Postal history of Lithuania includes a rare cachet signifying a disturbing event which, so far, has not recurred.
The event in question was an outbreak of cholera in Russia, which by 1831 had reached her borders with Prussia. As the contagion was also likely to slip in by incoming mail, the Prussian reaction was swift. Transit points were provided with chemicals and instructions. In particular, incoming mail was subjected to being pin-punched, washed in acid, exposed to blasts of special smoke and the like. The countermeasures worked very well, and the threat of carry-over was stopped.
Part of the frontier between Russia and Germany ran through ethnic Lithuanian territory: on the northern section Russia touched the Klaipėda region (Memelland), and on the southern section Russia’s neighbour was East Prussia.
In order to contain the threat of cholera a number of Royal Prussian disinfection (Kontumaz) points were set up, of which the most active was, in German spelling, NIMMERSATT – a locality some 25 km north of Klaipėda/Memel and ca. 5 km south Palanga/Polangen.
It so happened that only a decade back, in 1821, a substantial postal treaty had been signed by Russia and Prussia whereby most of the Russian mail addressed to Western Europe was handed over to the Prussian postal system. One of the main postal routes ran from St. Petersburg via Palanga/Polangen to Klaipėda/Memel — and the frontier transit point was Nimmersatt.
So Nimmersatt was supplied not only with the necessary chemical equipment but also with a cachet to show that the disinfection process had been applied to the mail as well..
A retouched sample of the cachet.
The front of a disinfected cover from Riga to Berlin.
The back of the above cover showing the disinfection cachet.
Specialists may note that the Nimmersatt point seems to have had two slightly different varieties of the cachet, the main difference being the position of the two capital TT (in NIMMERSATT) in relation to the word DIRECTION. The two varieties are shown below.
The two varieties of the Nimmersatt cachet.
Cholera disintection points were established in several other localities in the “Lithuanian” section of the frontier. Along the Memelland border there were points (in German spellling) at Laugallen, Schmalleningken, whereas the East Prussia border had similar installations at Schillehnen, Schirwindt, Eydtkuhnen. They may have had their own control cachets but if their names were not specified on the cachet they cannot be identified as there exist several nameless cachets.
Although on the maps of the time the locality’s name was written in the German spelling as NIMMERSATT, its origin is distinctly local, that is, Lithuanian. After the First World War and the Klaipėda’s return to Lithuania, the locality’s name was restored to NEMERZATĖ, as seen on the stamp cancellations of that period.
Samples of the Lithuanian spelling NEMERZATĖ.
A spelling reform after the Second World War brought about another change of the name to NEMIRSETA.