German Post in China

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Parcel card dated June 16, 1896, issued at the German Post Office in Shanghai

The establishment of the German post office in China was made necessary by the establishment of the Reich-supported imperial mail steamer line to East Asia.

German post offices

Post office and Imperial Post Office in Tsingtau (Kiautschou) on a postcard, around 1910

With the first mail steamer a post office official was sent to Shanghai ( Shanghai ), who set up a German post office there on August 16, 1886 . In December 1896 it was named Post Office .

A post office was set up at the consulate in Tientsin ( Tianjin ) in October 1889 . It was converted into a post office on April 1, 1893 and a German post office in June 1900.

Another Imperial German Consulate was in Tschifu ( Yantai ). In Tschifu there was a German post office since June 1, 1892, which was also converted into a post office in June 1900.

An expansion of the German postal service in China was due to the acquisition of the Kiautschou lease area by the German Reich and the turmoil of 1900. The agency in Tsingtau (Kiautschou), which had existed since 1898, was converted into a post office on June 1, 1900.

On September 11, 1900, the German post office was set up in Beijing. Further German post offices in the Yangtze region were opened on April 1, 1900 in Hankau ( Hankou ) and on October 28, 1901 in Tschingkiang ( Zhenjiang ). In southern China a post office was set up in June 1900 in Futschau ( Fuzhou ) and in 1902 in Amoy ( Xiamen ) and Canton ( Guangzhou ).

The growing importance of the German post in East Asia led to the establishment of a German post office in Shanghai in 1901, responsible for China including Kiautschou.

In 1903 the trade required the establishment of post offices in the river ports of Nanking ( Nanjing ) and Itschang ( Yichang ). On April 1, 1904 , a German post office was opened in Tsinanfu ( Jinan ), at the end of the Shantung Railway . In Tschingtschoufu and Tschontsun ( Zibo ), on the railway line, there had been post offices since 1903.

The last German postal service to be added was Swatau ( Shantou ), a trading city in Guangdong that had been open to European trade since 1869 , and for a short time also Tongku, Weihsin ( Weifang ).

In the following years several post offices were given up again. By March 1917, there were 13 German post offices in China. They all had to be closed after China declared war.

staff

Each of these post offices was headed by a German specialist, sometimes also by field post officers . Chinese were used as auxiliary officers. When war broke out in 1914, 33 specialist officials and 38 Chinese as auxiliary officials, a total of 142 Chinese, were employed by the German post office.

Organization and branches of service

Since its establishment, all German post offices have belonged to the Universal Postal Union, and since 1894 they have been expressly mentioned as members of the Universal Postal Union. With the exception of the mail order service, they took part in all branches of the Universal Postal Treaty and its subsidiary agreements. Since July 1908, domestic German postage was in effect in China as well as in communications with the homeland and other German colonies.

See also

literature

  • Handheld dictionary of postal services .
    • 1st edition; Pp. 179–180 (article by Berthold Brandt, Postrat in Düsseldorf);
    • 2nd Edition; Edited by the Federal Ministry for the Post Office and Telecommunications, Frankfurt (Main) 1953, pp. 197–198.
  • Andersch: The legal status of the foreign, especially the German post offices in Turkey, China and Morocco. R. v. Decker's Verlag (G. Schenk), Berlin 1912.
  • W. Steven: Foreign tariffs for letter and parcel post, 1875-1900. Self-published, Braunschweig 1986.

Web links

Commons : Postal History and Postage Stamps of China  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Joachim Kundler: Connection with the home - the German post in the Kiautschou area. In: Hans-Martin Hinz and Christoph Lind (eds.): Tsingtau - A Chapter of German Colonial History in China 1897–1914. German Historical Museum, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-86102-100-5 , p. 134.