Postal history of Heilbronn

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The postal history of Heilbronn describes the historical development of the postal system in Heilbronn . In the former imperial city there was a post office of the Imperial Post Office operated by Thurn und Taxis from 1650 . Soon after the city passed to Württemberg in 1803, one of four Württemberg upper post offices was established in Heilbronn, which existed until the post office was nationalized in 1851/52.

history

Establishment of an imperial post office in 1650

The imperial city of Heilbronn had a messenger to transmit messages, which, like elsewhere, also used the butcher's post . The Heilbronn butchers had to keep six horses ready and take documents with them on their trade trips. They and other merchant messengers maintained the connection between the imperial and trading cities. There were also urban and private messengers. As early as the late Middle Ages and early modern times, messages were transmitted without a regulated and networked postal system. One of these only came about through the restoration of the imperial postal service after the Thirty Years' War , when Lamoral Claudius von Thurn und Taxis was supposed to set up new post offices in addition to the older post offices .

In November 1650 a Frankfurt chief postmaster stayed in Heilbronn to found a new post office. Since the Heilbronn city council was skeptical about such an institution, the imperial or Taxis representative had to threaten to complain to the emperor and to make various concessions, such as filling the post of post administrator with a Heilbronn citizen of the post office. The Heilbronn councilor and trader Philipp Eckstein († 1680) was appointed the first post administrator. In the first few years of its existence, the Heilbronn post office was not yet integrated into the four imperial postal routes that existed at that time in what is now Württemberg, but only the destination of extra posts and courier relay. Only when, after the occupation of Strasbourg by France in 1681, the postal connection from Switzerland to Frankfurt was relocated from the Rhine Valley to the southwestern German hinterland, did Heilbronn become a permanent station for a postal route.

In response to complaints from the Heilbronn post office administrator about competing municipal Hallers and noble Hohenlohe messenger courses from Heilbronn to Nuremberg, another imperial postal course from Heilbronn via Schwäbisch Hall and Crailsheim to Dinkelsbühl was set up in 1689. In this context, post offices were established in Öhringen , Hall and Crailsheim . In 1692 a regular long-distance mail course was added from Munich via Dinkelsbühl and Heilbronn to Brussels .

At the same time as the Taxis Post Office, the Württemberg rural post office operated by Johannes Geiger from Stuttgart also ran through Heilbronn from 1682. Thurn und Taxis and the Emperor strongly opposed this post from the beginning, but the imperial city of Heilbronn tolerated it, because for political reasons they did not want to mess with the neighboring Württemberg. The rural post office remained the occasion for diplomatic negotiations between the imperial city, the emperor and the dukes of Württemberg, until Duke Eberhard Ludwig discontinued it in 1715 due to a loss of business.

Expansion of the Thurn and Taxis Post Office in the 18th century

After the death of Johann Friedrich Eckstein in 1692, who had followed his father into the post of post administrator in Heilbronn, the foreigner Christoph Gissibert Altorff was entrusted with the office. In addition to the post administration, Altorff also took over the post office , which had previously been assigned to Heilbronn citizens. For this purpose he rented a room in the Schöntaler Hof . Altdorff gave rise to further lawsuits, as the Heilbronn City Council saw the promise to only entrust Heilbronn citizens with the office broken, and Altorff violated numerous contracts and had irregularities in the accounting, so that he was suspended after 17 years of service in 1709 has been. Philipp Maximilian Scheuerer was followed by another foreigner. The Prince of Thurn und Taxis responded to Heilbronn complaints with harsh references to his civil rights. At least in 1709 the post office came back to the Heilbronn councilor and Adlerwirt Hesser, and later to the Heilbronn family Schmalzigaug.

In addition to the imperial riding posts and butcher posts that were initially in service, four imperial carriages operated in Württemberg for the transport of freight and people. The first fast and comfortable mail wagons came into use around 1750. The first of these postal courses that touched the city led from Nuremberg via Rothenburg , Langenburg , Heilbronn and Durlach to Strasbourg. From 1755 this course ran via Kirchberg and Hall instead of Langenburg and Künzelsau , which ended the messenger course from Hall , which had already been perceived as competition over 60 years earlier. In 1765 Heilbronn was firmly integrated into a high-performance postal service company: daily posts to Frankfurt, Heidelberg, Schwetzingen, Mannheim, Nuremberg, Augsburg, Ulm, Cannstatt, Stuttgart, Ludwigsburg, Bruchsal, Kehl, Durlach, Bretten and Eppingen, five times a week to Crailsheim , Öhringen, Fürstfeld and Ansbach, four times a week to Hall and Offenburg, three times a week to Besigheim and Sinsheim, and twice a week to Künzelsau, Rothenburg, Obernzenn, Blaufelden and Langenburg.

