Court Post Office (Berlin)

Altes Hofpostamt Berlin around 1760 (Poststrasse 1 building), on a GDR stamp from 1987 for Philatelic Day

The court post office in Berlin existed from June 15, 1700 to August 25, 1919. The name was derived from the main postal function for the royal court . After the First World War it was renamed Postamt 1 in Berlin C ("PA 1 in Berlin C") . Berlin C stood for Berlin Centrum, which today corresponds to Berlin-Mitte . The post office was on the area between Spandauer, Königs-, Heiliggeist- and Kleine Poststraße in Spandauer Straße 13/14 (today about the eastern quarter of the Marx-Engels-Forum ). The approximately 12,000 m² complex initially consisted of several individual buildings, which were bought one after the other by the post office and replaced by a new building in 1882.

The Hofpostamt was the center of the postal money traffic in the Reich capital Berlin. On October 1, 1930, it was taken over by the "Post Office C 2" as a result of organizational measures. The building complex suffered severe damage during the Second World War . In April 1950, Deutsche Post planned to relocate to Block C 2. This did not happen, but the slightly damaged letter post office along Heiligegeiststrasse continued to serve the post office. In the course of the redesign of the city center, the building erected between 1899 and 1902 was blown up in 1971 to create a large park, later the Marx-Engels-Forum .

tasks

The following services were offered in the court post office:

1. Acceptance of postal orders and payment cards , registered and insured letters , ordinary and registered postal parcels , unsealed and sealed valuables parcels ;
2. Delivery of postal and payment orders, insured letters, cash on delivery items and postal orders in the district of the letter post office as well as of sealed parcels for the municipality of Berlin ;
3. Issue of postal and payment orders as well as letters of value for people collecting from the district of the letter post office, of sealed value parcels for people collecting money from the municipality of Berlin (exception: Reichsbank );
4. Receipt of insured letters (removal of cards and handling) for all insured letters and pieces of valuables sent to Alt-Berlin. After de-carding, the insured letters are sent to the mail delivery offices, as are the insured letters and pieces of value pouches to be processed in transit, i.e. those to be sent on;
5. Compensation of the cash transactions of the post offices of the Oberpostdirektionsbezirks Berlin through a money collection point.

history

When Elector Friedrich Wilhelm founded the Brandenburg State Post in 1646 , he also set up an Electoral Post Office in Berlin. It was initially housed in the Berlin City Palace. However, the room soon became too small as a result of the expansion of the post office facilities. In 1683 the post office moved together with the administration of the state posts to a house bought for this purpose near the Long Bridge . The street in which it was now was given the name “ Poststraße ” and the post office was given street number 1.

Alte Post in 1890 (formerly Palais Wartenberg)

In 1712, the Wartenberg Palace on the Long Bridge was taken over by the Royal Court Post Office, now called Neue Post. The Alte Post on Poststrasse was used as the residence of the postmaster general until the 19th century.

On June 15, 1700, the post office was named "Hofpostamt". At that time, the incoming mail had to be picked up by the post office, which was associated with many inconveniences for the post office and the public. This led to the employment of the first postmen in 1712 . In 1719, delivery was extended to include parcels. The first mailbox appeared in 1766 and was set up in the corridor of the court post office "for the leisurely time of the correspondents and to facilitate their correspondence" . The “Posthof”, founded in 1705 in Oranienburger Strasse, was also subordinate to the Hofpostamt, where the stables, wagon sheds and postillion apartments were located (see Postfuhramt ). After the battle of Jena and Auerstedt in 1806, the court post office came under French administration until 1812. From 1809, the Black Cabinet , infamous by the French, was also housed, in which 2,000 letters were secretly opened and closed again every day.

