Deutsche Bundespost
Encyclopedia
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
federal
Politics of Germany
The Federal Republic of Germany is a federal parliamentary republic, based on representative democracy. The Chancellor is the head of government, while the President of Germany is the head of state, which is a ceremonial role but with substantial reserve powers.Executive power is vested in the...
post office
Post office
A post office is a facility forming part of a postal system for the posting, receipt, sorting, handling, transmission or delivery of mail.Post offices offer mail-related services such as post office boxes, postage and packaging supplies...
) was created in 1947 as a successor to the Reichspost
Reichspost
- Imperial Reichspost :* The Imperial Reichspost was the name of the postal service of the Holy Roman Empire, founded by Franz von Taxis in 1495...
(German imperial post office). Between 1947 and 1950 the enterprise was called Deutsche Post (German post office). Until 1989 the Deutsche Bundespost was a national company.
The Bundespost was developed according to a three-stage principle common in public administration
Public administration
Public Administration houses the implementation of government policy and an academic discipline that studies this implementation and that prepares civil servants for this work. As a "field of inquiry with a diverse scope" its "fundamental goal.....
in the Federal Republic of Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
(FRG). The upper stage consisted of the federal ministry for the post office and telecommunication
Telecommunication
Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded...
system. The middle stage consisted of regional directorates and national post office management in West Berlin, with certain central bureaucracies (post office technical central office, telecommunication engineering central office, postal administration social office, and post offices) on an equal footing. Finally, the lower stage consisted of the actual post offices, postal giro
Giro
A Giro or giro transfer is a payment transfer from one bank account to another bank account and instigated by the payer, not the payee...
(akin to a checking account)and savings bank offices, and telecommunication offices.
The legal basis for the administrative activity of the Bundespost was the postal administration law (Postverwaltungsgesetz, abbreviated PostVwG). A central goal of public administrative policy after 1924 was financial self-sufficiency. Political goals, however, often superseded this goal. According to the PostVwG, the federal postal system was to be administered "according to the principles of the policy of the FRG, in particular trade, economic, financial and social policies" and "the interests of the German national economy."
The Deutsche Bundespost was the largest employer in the Federal Republic. In 1985 it employed 543,200 people.
In the first post office reform (July 1, 1989), the Bundespost was divided into three divisions (also called public enterprises):
- Deutsche Bundespost Postdienst - postal service
- Deutsche Bundespost Telekom - communications service
- Deutsche Bundespost Postbank - postal bank
The central authorities remained as described above. The divisions were later privatized in the second post office reform (January 1, 1995), resulting in the creation of the following:
- Deutsche Post AGDeutsche PostDeutsche Post AG, operating under the trade name Deutsche Post DHL, is the world's largest logistics group. With its headquarters in Bonn, the corporation has 467,088 employees in more than 220 countries and territories worldwide and generated revenue of € 51.48 billion in 2010...
from the postal service - Deutsche Telekom AGDeutsche TelekomDeutsche Telekom AG is a telecommunications company headquartered in Bonn, Germany. It is the largest telecommunications company in Europe....
from the communications service - Deutsche Postbank AGDeutsche PostbankDeutsche Postbank AG is a German retail bank with headquarters in Bonn. Postbank was formed from the demerger of the postal savings division of Deutsche Bundespost in 1990. It became a wholly owned subsidiary of Deutsche Post in 1999, and was partially spun out on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in 2004...
from the postal bank
The federal ministry for post office and telecommunications (Bundesministerium für Post und Telekommunikation) retained oversight responsibility for postal services and telecommunications. After the dissolution of that ministry on 1 January 1998, those tasks were taken over by a new federal network regulatory agency (Bundesnetzagentur, formerly RegTP) under the federal ministry for economics and technology. Other functions (such as the issuance of postage stamps) were taken over by the federal ministry of finance. Some telecommunications functions (including BOS radio) were turned over to the federal ministry of the interior.
For certain official and legal purposes (including certain financial, medical and other services for former postal civil servants), a "federal institution for post and telecommunication" (Bundesanstalt für Post und Telekommunikation) was created.
See also
- Postage stamps and postal history of GermanyPostage stamps and postal history of GermanyThis is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of Germany and philatelically related areas. The main modern providers of service were the Reichspost , the Deutsche Post under Allied control , the Deutsche Post of the GDR , the Deutsche Bundespost , along with the Deutsche Bundespost...
- Deutsche Bundespost BerlinDeutsche Bundespost BerlinThe Deutsche Bundespost Berlin was the governmental agency to provide mail and telecommunication services for West Berlin. This civil service agency was in operation from 1949 until 1990.-Historical background:...
- Deutsche Post of the GDRDeutsche Post of the GDRThe Deutsche Post , also Deutsche Post of the GDR was the state-owned postal and telecommunications monopoly of the German Democratic Republic...