Tenth anniversary of the Pioneer organisation

The German Democratic Republic issued two semi-postals on 7 August 1958 for the tenth anniversary of its Pioneer organisation. Domfil catalogues them as 958.30 and 958.31.

The 10 + 5 pfennig in dark bluish green shows a Young Pioneer sounding the bugle before the organisation's flag; the 20 + 10 pfennig in red shows three Pioneers giving the salute beneath the emblem and the motto SEID BEREIT — be prepared, the German form of the Scout motto that the Pioneer movements took over wholesale. Both carry 10 JAHRE PIONIERORGANISATION across the head. Horst Klöpfel designed the pair and the Deutsche Wertpapierdruckerei printed it in offset, 33 × 43 mm, comb perforation 12½ × 13, on paper watermarked DDR and quatrefoil.

The organisation was the Pionierorganisation Ernst Thälmann, founded in December 1948 for children from six to fourteen and run through the Freie Deutsche Jugend. It took the structure the Scout movement had used in Germany before 1933 — the neckerchief, the salute, the bugle, the promise — and put a communist content inside it. That is the ground on which the catalogues index these stamps, as they do the Pioneer issues of Romania, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia of the same decade.

Michel lists an imperforate-at-left variant of the 10 pfennig as 645UI. Further references are Michel DD 645–646, Scott DD B41–B42, Yvert DD 365–366 and Stanley Gibbons DD E384–E385.