The court post office at Königstrasse 60 in 1835 (formerly Palais Grumbkow)

In 1816 the court post office relocated to the post office in Spandauer and Königstrasse. Even though it was given larger rooms there, its facilities on the whole were soon no longer sufficient for the mail traffic of the rapidly expanding capital (1700: 28,500 inhabitants, 1800: 172,000 inhabitants; 1826: 225,000 inhabitants). The postal administration therefore had to decide to expand its operations. On December 1, 1827, she set up 62 so-called “letter collections”, which were distributed all over the city, housed with merchants and the like, and placed under the “City Post Office Expedition of the Court Post Office”, which was founded on the same day. This received a special position within the scope of the court post office inasmuch as it was given its own staff and the head of the court post office could not transfer these officials arbitrarily. The "letter collections", which were marked on the outside by a sign "Royal Letter Collection No. ..." , initially only accepted ordinary city letters, later also city letters with cash deposits as well as letters to the outside, stamped and sent them to the city mail expedition six times a day. As compensation, the owners received 3 pfennigs for every letter accepted.

The operation of the court post office grew more and more. In 1831 it had a main cash desk, a city post expedition, a de-mapping expedition, a mail acceptance department, a money expedition, a packing chamber expedition, a major defeat and nine de-mapping expeditions, which were gradually increased to 13. In addition, there was a letter issue, special expeditions for the acceptance of people, for extra items and Estafetten , for the things of the royal house and a money expedition.

The opening of the railway made it necessary to set up station expeditions, which were subordinated to the court post office. They started their activity:

• 1838 at the Potsdamer Bahnhof
• 1841 at the Anhalter Bahnhof
• 1842 at the Frankfurt and Stettiner train stations as well
• 1846 at the Hamburger Bahnhof

In addition, nine foreign postal expeditions (in Zehlendorf , Altlandsberg , Werneuchen , Bernau , Biesenthal , Groß-Schönau , Cöpenick , Zossen and Charlottenburg ) were assigned to the court post office. The number of letter collections had increased to 77. With the increasing volume of business, the number of officials at the court post office also increased. While around 30 civil servants were on duty in 1831, 127 civil servants were already employed in 1848 (including the court postmaster), to which 307 sub-civil servants and 51 postillions came. A total of 485 people are given in the court post office for the year. Of these, around 150 were accounted for by the city post expedition, the head of which had already received the title of "Post Director" a year earlier in 1847. He had to report directly to the General Post Office. These reports were first to be submitted to the court postmaster, who could add comments or give his "vidi". Orders from the General Post Office to the City Post Office were communicated to the Court Post Office for information.

On January 1, 1850, with the reorganization of the Prussian postal system , Berlin received a senior post office and the head of the court post office was also head post office director while retaining his title of "court postmaster". So he was district chief and office manager rolled into one. His office was called "Cabinet" and processed, among other things, the mail items of the royal house . The nine external expeditions were branched off from the court post office and placed under the new head post office in Potsdam . On May 1, 1851, the collections of letters were removed from the area of ​​responsibility. They were replaced by eight new city post expeditions with the following tasks: selling stamps , primarily postage stamps but also, for example, exchange tax stamps . Acceptance of ordinary letters and letters with cash deposits or with a stated value of up to 100  thalers , emptying of the letter boxes, stamping and sending of letters, handling of the postman and city postman. Registered, recruited letters have only been accepted since 1853. The new expeditions came under the direction of the Stadtpostexpedition of the Hofpostamt, which was given the name "Centralstadtpostexpedition" and number 1 on this occasion.

The greatly expanded traffic of the court post office forced a division of the official business. On July 1, 1859, it was divided into three sections:

• Department I: The Central City Postal Expedition with its “branches”, the City Postal Expeditions and the expeditions to the railway stations were organized under the direction of a Postal Council.
• Department II: under the direction of a postal inspector, all acceptance and handling points.
• Department III: the de-mapping and issuing offices under the direction of a post office cashier.

The three officers were given the authority, disciplinary authority and responsibility of a post office manager. All that remained for the chief post director was to lead the cabinet expedition. On May 17, 1862, the city mail expeditions, whose powers had meanwhile been expanded several times, were converted into independent post offices and placed directly under the authority of the Berlin Post Office. The court post office experienced a further downsizing on January 1, 1864 through the conversion of the local packing chamber, which had already been relocated to Oranienburger Strasse on December 1, 1863, as well as the de-mapping expedition for local transport mail and the handling of parcel delivery trips, which were then called "invoice trips", into an independent city post expedition No. 24, furthermore the central city post expedition into an independent city post office under the name "Capital Post Expedition". As a result of these measures, the three departments of the court post office could be merged into one again. In September 1864, a new collection point for warehouse shipments was opened under the name “Postrestantebureau”. In February 1865, the administration of stamps for the entire OPD district of Berlin was added under the name "Postanweisungsbureau" and in November 1867 a naval post office was added.