While the network of postal rates expanded, the administration of the Heilbronner Post was in trouble. The last postmaster from the Adami family, who held the office for three generations, was in arrears for years with the accounts and piled up debts of 6,000 guilders. His successor Reinöhl († 1828) was bedridden, so that the post office was unsupervised for over ten years and reports of alcoholic postal workers, neglected business premises and inadequate accounts piling up. The roads used by the postal service were often in a mess. In 1763, postmaster Adami complained about the almost impassable condition of the road from Heilbronn to Bietigheim, which, however, was not repaired, so that in 1770 the postman in Kirchheim on the way gave up the post office. In 1789, the postman Schmalzigaug counted the route from Heilbronn to Öhringen to "the worst that can be found in the Roman Empire." The poor condition of the routes in the area around Heilbronn was partly due to the Württemberg policy, which tied mail transport in the inland of Württemberg instead To lose postage and customs income to the imperial city of Heilbronn.

Transition to Württemberg 1803 and Oberpostamt 1806 to 1852

In 1803, Heilbronn fell to Württemberg as part of the compensation for lost areas on the left bank of the Rhine. The Reichsdeputationshauptschluss had provided for the continuation of the Thurn-und-Taxis postal system, but the Württemberg Duke Friedrich took over the postal system in 1804. When further areas came to Württemberg in 1806, the Württemberg postal system was reorganized and Heilbronn became the seat of an upper post office to which the post offices in Backnang, Blaufelden, Brackenheim, Crailsheim, Fürfeld, Hall, Kirchberg, Künzelsau, Langenburg, Mergentheim and Öhringen were subordinate. After the Congress of Vienna in 1819, the Prince of Thurn und Taxis received the office of Württemberg heir state postmaster, so that in Württemberg and thus in Heilbronn, the Thurn-und-Taxis-Post actually ran the business again before the Württemberg post was nationalized again in 1851 . In 1852 the Württemberg postal structure was reformed, whereby the Oberpostamt in Heilbronn was abolished and the Heilbronn post office was only assigned to the city and the surrounding area in future.

Post offices in Heilbronn

After the first post administrators had probably still carried out their work in their homes, the post office in Heilbronn under postmaster Altorff moved to the Schöntaler Hof around 1700 . In 1804, Postmaster Adami rented further adjoining premises from the Teutonic Order , but was immediately given notice due to outstanding rent. The post then moved to the Falken inn of the post office owner Schmalzigaug, who was related to Fischer by marriage, where the post office could only be operated for two years, as the choice of the building was more a favor among relatives than the actual structural suitability of the property was owed. The post then moved to the former Kraichgau archive on Heilbronn harbor market. An adjacent garden plot served as a carriage house for the mail cars.

In 1854 a post office was built at the old station , as the travel times of the coaches and the postal routes were largely based on the railway timetables. From 1874 to 1876 a representative main post office was built on the Neckar , in 1906 the post office no. 2 at the new train station. In 1931, the Neue Post, a third post office building on the avenue, was built after the main post office on the Neckar was destroyed during the air raid on Heilbronn during World War II. In addition, some branches such as the peace post were established . Since 1991, mail in Heilbronn has mainly been handled in a newly built post office near the train station.

  • from 1812 to 1854 the former Kraichgau archive was a post office building

  • Old train station and post office in Heilbronn around 1855

  • The main post office on the Neckar around 1900

  • Post Office No. 2 at the main train station

  • The Neue Post an der Allee , built in 1930/31

  • The post office at the main train station, built in 1991

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sinzinger 1984, p. 34.

literature

  • Friedrich Sinzinger: Heilbronn postal history up to the introduction of the postage stamp in 1851 (= Heilbronn museum booklet 10), Heilbronn 1984
  • Karl Greiner: On the history of the Heilbronner Post. In: Württembergische Postgeschichte , issue 28/1992
  • Uwe Wernert: The Christmas mail will leave the new house. Yellow messengers are moving . In: Heilbronn voice . No. 155 , July 10, 1989, pp. 15 .