History 07/01/20 Why in the Great Patriotic letters were sent without envelopes
One of the original symbols of the great Patriotic war can be called letters. Thanks to them, soldiers receive news and words of support from loved ones. And relatives of soldiers maintained contact with them only via email. But why are neither one nor the other did not use envelopes? It turns out that there are two simple explanations.
Mail in time of war
As the authors of encyclopedic dictionary “the Great Patriotic war 1941-1945”, Andrey Golubev and Dmitry Lobanov, in the beginning of the great Patriotic war at the Main office of communications of the red Army was formed, the Office of military field post. And the parts worked field postal station (PPS), which was later replaced with a military-postal station (WLS). PPS stamp from stamp UPU distinguished by the fact that the last was not specified a valid field station.
During the war, through the PPP (or UPU) were held monthly about 70 million letters. Therefore, we can only guess about what kind of burden rests then on the shoulders of all postal workers. Especially because, according to Gennady Veretennikov, the author of the book “Stories about war” from 22 June 1941, many postal services are absolutely free. From that day on letters no longer had to lick the stamps, and, as direct participants in hostilities and their relatives and friends who were in the rear.
a Shortage of paper and envelopes
Clearly, under these millions of revolutions and even free correspondence in the country simply did not have enough envelopes. Here and Yury Zhukov, the author of the book “Soldiers’ Council: what he said letters from the fronts of the great Patriotic war”, believes that the emergence of the famous letters of triangles contributed to the simple lack of envelopes. It is noteworthy that the same bugs says invented triangles not postal workers, namely the red army. According to the journalist, until enough Newspapers, the soldiers hung the envelopes from them. But when the press was over, sheets of paper were simply folded.
Actually, Vadim Demin, the author of the autobiographical novel “On the trail “Gray”,” says that paper during the war years was a real deficit. For this reason, messages sometimes posted on small pieces of paper, wrote in the smallest handwriting, using literally every available space. The reverse side showed the address of the recipient and of the sender, and also leave some space for postage stamps and other markings. It is with these other markers and related to the second reason why the envelopes during the war disappeared.
“Checked by the military censorship”
As the authors of the publication “the Great Patriotic war – known and unknown”, even the letters were never sealed, as they are all checked by the military censor, subject to the special Department of the NKVD. According to the authors, the Soviet system differed from the German, his claim to total coverage. That is why letters from the Nazis was more informative and voluminous in comparison with the letters of the red army. On each triangle from the veteran or from his relative, who was in the rear, mandatory stamped “Checked by the military censorship”.
Sometimes the censors edit out sentences that contained the secret (e.g. the location of) or just suspicious information. As recalled to the author of the book “Better late than never,” Nikolai Kozhevnikov, who had experienced the Great Patriotic war, from his father, who was at the front, often received letters with “redacted” (blacked out) text. And Valentin Skvortsov in his book “My impressions of the twentieth century” suggests that some triangles from his father did not make it to the house, because in the letters there were some details about the war.
Yulia Popova
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