In 1877 the court post office had to hand over some offices to the city post office (the former capital post office expedition), a process that was repeated in 1890. In 1895 the management of stamps was transferred from the court post office to the Reichsdruckerei . In 1901 the Hofpostamt took over the processing and delivery of mail orders and cash on delivery from the letter post office (the former city post office), but a few months later ceded the post office to the letter post office. After that, there were no major changes in the duties of the court post office. After the First World War , the more than 200-year-old name had to be changed due to the proclamation of the republic in PA 1 in Berlin C on August 25, 1919. After repeated economic tests, the insured letter and parcel service was reorganized in 1930, insofar as it was handled by PA C1. The main organizational change consisted in the fact that

1. the station post offices (N4, O17, NW40, SW77) have been assigned the value package delivery in certain districts of old Berlin ,
2. the incoming and outgoing insured letters and pieces of value pouches have been processed at the station post offices, disabling PA C1,
3. the delivery of the insured letters to the delivery offices and the collection of the insured letters and value parcels by the station post offices within their district.

The measures taken made it appear expedient to reallocate the remaining services of post office C1 to post office C2. On October 1, 1930, it was taken over by post office C2 with its branch post office 76, while the new tasks were transferred to the station post offices on March 1, 1931.

Building

The buildings on the post office property from Königstrasse no. 60 to Spandauerstrasse no. 19-22, in which at the end of the 1870s the head post office was still located, and the general post office, the court post office and the city post office were housed, have proven inadequate and inexpedient for years with the increased volume of traffic. The partly ancient labyrinth-like buildings should therefore gradually give way to new buildings worthy of the postal institute and the imperial capital, and the many narrow, angled courtyards were to be combined into a single large courtyard, which would provide sufficient space for the numerous mail wagons that operate there.

The eight operating points that existed for monetary transactions in the courtyard post office and were previously often separated from each other by several courtyards had been housed together in a new courtyard building since December 1, 1876, in which a central skylight room formed the large common counter hall for the money, Value and postal order acceptance and issuing offices formed. The first section of another building after Spandauer Straße was completed in autumn 1878. This was intended for the parcel traffic of the court post office and in the upper rooms for the time being to the offices of the Oberpostdirektion .

Predecessor structures

Note: The data are taken from a publication that has only appeared in a few copies and which was given to the then (1878) Chief Post Director in Berlin, Secret Chief Post Councilor Gustav Adolf Sachse (1834–1903), on the occasion of his 50th anniversary with the association for the history of Berlin has been dedicated.

The Grumbkow Palace around 1725

The outward appearance of the house at Königstrasse No. 60 already indicated a venerable age and an eventful history and was one of the few monumentally designed residential buildings in Berlin that had been preserved in their original form and furnishings. In 1724 the house was bought by the Royal Lieutenant General and Real Secret Budget and War Councilor, Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Grumbkow , was rebuilt by Martin Böhme and retained the name of its builder for a long time after it had already been transferred to other ownership. The facade was made of plaster and decorated with ancient figures and decorations. An ancient balcony emerged above the vaulted main entrance, supported by four Doric columns and surmounted by Ionic pilasters , which served as bases for a mighty coat of arms on which the coat of arms of the builder's family was carved until the building was taken over by the postal administration. The arching of the ground floor was calculated for centuries. Wide staircases, the spatial development inside as well as the stucco work still preserved in the 1870s and the mirrors embedded in the wall preserve the building's elegant character.

From 1750 to 1799 it was in the hands of various silk manufacturers who expanded the property by adding factory rooms, pleasure houses, greenhouses and greenhouses. Then it went to the confectioner Schoch , who set up an elegantly furnished confectionery shop in the ground floor , where the post office letters were handed out, and soon knew how to make it the meeting point of the Berlin fine world of that time.

