Deutsche Reichspost

The Deutsche Reichspost, usually shortened to Reichspost, was the postal service of Germany from 1871 to 1945. It took shape out of the postal authority of the North German Confederation and the Prussian purchase of the Thurn und Taxis postal organisation, and after unification it became a state monopoly, with Heinrich von Stephan as its postmaster general. Under the Weimar Republic the old Reichspostamt became a ministry, and in 1924 the service was spun off again as a state-owned enterprise. Its reach grew with the Saar in 1935, Austria in 1938 and the Sudetenland, and in the Nazi period it installed the first public videophone. Postal codes arrived in 1941, and its Feldpost carried the mail of the armed forces. The Reichspost ceased to function in May 1945; the Deutsche Bundespost in West Germany and the Deutsche Post in East Germany took over its work.