Post office
As a post office (abbreviation PA) was to privatization in Germany and Austria, a local office of the post referred to in a public building, ISO containers or officially rented premises housed. The term also stood for an administrative unit when a postal facility was responsible for certain administrative activities (such as billing) of other postal facilities. Since privatization, the successor to the post offices for the disposal are post offices and for the delivery of the delivery depots . Most post offices today are postal agencies . In the Bundeswehr , post offices abroad ( field post ) are often set up in ISO containers.
Previous tasks of the post offices
Besides the offices and were also the general and technical equipment of post offices - the so-called switch for customer service, the machines and sorting facilities for correspondence and other items , the office of the superintendent, etc. - assigned to the area of public administration. Every post office handles this
- the letter and parcel service (delivering, emptying the letter boxes , etc.) as well as other tasks of the postal service,
- partly also the press distribution and those for advertising (direct mail),
- Tasks of the financial system - especially in the postal check and postal savings service, for the postal savings banks (today mostly as a branch of the Postbank ) and in general for the money transfer service,
- as well as certain tasks in the telecommunications service .
The regional area of a post office is clearly defined and mostly identical to a local parish or, in cities, a district part (former parishes , approx. 5–10,000 inhabitants).
The “new post” in the EU
With the start of privatization (in Western and Central Europe around the mid-1990s) the number of post offices fell (sometimes seriously) and their tasks were now shifting. In the area of the EU , the postal administrations, which have hitherto been mostly state-owned, are subject to various savings programs and are also - if not already done - to be largely privatized in the next few years, with IPOs also planned. The agendas of individual post offices - especially in rural areas - become
- taken over by retailers and private small businesses ,
- or left to other areas or to free competition .
In most countries, privatization goes hand in hand with a division of corporate divisions , e.g. For example, in Germany the Deutsche Bundespost was divided into the following corporate divisions, roughly corresponding to the tasks listed above: Deutsche Post AG , Deutsche Telekom AG and Deutsche Postbank AG .
The post offices from 1875 to 1989
The Reichspost was under the direction of the Reichspostamt as the management authority.
When the Reichspost was founded (1871), in addition to the post office, there were the postal administrations , which emerged from the postal expeditions of the 1st class of the North German Federal Post, the postal expeditions of the 2nd class and the newly created postal agencies, which were mostly formed from small postal expeditions of the 2nd class.
Since January 5, 1875 a distinction has been made between
- Post offices, First Class, a Postmaster as chief
- Post offices 2nd class ( postmaster ), previously postal administrations and
- Post offices III. Class (postal administrator), previously postal expeditions.
Ober-Postamt was in the old German states a name for more important post offices or post offices with powers from district authorities.
In the course of deliveries overland, post offices were added in 1881 . In 1927 branch post offices, mostly former first class post offices, were established. On January 1, 1927, the rural postal service began. A post office was always responsible for the subordinate post offices.
On January 1, 1959, the Deutsche Bundespost published the guidelines on the organization of post offices (V) . With the post offices a distinction was made between the post office with administrative service - Postamt (V) - and the post office. - The post office (V) was an independent office, a lower federal authority. It was headed by a chief officer. The designation post office (V) was only used to differentiate between internal business transactions. The post office essentially corresponds to the previous branch post office in terms of its position and functions . An operations manager was responsible for service at the post office; as a superior, he was authorized to issue instructions and supervise the staff employed at the post office. The organization and legal relationships of the post offices and post offices have not been changed.
Delivery of the post
In the flat countryside, deliveries were often made by bike , and in remote farmsteads in the mountains, sometimes only to places closer to the valley. This topic has found and continues to be represented in various ways in literature and film .
In the 1950s, the motorization of the post offices began, initially often with mopeds , later with signal yellow small cars of the Fiat or Steyr-Puch types , and about two decades ago with larger cars, some of which took over heavier mail pieces up to about 5 kg instead of parcel buses .
Until the 1960s, the post offices in Germany were also called "Postanstalt", while in Austria they were called the post office for short. Even the smallest post offices in their area (e.g. the village and its surroundings) were responsible for morning deliveries (see deliverers ) and mostly also for delivering cash (payments, pensions ). For reasons of organization and security , money mail carriers were sometimes used, and from the 1970s on, private companies were also used for larger sums of money .
Today's job description
Today the post offices - as long as they still exist as public service or post offices after the wave of closings - are referred to as post offices (operated by Deutsche Post) or (in Germany) as post offices (operated by an external service provider).
For the postal workers themselves, this development over the past few decades has essentially resulted in three phases:
- initially "all-round official" (from letter and parcel service to telecommunications and financial services),
- later specialization and takeover of new services,
- and now extensive transition to the private sector .
See also
- Post (disambiguation)
- US Post Office (disambiguation)
- Court Post Office
- Austrian post
- The Swiss Post
- Royal Mail (UK)
literature
- Handheld dictionary of postal services . 2nd Edition. P. 490
- Karl Sautter : Part 1: History of the Prussian Post . According to official sources, edited by Heinrich von Stephan until 1858 . Revised and continued by Karl Sautter until 1868. 1928, pp. 179, 471, 647
- For the 50th anniversary of the Upper Post Office . Berlin 1899
- Brunner: The postal system in Bavaria in its historical development from the beginning to the present . Munich 1900
- Weber: Post and telegraphy in the Kingdom of Württemberg . W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1901
- Postalische Rundschau , 1908, p. 466 ff.