When at the beginning of the 19th century the premises of the "old post office" on the corner of Königstrasse and Poststrasse proved to be more and more inadequate, Schoch repeatedly offered his house to Postmaster General Johann Friedrich von Seegebarth for 60,000 thalers. It was not until 1815 that the situation allowed accepting the offer. The front house was in the main floor intended for housing for the postmaster general and set the lower rooms and the back building and simultaneously bought houses in Spandau road for the postal service.

Of the other buildings on the property, which were gradually purchased by the postal administration in 1815, 1826, 1833 and 1841 and redesigned for the purposes of the same at the lowest possible cost, only Field Marshal Sparre's house at Spandauer Strasse No. 21.

The first documented information about the same can be found in the archive of the General Post Office from 1599, in which Elector Joachim Friedrich acquired the house of the von Arnim brothers through inheritance. In 1658 Field Marshal Otto Christian von Sparre appears as the definitive owner of the house, which he gave away to the Barons von Blumenthal in May 1668 . Soon after the Field Marshal's death, the grateful heirs had him put up a memorial plaque in the garden of the house. It was removed from the garden in 1815 when the house was combined with von Grumbkow 's and attached to the wall of the back building at the height of the first floor in the wall, where it remained until the new building of the money hall. Since then it has been kept in the Märkisches Museum.

The house was sold in 1732 to the real secret budget and conducting minister Adam Otto von Viereck , who also acquired the house at Spandauer Strasse 22 and had both of them expanded to suit the taste of the time.

The protective Jew Moses Isaac, who later owned house No. 21, built a synagogue in the back building in 1774 . The cashier of the General-Postkasse still had individual characteristic features in the 1870s.

The changeful fate has transformed the homes of proud patrician families into places of restless work in the service of trade and industry. Three storeys high, built according to a uniform plan in the Renaissance style, the new buildings give the impression of a rare solidity due to the happy distribution of the masses, the strict architectural forms and the harmonious coordination in the colors of the excellent materials used. Wide doorways, high, light-filled windows, powerfully protruding sandstone cornices, sensible motifs and relationships with the Reich and the Post enliven the whole and the details.

New building

In 1874, work began on the new building of the Berlin Oberpostdirektion at Königstrasse 60 and Spandauer Strasse 19-22. The new building, completed in 1878, housed the business premises of the Hofpostamt (HPA), the letter post office (BPA), the general post office, the telephone exchange V and the office apartments of the Chief Postal Director, the heads of the HPA and BPA as well as those of some sub-officials. The plans for the gradual renovation and new building from 1866 by government and building officer Carl Schwatlo were not carried out. It was only in the new era of postal administration that the construction of a completely new building according to the information and drafts of the construction department under government councilor August Kind became a reality. The execution was entrusted to the Postrat Wilhelm Tuckermann (1840-1919).

Since the beginning of 1877, one could see a splendid building made of red brick on the post office property in Königstrasse through the entrance on the left. This three-story building had a front of twelve windows and contained a passage at both ends. The entrances to the counter hall were next to the passageways. This hall took up most of the inner building. It was a hall that, due to the light falling from above, with its beautiful stone floor in large mosaic, with its slender Doric and Corinthian columns , with its gallery running around half its height with its large switch windows occupying both sides at the bottom, calmly and moderately Viewer acted. In the middle there were two double desks intended for use by the public. Money transactions with the public were arranged here. The counters for postal orders, cash letters and value parcels were located here, as well as three cash dispensing points for value letters, value parcels and value items in stock. The rooms behind the counter windows are partly set up as workplaces, partly separated from each other by appropriately installed lattice walls and set up as storage rooms for valuables. The lattice rooms facing the front served as the acceptance point. On the opposite side of the building was the passage grille for the through and for the value car pieces received from the acceptance point. A gallery leads to around 20 rooms, some of which are connected to one another and belong to different departments of the court post office. All rooms were provided with good ventilation.

The street front of the new building showed sandstone facing for the heavily cuboid ground floor and the same material in the window frames and architectural parts of the upper floors. The surfaces were made of yellowish facing stones. Sharp, symbolic male heads formed the keystone of the wide arches above the door and the windows of the substructure. A wide sandstone frieze stretched under the main cornice, which contained the magnificent, sublime work of the W of the dynasty of that time , which was entwined with foliage threads and repeated in paragraphs . In its continuation, the building to designate the portal entrances had protruded a little from the alignment in a central projection and was adorned with groups of figures above the risalit . The entire front of the building was 68 meters long.

