Commemorative stamp series - Germany / German Democratic Republic 1978 - 20 Pfennig

Joint space flight USSR GDR 2nd edition For the first joint space flight USSR - GDR, the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications of the German Democratic Republic issues a further four multicolored special postage stamps and one special postage stamp block. Special cancellation from 21 September to 20 November 1978 Common Space Flight USSR - GDR 20 Pfennig value: Portrait of East German research cosmonaut Sigmund Jähn The first pilot cosmonaut of the GDR, Lieutenant Colonel Sigmund Jähn, a proven officer of the National People's Army flew as the first German in the Space. Together with his Soviet commander, the triple aviation cosmonaut of the USSR, Colonel Dr. Valery Bykowski, he spent exactly 188 hours and 49 minutes in the cosmos from August 26 to September 3, 1978, circling the earth 125 times and covering a distance of back about five million kilometers. Sigmund Jähn was born on February 13, 1937 in Rautenkranz, Kreis Klingenthal, the son of a sawmill worker and learned the profession of a printer. Since the age of 18 he belongs to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany and the National People's Army. The class 1 pilot and "deserved military pilots of the GDR" completed several years of study at the Soviet Military Academy of the Air Force "Yuri Gogarin" and prepared since December 1976 in the cosmonaut training center "Yuri Gogarin" near Moscow on his flight.