No envelope, inexpensive, perfect for short messages — 150 years ago, the first postcard was dispatched in Germany. The medium was enthusiastically adopted.
Germany's first-ever postcard shows an image of a man with a cannon (upper left) - signaling the looming Franco-Prussian warImage: picture-alliance/akg-images
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The postcard widely believed to be the first to ever be sent on its way in Germany is a card with a small picture of a soldier. August Schwartz, a bookseller in the northern German city of Oldenburg, sent it to a relative in Magdeburg on July 16, 1870, shortly before the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War.
However, it is not entirely certain whether Schwartz' card was really the very first, according to Veit Didczuneit, head of collections at the Berlin Museum for Communication. "No one has seen this postcard for a long time, it needs to be examined more closely," he told Germany's KNA news agency.
Whichever came first, 150 years ago, Germans were wary of the new medium that would go on to be immensely popular all over the world. They worried that "servants could read messages sent to their masters" and that the art of letter-writing would fall by the wayside, Didczuneit said.
Greetings from….
A few years earlier, Heinrich von Stephan, a German postal reformer who founded the Museum of Communication in Berlin, had been an outspoken advocate of the postcard. At the 1865 Austro-German Postal Conference, he proposed establishing the "Postblatt" (open post sheet), but the idea was rejected.
It was the Austro-Hungarian postal authorities who first adopted the concept. The governmental "correspondence card" was introduced there in 1869, marking the official beginning of a new form of communication.
150 years of postcards
A Berlin exhibition revisits the 150-year history of postcards in Germany. Here's a selection from the turn of the 20th century.
Image: Museum für Kommunikation Berlin
The world's first official postcard
German postal reformer Heinrich von Stephan had suggested to introduce the "Postblatt," or open post sheet, as a cheap alternative to letters in 1865. But critics weren't ready to lose the privacy of their correspondence. Similar cards had already been sent in the US and the UK, but the "correspondence card" format was officially introduced by the Austro-Hungarians on October 1, 1869.
Image: Museum für Kommunikation Berlin
Flooded by postcards
Despite the critics' worries, the German public enthusiastically adopted the postcard. On the day they were introduced in Berlin, on June 25, 1870, over 45,000 copies were sold. In 1885, images were officially allowed on postcards. This postcard from 1900 depicts how the new medium was all the rage: Nearly a billion postcards were sent from the German Empire that year.
Image: Museum für Kommunikation Berlin
An actual snapshot
This postcard from 1905 shows a postboy delivering mail to a post box, accompanied by his delivery bike. Not only lithographic drawings served as templates for postcards, but also photographs. The standardized format also incited people to collect them in albums — especially when they came from an admirer, such as this card, written to a woman with whom the author spent "hours in love."
Image: Museum für Kommunikation Berlin
Quick delivery
This card was sent from Egypt's Port Said in 1899. A week later, traveling by steamboat and by train, it had already reached its destination, the northern German city of Schwerin. The first images on postcards were designed to leave space for the message. In 1905, the address side of the card was divided in two: From then on, the message was written on the left side and the address on the right.
Image: Museum für Kommunikation Berlin
Brave new world
Remember how the media spread the Millennium Bug hysteria as we approached the year 2000? Instead of such anxiety, this postcard from 1900 celebrated with quasi-surreal optimism the turn of the century: Shown in the background of this sunny new age is a telegraph line, a train, a steamboat and smoking factory chimneys, while the young prophetic character holds a palm branch, a symbol of peace.
Image: Museum für Kommunikation Berlin
Military echoes
As we however know, it wouldn't be a century of peace. In 1898, it was a privilege to watch a military parade led by Kaiser Wilhelm II, and that was something to write home about. The author of this card mentions that he even had the chance to meet the emperor himself.
Image: Museum für Kommunikation Berlin
News from the field
This picture postcard from 1906 shows the happy reactions of soldiers as they receive a package or a letter. It also provides a form to quickly fill out news on one's heath / hunger / thirst / wallet. Postcards were already extremely popular during the Franco-German War in 1870-71, and soldiers sent some 10 billion field postcards during the First World War — all free of charge.
Image: Museum für Kommunikation Berlin
The latest crash
Just like we might share photos of tragedies we've witnessed or that affect us on social media today, picture postcards of dramatic events were also quickly printed to be sent out to the world. This one shows the site of the accident of a "terrible catastrophe on an elevated railway in Berlin on September 26, 1908."
Image: Museum für Kommunikation Berlin
Building myths
Wilhelm Voigt was a conman who dressed up as a Prussian military officer and convinced a group of soldiers to follow his command and rob a municipal treasury in Köpenick. Even the kaiser found his caper so impressive that he pardoned him before the end of his prison sentence. "The Captain of Köpenick" became a folk hero through plays, a figure in the wax museum — and postcards such as this one.
Image: Museum für Kommunikation Berlin
Beyond Art Nouveau
Austrian artist Raphael Kirchner was renowned for his Art Nouveau works, such as this one from 1904. But with his depictions of women in erotic poses, he was also an influential painter in the pin-up genre. European and American soldiers would collect such postcards during World War I. During World War II, people increasingly preferred to send their news in sealed letters instead of postcards.
Image: Museum für Kommunikation Berlin
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Predecessor to messages and Instagram
In 1872, sending a postcard in Germany cost just half the postage of a standard letter, which contributed greatly to its popularity. In large cities, there were several mail deliveries a day, meaning that a greeting card would often reach the recipient within a few hours. People could also send a double card that included a prepaid answer card, which is how it became a widespread format for quick greetings and conveying appointments, much like today's text messages.
"In 1885, the picture postcard was officially approved in Germany; before that, the postal service had merely tolerated it for years," Didczuneit said. In the 1890s, the discovery of chromolithography made multi-colored prints possible.
Picture postcards were particularly popular between 1895 and 1914 and generated lucrative profits for the publishers. During World War I alone, about ten billion free field postcards were sent, including many picture postcards.
Postcards were a fast seller
According to Didczuneit, the illustrations on the cards were initially all about "leaning about the world." Picture postcards at the turn of the century covered popular sights and travel highlights, holiday and wedding greetings, various topics of gossip, as well as excitement over the latest technological developments or natural disasters.
Back in 1900, the postal service carried far more cards than it does today — about one billion. In 1982 the number of postcards sent amounted to 877 million, but by 2018 tht number had dropped considerably, to 155 million. With current travel warnings and restraints in place during the coronavirus pandemic, the downward trend is likely to continue during the 2020 summer vacation period.