The courtyard side of the building appeared just as dignified and carefully executed. The surfaces were clad with yellow facing bricks, door and window openings were bordered with red profiled stones. The continuous cornices were made of red-brown sandstone, artificial stones were used for the consoles of the main cornices, the keystones of the round arches and the decoration of the parapet. The friezes and the panels above the doors and the coupled windows were composed of magnificent majolica panels , which stood out effectively in different colors and glazes.

The stone wing of the building, intended for the packing chamber room on the ground floor, ended with a round tower, which inside contained the connecting stairs up to the roof, was adorned on the outside with the coat of arms of the German Empire made of artificial stone and ended in a slim dome.

A similar stair tower with domed roof, crowned with the compass rose and gilded weather vane, completed the completed part of the building. Two entrances and exits or passages for pedestrians have connected to this tower and an identical tower formed the continuation of the main building.

The money hall building was outwardly similar, only more simply decorated. Here too, a richly decorated artificial stone coat of arms with the imperial eagle attached to the gables at the level of the second floor indicated that the building was dedicated to the service of the empire. While large panels with inscriptions in gilded letters at the protruding open main entrances pointed the audience to the destination of the various switches in the traffic hall.

The interior furnishings and decorative equipment of the rooms intended for traffic with the public in both buildings took into account the requirements that the public in important traffic areas was accustomed to and entitled to place on the postal authorities at the time. The size of the halls and workrooms etc. corresponded to the great traffic conditions of the courtyard post office. In order to avoid drafts caused by the temperature differences in the anteroom and workroom, the halls were separated from the anteroom by vestibule doors and the former were heated during the colder months of the year. The devices for heating and ventilation were designed and redesigned according to the latest inventions and should regulate the temperature throughout the building and always be kept fresh. For the functional evening lighting of the workplaces and the general service rooms, sufficient care had been taken in the parcel reception and in the money hall building.

The parcel acceptance took up a large hall, the wide, high ceiling of which was supported by slender Corinthian columns. The room for the public and the work area for the acceptance officers and sub-officials, the bezetters (note: the person who check the parcel labels on the parcel) and the officials who entered the addresses in the parcel acceptance books were only separated by the weighing table, on which one should if possible Eight parcel scales were set up quickly to handle the public . The entire handling of the parcels until they were rolled to the packing chamber by means of wheel baskets lay in front of the delivery person's eyes.

The floor in the room for the audience was covered with clay tiles, the wall surfaces, protected by wooden panels at the bottom, were decorated with plaster stucco at the top and, like the ornate wooden ceiling, richly adorned with saturated colors in soft tones and transitions.

The money hall, which filled the entire height of the first two floors, made a greater impression. Two elegant double-leaf glass doors allowed entry and exit on the two narrow sides with a slight pendulum-like rotation. Between the two door openings, protruding directly from the pillars, two pillars of the Doric order, placed side by side, strut upwards in a closed force and, in combination with similar corner pilasters and the fluted cast iron columns on the long sides, support a balcony-like open colonnade leading around the hall expands into staircases on the gable ends and creates a convenient connection to each individual room on the first floor. The columns of this gallery in Corinthian form with the full leaf capital gave the whole thing, in combination with hanging traffic lights, the impression of the great.

For the handling of the public, in contrast to the parcel acceptance, the system of the counter window in the "most sophisticated form" was used. The functional system also made it easy and convenient to mediate traffic between the public and officials, as it allowed the latter to move freely when performing their duties. An upper pane of each switch was divided into several parts and adjustable inwards at an angle about a horizontal axis, so that in the upper layers of air an air flow was created that was not a nuisance to the officers and the public and natural ventilation was created. In the hall, the two tube systems were surrounded by tasteful wood paneling for warming, which on each narrow side extended in a practical and pleasant way as standing desks for the use of the public and were provided with complete writing utensils.

The coherent location of the offices in the money hall building facilitated the functional interlocking of the various operational sites, which by their nature belonged together, and ensured a clear course of business. The security precautions taken allowed a sharp delimitation of the responsibilities of the individual officers and protected the rooms against forced entry.

