New publication: "Verbindung halten. (Post)kommunikation unter schwierigen Verhältnissen"

In 1982 the then Federal Minister of Postal Services Kurt Gscheidle stated in a portrait of the Federal Post Office that the postal service was vital, but uninteresting for most people. This statement can also be applied to the historical scholarship's interest in this topic to date. Many analyses of postal history originate primarily from non-university philately. In historical studies, however, philately and postal history are regarded as marginal. This volume looks at the special significance of post(communication) from a historical perspective. For almost all citizens, said Gscheidle, have to deal with the postal service every day. However, people would only perceive the highly complex construct of the postal service if its function, with all its interdependencies, were disturbed.