Pretty much what I said in the title. Could you, say, send a letter (or make a call) from London to Naples, Stuttgart, or (occupied) Paris during World War 2? Was there any civilian communication between allied and axis countries at the time?
Funny, I was watching a documentary yesterday on the Resistance, and I was wondering the exact same thing. Were civilian phone and post lines maintained between the Axis and Allies bloc?
Well, your title asks a slightly different question than your first post. I’m sure it was quite common for mail to be sent to and from the Axis powers in World War II; not every non-Axis state was an enemy of the Axis, so there would be little political reason for their postal services not to continue operating (albeit subjected to the usual wartime censorship). Whether civilan mail could be sent between Axis and Allied states, as your post states, is something I’m interested in as well. (I suspect that whether it was permitted depended on the policies set by the source and destination states, and in the case where both permitted it, the mail would probably have to go through a mutually non-belligerent third state.) I know that military mail from prisoners of war was permitted under the Geneva Convention, so it was quite common for Axis and Allied prisoners of war to send letters and postcards to their families, and possibly vice versa.
I am sure that civilians of the Axis powers could not mail letters to or make telephone calls to civilians in the Allied countries. But keep in mind that there were many neutral countries. The more interesting question, it seems to me, is how easy was it for civilians of the Axis and Allied countries to write or telephone people in the neutral countries. And if they could do so rather freely, didn’t this make espionage awfully easy? If you are a spy in Germany and have a secret you want to pass on, just call or write your fellow spy in Sweden.
I think such correspondance could have been carried by a Spanish, Swiss, Swedish or other citizen of a neutral nation although it would almost certainly be read and inspected by the border officers of the receiving state. It would be up to those officials whether or not to allow the letter to be posted in country. The Swiss Red Cross also facilitated delivery of letters to and from POWs.
Ah yes, I beg your pardon, I meant to make that distinction in my post and then forgot to. Thanks for pointing that out.
Don’t know about World War II but I once read that normal postal service continued throughout the American Civil War. Mail went back and forth between the northern and southern states.
Especially, I would think, occupied countries. While the neighbourhood busybodies and local police might wonder about someone sending mail to “Herr Schmidt, Party Headquarters, Berlin” would it not be normal for someone to mail to enquire how Aunt Marie is getting by in occupied Paris?
Odd – a book I’m reading now said that the Confederate Postal system basically collapsed during the Civil War. Too many men were off in the army, and the government didn’t have money to pay anyone to replace them as postal carriers.
Dear Adolf,
Sorry I missed you. Will try again Thursday night.
Sincerely,
Bomber Command
Dear Bomber Command,
I will try not to miss you.
Love and kisses
Adolf
Cite? My understanding has been that mail often took a long time under understandably difficult conditions, but would generally eventually go through, including to and from armies in the field, and across lines of occupation.
Unfortunately, I can’t provide a cite. It was something I read years ago and it struck me as unusual enough that it stuck in my mind. Obviously, the author I was reading might have been wrong.
For example, Defend the Valley includes transcripts of several such letters sent and received by Confederate soldiers and their families.
Isn’t there now some third-country arrangment with Taiwan, because so many other countries do no officially recognize it? I remember reading somewhere that because the US does not diplomatically recognize Taiwan, the USPS will route mail to another country that will then route the mail to Taiwan. Or, maybe North Korea? I don’t know anyone there, but I wonder what the USPS would do if I dropped off a letter to “Ah Jong, 123 Street, Pyongyang, North Korea”. Would it get there?
The USPS site lists rates for supposedly guaranteed delivery to every country in the world except:
Ascension
Burma (Myanmar)
Central African Republic
Comoros
Cuba
Equatorial Guinea
Falkland Islands
Guinea-Bissau
Iran
Kiribati
Korea Democratic People’s Republic of (North)
Nauru
Pitcairn Island
Saint Helena
Saint Pierre & Miquelon
Sao Tome & Principe
Sierra Leone
Solomon Islands
Somalia
Sudan
Syrian Arab Republic (Syria)
Tajikistan
Tristan da Cunha
Turkmenistan
Tuvalu
Western Samoa
The exclusion of Western Samoa there is a little curious, because the USPS has an office in nearby American Samoa. You’d think there would be some folks who know each other.
It also appears that USPS will accept mailings for even these countries, subject to some limitations, but will not guarantee delivery.
Just this week on an Antiques program (flog it …maybe?) a lady bought in a Rolex watch with its order form, that her father/grandfather bought from Switzerland while incarcerated in a German POW camp…so yes post went through neutral countries.
Post to neutral countries was a standard communications route for many spies using secret writing, micro-dots etc to evade censorship. When he first arrived in Britain this was the main route of communication for Garbo the double agent that was the main conduit for feeding the Germans Fortitude, the cover plan for D-Day. According to this page on the MI5 web-site, Garbo and his controller wrote 315 such letters averaging 2,000 words each! Not surprisingly the Security Service eventually arranged for him to start using radio for his reports.
For many of these I assume they do not guarentee delivery because transport links are limited, not because of political difficulties. Just taking the ones I know Ascension, Pitcairn, St Helena, and Tristan da Cuhna are all islands without - I believe - regular air services.