The individual switch points were separated by wire mesh walls, which were only broken through in the upper parts, in order to convey the traffic of the officials and sub-officials. The corridors were created by the same, but somewhat lower, wire walls running parallel to the counter wall, so that the officer was locked on all sides, but in turn visible to all colleagues. Only where it was important to keep out the drafts were wooden walls clad with strong iron sheet cladding. The doors are secured everywhere by good, and depending on the circumstances, two different locking means, one key being held by the officer and the other key by the subordinate.

All windows on the ground floor are provided with fixed iron bars on the outside, the projecting doors on the inside with double doors made of solid iron. Two military posts and, during the night, a guard who walked through the money halls every quarter of an hour and had to set a control clock, also took care of the security of the rooms and of all the other buildings on the post office property.

See also

• Postal history and postage stamps of Berlin
• Postal history and postage stamps of Prussia

literature

• Concise dictionary of the postal system :
  • 1st edition from 1926: pp. 292–293 (article by L. Schneider)
  • 2nd edition from 1953: pp. 360–361 (same article as 1st edition with additions)
• Archives for mail and telegraphy
  • 1877/1878: Tropp: The handling of post camp consignments at the court post office in Berlin ; Issue 11, p. 328
  • 1878: CA Schmitt: Berliner Posthäuser ; Issue 17, p. 512
  • 1878: Pennrich: The new money hall of the Hofpostamt in Berlin ; Issue 18, p. 549
  • 1884: p. 97 ff.
  • 1898: p. 504 ff.
• German traffic newspaper :
  • 1877: The court post office in Berlin ; Issue 18, p. 142
  • 1878: Berlin post office ; Booklet 43, p. 338 and Booklet 44, p. 346
  • 1878: The postal order examination office of the Hof Post Office in Berlin ; Issue 45, p. 356
  • 1878: Business facilities at the parcel acceptance of the Hof Post Office in Berlin ; Issue 46, p. 364
  • 1881: The public clearance at the court post office and the city post office in Berlin ; Booklet 6, p. 41 and Booklet 7, p. 49
  • 1890: Business volume and increase in traffic of the Hof Post Office in Berlin ; Issue 19, p. 160; H. 20, p. 168; H. 21, p. 177
  • 1897: Alte Post ; Issue 45, p. 511
  • 1903: Parcel acceptance by the court post office in Berlin ; Issue 43, p. 495
• E. Fiege: Berlin: from the postal history of the former residence and capital ; Kassel, undated
• Hofpostamtsbriefe, 1934
• Ralf Nitschke: Carl Schwatlos Berlin post and telegraph buildings - permanent and worthy ; Ed .: Museum Foundation Post and Telecommunications ; Heidelberg: Ed. Braus, 2003 ISBN 3-89904-052-X
• Fritz Steinwasser: A post office with royal rank ; Briefmarkenspiegel, Göttingen: Philapress, 1991, issue 5, pp. 100-102

Web links

• The Royal Court Post Office as a PDF file (72 kB)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Benedikt Goebel: The conversion of old Berlin to the modern city center, Verlagshaus Braun, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-935455-31-3 , p. 320 f., There also the following
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i} concise dictionary of the postal system; 1st edition; P. 292
3. ^ Heinrich von Stephan, History of the Prussian Post, p. 314
4. ↑ Official Gazette Order No. 91/1931
5. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} DVZ, 2nd year, Berlin, Friday, October 25, 1878, No. 43; P. 338
6. ^ Gernot Ernst, Ute Laur-Ernst: The city of Berlin in printmaking 1570-1870, vol. 2 . 1st edition. Lukas-Verlag, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86732-055-9 , pp. 295 .
7. ↑ ^{a b} DVZ, 2nd year, Berlin, Friday, October 25, 1878, No. 43; P. 339
8. ↑ DBZ: XI. Volume, No. 48; Berlin, Friday, June 9, 1877; P. 237.
9. ↑ DVZ: 1st year, No. 18; Berlin, Friday, May 4, 1877; P. 146.
10. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} DVZ: Volume 2, No. 44; Berlin, Friday, 1878; P. 346
11. ↑ DVZ: Volume 2, No. 44; Berlin, Friday, 1878; P. 347