was management of feldpost system, co-ordination between armed forces and civil postal service.

G.S.B.P : its duty was collecting of  military mail,  and  especially  censoring military  mail going to and coming  from abroad, that mail was compulsory marked with cancels or stickers OTVORENO - PREGLEDANO (opened-examined).

S.B.P - they collected and forwarded  mail  from civil postal service to G.S.B.P or to other S.B.P (?)

4  - S.B.P  were planned , each managing mail with certain  H-XXXX feldpost numbers
S.B.P-I   in  Zagreb  for mail marked :  H-1000 - H-1999
S.B.P-II   in Slavonski Brod for mail marked H-2000 - H-2999
S.B.P-III  in Sarajevofor mail marked H-3000 - H-3999
S.B.P-IV in Split for mail marked H-4000 - H-4999

In published regulations it was stated that first S.B.P to  open was S.P.B-I in Zagreb on 20.08.1944
S.B.P-I was planed to operate as part od G.S.B.P.
Croatian Feldpost sent from abroad to homeland was to be marked by numbers C-9000 - C-9999

B.P  - are postal offices in unit or military command that collect mail from soldiers an deliver it to B.P.U and take mail from B.P.U to deliver it to their  unit . B.P is marked by one Feldpost number H-XXXX.

B.P.U is a civilian postal office located close to an B.P .  B.P.U takes and delivers mail to and from  BP , and then forwards and takes mail to and from  S.B.P , this is done via  civil postal service.

How was Military postal service exactly supposed to work is not clear as only mail with numbers
H-1XXX has been seen.  Feldpost with numbers H-2XXX , H-3XXX , H-4XXX  has not been seen as of  yet, and probably those S.P.B  were never opened.
It's obvious that Feldpost system (Bojna Pošta) never started working as planned.


Another interesting fact for philatelists can be found in rule book of Feldpost(Propisnik).It is states that Packets sent by Feldpost have to be marked with Military parcel stamp (Bojno-Poštanska Zamotna Naljepnica). Parcels up to 2000.g can be mailed with parcel stamp. Exceptionally belongings of deceased or missing soldiers can be mailed in packets weighing up to 5000 g , but use of parcel stamps in those cases is not mentioned.

Therefore  Military parcel stamps (Bojno-Poštanska Zamotna Naljepnica) are official ,legal stamps and are not speculative in nature as suspected by prof.Ercegović  , although typical printing errors on them were most probably intentionally made.

Talking about second Military parcel stamp with picture of river Neretva near Jablanica,  I completely agree with prof.Ercegović that this is fraudulent  product made after the end of WWII .
It was first described in Filatelistički vijesnik no 3-12/1945 published  after the war and is not mentioned before the end of war . More  importantly it is not mentioned in Rule book of Feldpost.
Numerous specialties of this stamps: trial prints, mirror prints , errors and Feldpost overprint only confirm dubious nature of this stamp.

In my opinion there were earlier attempts to form Croatian Feldpost , but because of   the state of Armed forces(2 armies) and of country itself this was not done. Large number of Domobranstvo officers served in Austro-hungarian army which had very good  Feldpost , also they had  first hand chance to see excellent German Feldpost and Italian Posta militare at work, so i'm sure they tried to form Feldpost earlier.

One thing especially points to this , that is traveled mail with  cancel G.S.P.B-Pregledano(examined). The earliest cancel i have seen dates from 11.1942 almost 2 years before  publishing of the Rule book of Feldpost. The name in the cancel itself (Glavna sabirna bojna pošta - G.S.B.P - Main collecting military post) means that Main collecting military post was already present and that  idea for forming Feldpost was surely there.
This earliest cancel known to me is stamped on Card mailed from Zagreb to German Feldpost Fp.23274 -  14. Kompanie Kroatisches Infanterie-Regiment 370  in 11.1942

All mail I have seen with numbers of Croatian military post (H-XXXX) originates from 1945.
I have never seen authentically used  Military parcel stamp (Bojno-Poštanska Zamotna Naljepnica), this additionally confirms that Croatian Feldpost was never fully activated although Rule book was issued in 8.1944 and preparations for start of Feldpost  was made.

Mail with Croatian Feldpost numbers H-XXXX is extremely rare !!!!

Numbers of Croatian Feldpost i have seen so far:

H-1157/4
H-1206
H-1212/5
H-1235
H-1238/7
H-1247
H-1263/57