Thursday, May 7, 2009

World Heritage - Germany










Represented in the above FDCs':

Wartburg Castle
The Wartburg, near Eisenach (Thuringia), was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1999 as "an outstanding monument to the feudal era in Central Europe". Legend has it that the castle was founded in 1067 by Count Ludwig der Springer. It was here that Martin Luther, during his exile, translated the New Testament into German in 1521 and 1522. The castle is also linked to the legend of the "Minstrel's Contest", to Saint Elizabeth and to the festival of the German students associations 300 years after the Reformation. Because of its location on the former border between East and West Germany, the Wartburg remains a symbol of German integration and unity.

Monastic Island of Reichenau
The Monastic Island of Reichenau on Lake Constance is an outstanding testament to the religious and cultural role of a great Benedictine monastery in the Middle Ages. In the year 724, the abbot Pirmin founded the monastery on the "rich isle", and the Benedictine abbey developed between 800 and 1100 into a spiritual and cultural centre of the Holy Roman Empire.
The three Romanesque churches on the island, St Mary and Marcus, St Peter and Paul, and St George, which were built from the ninth to the eleventh centuries, are fine examples of the architecture of the early Middle Ages in Central Europe.
The meticulously restored wall paintings show Reichenau to be a "highly significant artistic centre of great significance to the history of art in Europe in the tenth and eleventh centuries". The Monastic Island of Reichenau was inscribed on the World Heritage List in the year 2000.

Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin
In 1990, UNESCO officially recognized the palaces and parks of Potsdam and Berlin, built between 1730 and 1916, as part of World Heritage. The protected area of the World Heritage site covers the palace and park of Babelsberg, as well as the "New Garden" situated to the west of the Heiligen See lake, with the Marmorpalais and the Cäcilienhof palace where the Potsdam Agreement was signed in August 1945. The palace and park of Sanssouci, often called the "Prussian Versailles", are a synthesis of the artistic movements that marked the European cities and courts of the eighteenth century. The whole complex is an outstanding example of architectural creativity and landscaping, against the spiritual background of the monarchist ideal.

Luther Memorials in Eisleben and Wittenberg
The Luther memorials in Eisleben and Wittenberg (Saxony-Anhalt) are all associated with the lives of Martin Luther and his fellow-reformer Melanchthon. They include Melanchthon's house in Wittenberg, the houses in Eisleben where Luther was born in 1483 and died in 1546, his room in Wittenberg, the local church and the castle church where, on 31 October 1517, Luther posted his famous "Ninety-five Theses", which launched the Reformation and a new era in the religious and political history of the Western world. These sites were inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1996. They are recognized as part of humanity's cultural heritage, as they represent a significant stage in human history and are of "outstanding universal value bearing unique testimony to the Protestant Reformation".

Town Hall and Roland on the Marketplace of Bremen
The town hall and the statue of Roland on the marketplace of Bremen in north-west Germany are outstanding representations of civic autonomy and sovereignty, as these developed in the Holy Roman Empire in Europe. The old town hall was built in the Gothic style in the early fifteenth century, after Bremen joined the Hanseatic League. The building was renovated in the so-called Weser Renaissance style in the early seventeenth century. A new town hall was built next to the old one in the early twentieth century as part of an ensemble that survived bombardment during the Second World War. The statue stands 5.5 m tall and dates back to 1404. This site was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2004.

Aachen Cathedral
The Aachen Cathedral was the first German cultural monument to be inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1978. The cathedral, which was built between 790 and 800 under the Emperor Charlemagne, is of universal significance to the history of art and architecture. It is also one of the great icons of religious architecture. Contemporaries declared the Palatine Chapel of the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne to be a miracle of the art of construction - of half divine, half human conception. The Palatine Chapel, with its octagonal basilica and cupola, is the first vaulted building north of the Alps. It is heavily influenced by the building traditions of classical antiquity and by Byzantine architecture.

Date of Issue: May 7, 2009

Denominations:
44¢, 98¢, F.s. 1,00, F.s. 1,30, € 0,65, € 1,40

Printing:
Printed in offset by Joh. Enschedé Stamps Security Printers. B.V. (Netherlands)

The Artist:
Grit Fiedler (Germany)

Stamp specifications
Format: 50 mm horizontally by 36 mm vertically, perforation to perforation.

Perforation: 12 ¾ x 13 ¼

On 7 May 2009, the United Nations Postal Administration (UNPA) issued a set of six commemorative stamps and three prestige booklets on the theme "World Heritage - Germany".

This is the fourteenth United Nations stamp issue to illustrate World Heritage sites. It is the twelfth in a series of stamps and prestige booklets focusing on either one specific World Heritage site or a group of World Heritage sites in one geographical location.
To commemorate the 2009 joint stamp issue with the Federal Ministry of Finance/German Post (Deutsche Post) "World Heritage - Germany", UNPA produced a limited edition silk first day cover (Code 824.3752). The cover features the design of the Luther Memorials in Eisleben and Wittenberg. The UN € 1.40 World Heritage - Germany stamp and the € 1.45 German Post stamp, both featuring the same stamp motive, are affixed and cancelled accordingly by each respective postal administration with the first day of issue postmark.

The covers are consecutively numbered from 1 to 8,400.

WORLD HERITAGE - GERMANY
Heritage is our legacy from the past, what we live with today, and what we pass on to future generations. Our cultural heritage and our natural heritage are both irreplaceable sources of life and inspiration. What makes the concept of World Heritage exceptional is its universal application. World Heritage sites belong to all the peoples of the world, irrespective of the territory on which they are located.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) seeks to encourage the identification, protection and preservation of cultural and natural heritage around the world considered to be of outstanding value to humanity. This is embodied in an international treaty called the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, adopted by UNESCO in 1972. The United Nations Postal Administration has chosen six sites in Germany for this year's stamp issue.

About the artist and his design:

Grit Fiedler was born in Leipzig in 1966. She discovered her love for printed characters and design at an early age, encouraged by her parents, who are both graphic designers. By spending much of her childhood in her parents' studio, she took her first steps towards graphic design. During her school life, she attended various arts courses as well as a graphics course at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig, the latter giving her main introduction to design. After her school-leaving examinations in 1985, she began a graphic design course at the University of Art and Design in Halle an der Saale under Professor Gerhard Voigt at Burg Giebichenstein. In 1991, she graduated with a degree in graphic design, and went on to study design information technology for a further year, likewise at Burg Giebichenstein.

During her studies in 1989, she started to create postage stamps and won a postage stamp design competition for the "Heinrich Schliemann" postage stamp series, which was issued in East Germany in 1989. Since 2000 she has been designing postage stamps for the German Ministry of Finance on a regular basis. Additionally, she's been working in poster design, typography as well as book and corporate design, favouring vivid colours and clear shapes. Her work has also been entered into international competitions and featured in exhibitions, private and public collections.

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