Veviržėnai (from 1937 Veiviržėnai) is a township in western Žemaitija, ca. 35 km south-east of Klaipėda, ca. 10 km east of what was the border with Memelland. In World War One it was passed through by infantry units of 12. Reserve-Brigade in the very first afternoon of the German advance into Žemaitija, which started on April 27, 1915.
When the German army withdrew from Russia at the end of 1918, Veviržėnai was not affected by further hostilities, as the Red Army vanguards were halted a safe distance away.
In the czarist period, Veviržėnai had a post office (Vevirzhany). During the German occupation, there was no post office there but aparently some significant telephone facility was maintained in the location, for, unusually, before establishing a Lithuanian post office, the Pašto Valdyba appointed as early as May 8, 1919 a telephone operator, Feliksas Žemgulis, for the “centralė telefono stotis” (= central telephone station) at Veviržėnai. However, it is not known when and how this telephone facility was expanded into an agentūra or a post office.
For stamps, the Veviržėnai facility had at least Fourth Berlin Issue, and other issues followed. Cancelling was done by means of two one-liner cachets. As the cachets included the letter “W, w”, it is very likely that they were put together or adapted from some wartime German cachets used at the telephone facility. The German place-name was Wewirzany.
One of the known one-liner cachets was made up of upper case letters and, as yet, has only been seen in fragments. The complete place-name is still to be discovered or reconstructed.
The other known one-liner cachet was composed of lower case letters. However, there is no additional circumstantial evidence enabling to determine which cachet was used first, and it is possible that both were in use concurrently.
A standard calendar-type postmarker was supplied ca. 1923, if not earlier, and bore the spelling VEVIRŽĖNAI. In 1937 the spelling on the replacement postmarker was altered to VEIVIRŽĖNAI
Known provisional markings:
Cancelling by the large cachet:
No date single, Berlin IV 10 [colln. Doniela]
no date single, Berlin IV 15 [colln. V.Jurkša]
Fragment no details [reported Fugalevičius]
Fragment no details, wrongly attributed to Vievis [reported Fugalevičius]Cancelling by the small cachet:
No date single, Berlin IV 75 [colln. Jankauskas]