[..] Please contribute your own images of the 19th century Post Offices, and share your opinion on the above. (Post Offices only please)
The following photo image shows the "middle avant-corps of the main facade of the Frankfurt post office", opened 1891. First known publication year of this photo image 1898, photographer unknown.
Published in 1898, this photo image shows the side view of this frontage towards the road
Zeil, by photographer and author Max Junghändel.
Hauptpost Frankfurt am Main – Wikipedia
- "The main post office had its own connection to the Frankfurt am Main tramway. The postal streetcar was operated from here. The access track to the main post office branched off on the Zeil and led through the portal of the post office building into the inner courtyard. There was a turning loop with an overtaking track. Also in the inner courtyard was a separate two-track car shed for six railcars with its own workshop. A total of 460 meters of track were laid out in the inner courtyard." (dto.)
Before stating my opinion, some more historical background as purported in Wikipedia:
- "The Thurn-und-Taxis Post was a private postal service and the successor to the Imperial Reichspost of the Holy Roman Empire. The Thurn-und-Taxis Post was operated by the Princely House of Thurn and Taxis between 1806 and 1867. The company was headquartered in Regensburg from its creation in 1806 until 1810 when it relocated to Frankfurt am Main where it remained until 1867. [..] Members of the Rothschild banking dynasty were involved in funding parts of the system in the last years of the Napoleonic Wars and the immediate years that followed. [..]" (Wikipedia (english): Thurn-und-Taxis Post)
- "The Palais Thurn und Taxis in Frankfurt remained the seat of the General Post Office Directorate until 1867." (Wikipedia (german): Palais Thurn und Taxis, compare to: Wikipedia (english): Palais Thurn und Taxis)
- "In 1894, the Reichstag decided to acquire the Palais Thurn und Taxis, since telegraphy and, from 1881, telephony had been added to the tasks, so that a different basis was now given for the further execution of the courtyard buildings of the post office." (dto.)
- "However, the Palais Thurn und Taxis proved unsuitable for postal purposes and was therefore sold on to the city of Frankfurt in 1905, which housed a museum for ethnology." (dto.)
So, PTB are telling us: to have a suitable area for buildings needed to managed the "postal challenges of the late 19th century", this "Hauptpost Frankfurt am Main" was erected, by fusing together two former hotels, instead of using the Palais Thurn und Taxis, which was considered unsuitable.
Who managed the postal challenges of the 19th century?
- "On 1 August 1808, the Kingdom of Bavaria placed the postal system under its government's control. The Grand Duchy of Baden followed suit on 2 August 1811. After Karl Theodor Anton Maria von Dalberg ceded Regensburg to Bavaria in 1810, the House of Thurn and Taxis relocated the headquarters of its postal operations to Frankfurt am Main." (Wikipedia (english): Thurn-und-Taxis Post)
This is the beginning of what nowadays would be called a
public-private partnership.
- "Under the German Federal Act, the postal systems of the Grand Duchy of Hesse, the duchies of Nassau, Saxe-Weimar, Saxe-Meiningen, and Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the principalities of Reuss and Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, the free cities of Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg, Bremen, and Lübeck, the principalities of Hohenzollern-Hechingen, Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, Lippe-Detmold and Schaumburg-Lippe were placed under the now privately operated Thurn-und-Taxis Post. The seat of the post's headquarters in Frankfurt am Main was confirmed on 20 May 1816. [..] On 27 July 1819, the Kingdom of Württemberg transferred the ownership and management of its state postal system to the Thurn-und-Taxis Post due to its inability to pay its compensation owed to the House of Thurn and Taxis." (dto.)
Using this "public-private partnership" Thurn und Taxis post executed a hostile takeover of all relevant postal services in the german kingdoms, duchies, free cities and completed it within 21 years.
- "After the Prussian victory in the Austro-Prussian War, the Prussians occupied the Free City of Frankfurt and the Thurn-und-Taxis Post's headquarters. The Thurn-und-Taxis Post transferred its postal system contracts to the Prussian state for the sum of three million Thaler after a contract was signed and ratified on 28 January 1867. The handover of control of the postal system took place on 1 July 1867. The last Post Director General of the Thurn-und-Taxis Post in Frankfurt was Eduard von Schele zu Schelenburg." (dto.)
In 1867 the Rothe Haus, which would later be fused together in order to make place for the new "Hauptpost" building, became the residence of the Prussian Chief Postal Directorate, which understood itself not as a private company anymore, but as a federal post service.
- "The Rothe Haus, located on the Zeil, had been the residence of the Prussian Oberpostdirektion since 1867. It was re-clad in 1879 and combined with the neighboring Weinhaus Drexel and Russischer Hof into a single post office building between 1887 and 1892."
Opinion:
When reading and re-reading these "historical" records I can't get rid of this feeling of betrayal, that sometimes manifests as a weird smell. How could they start making plans for this "Hauptpost" already in 1893, considering the "challenges of communications" of telegraphy (1876) and telephony (1881), and then in 1894 acquire the old Palais, which then turns out to be unsuitable and gets sold?
What if, beginning in
1808, if we stay with the given year numbers, not the postal service was taken over by the state, but instead the postal service was taking over the domains and territories of the complete hierarchy of the german empire?
The private part of this partnership not only successfully executed the mission, but also sold the resulting organization back to the public principal for an insanely high amount of money, just to invest this money again into something else.
I feel this is a major precursor to the first world war and an also a major structural characteristic of the
third catastrophe according to
Vilém Flusser:
Flusser presents a division of the history of humankind into
three great catastrophes:
humanization,
civilization and a third catastrophe, still nameless. This last one that is occurring now will turn humankind back to nomadism. Wind, the desert, granules and emptiness become again decisive categories for the communicative behavior of humankind, already perceivable through photography and technical images. Things and their materiality lose in value, non-things and their immateriality gain in value. (Source:
non-things | Flusser Studies)
Postal service, telecommunications and lastly, the Internet are, strictly speaking, means to manage non-things (some more on what things and non-things are supposed to mean here:
Link).
Those Thurn und Taxis guys and whoever helped them took
all the things of this time, in exchange for the duty of dealing with
all the non-things (telecommunications) of the state in a kind of robbery takeover, then built this kind of narcisstic palace of beauty, which also had the 2nd purpose of serving as the headquarter of the main hostile takeover organization.
Also, in this "opinion" part, as my last sentence: I would like to point out a piece of literature: "The Crying of Lot 49", a 1966 novel by Thomas Pynchon (W.A.S.T.E. == "we await silently tristero's empire").
