“Old Post Office” in Kürten
Ute Jülich
Version dated February 18, 2021
The Imperial Post Office
Official postal traffic reached Kürten in 1854 when the country road from Bergisch Gladbach to Wipperfürth was built. At Tannenbaum 1 (Wipperfürther Str. 426), Karl Strack opened a carter's pub with a mail collection point, where the new stagecoach line from Wipperfürth stopped. When the postilion delivered mail, the innkeeper had to ensure that it reached the addressee.
With the founding of the German Reich in 1871, mail traffic was taken over by the state and managed together with the new invention of telegraphy. A dense network of post and telegraph offices developed throughout the country under Reich Post Minister Heinrich von Stephan.
In 1876, the Imperial Post Office was built in Cürten opposite Ahlenbacher Mühle, an important connecting station between the two telegraph lines, one from Wipperfürth and the other from Bensberg. The telegraph poles grew out of the ground along the main road, their wires leading into the counter room of the post office building, where there was a Morse code table at which an official could morse the messages to the next station.
In 1889, the latest development in technology, telephony, was introduced. The 1890 directory of post and telegraph stations in the German Empire states:
"Cürten PA III (third-class post office) - telegraph station with telephone service - telegraph station with limited daytime service -
The local clock is 24 1/2 minutes behind Berlin time"
The Kürten post office is described as the most important station between the post offices in Bergisch Gladbach and Wipperfürth. As you can see in the photograph, the lines have multiplied. The special frame on the roof of the building is particularly striking. It is not an antenna, but the above-ground connection between two telephone lines and was in operation until the 1930s.
An exchange room was created in which "the lady from the office" established the connections between the individual subscribers. Over the years, the exchange was automated and moved to a new building behind the post office until it was abandoned in 1970. All telephone lines in the Kürten area originated from this post office. The expansion of the line network was lengthy and expensive. One of the first telephone lines led to the Alte Amt, Cürten's first town hall (1897).
Anyone who had a telephone was a popular neighbor. For a long time, there were still main and secondary lines, as well as shared lines for "lesser speakers". Public telephones were only available at the post office, in inns or from private individuals who indicated this with a sign. Incidentally, signs and house numbers were put up in the villages from 1896 onwards
Horse changing station
From 1876, the new imperial post office in Cürten became a transfer station for the postal line on the Wipperfürth - Bergisch Gladbach route. The "Zur Mühle" restaurant opposite provided a resting place for the horses and a rest stop for passengers on the daily postal route. Wilhelm Schlürscheid, one of the last postilions from Bergisch Gladbach, tells the story::
"There was an opportunity to travel from Bergisch Gladbach to Kürten at half past eight in the morning. By eleven o'clock this carriage was in Kürten, where the Wipperfürth post office was waiting to continue the journey. The postilion had a restful few hours in Kürten until he started his journey to Bergisch Gladbach at six o'clock in the evening”.
In very bad weather, a third horse was harnessed to the mail coach. In heavy snowfall, it was placed on sledge runners, which was a special treat for the postilions. The last stagecoach journey in Kürten was in 1907/08.
Reichspost
In 1920, the Imperial Post Office becomes the Imperial Post Office and the postmaster, who lives with his family in the official apartment on the first floor, is now called Amtsvorsteher. The post office III. class - Cürten Kreis Wipperfürth - continues to belong to the Oberpostdirektion Köln.
It is the time of the occupation of the Rhineland by the victorious powers. The occupation zone within a radius of 30 km around Cologne ends at the Ahlenbach next to the post office and the house of the first doctor in Kürten, Dr. Johannes Molitor. This meant that he needed a pass if he wanted to visit patients.
From 1920, the Reichspost set up a motorized passenger mail service. However, the carriages were unpunctual and unreliable, so they were not very popular with the population. The Prussian government in Cologne then encouraged the establishment of a district-owned bus company, which began operating as Wupper- Sieg- GmbH in 1924.
After the First World War, it is a time of austerity measures and reorganization. In 1929, the district administrations of Kürten and Olpe are merged, with the administrative headquarters in Kürten. Due to the general cost-cutting measures of the German Reichspost, the continued existence of the Kürten post office is also under discussion. As it had been an important post office for over 50 years and was located in the center of the new Kürten-Olpe district, it was retained as a branch of the Bergisch Gladbach post office.
In 1937, the Kürten post office has a staff of 7 people. The head of the office is Postal Secretary Fischer. There is a postal agency in Bechen (staff of 2 with postal agent Weyer) and in Dürscheid (staff of 3 with postal agent Keller). There are auxiliary post offices in Eichhof, Broich and Olpe, as well as in Biesfeld, Blissenbach and Miebach.
The development of technical improvements in the transmission of messages, from telegrams to telexes and faxes, took place on the premises of the old "Imperial" Post Office until 1970. That is almost 100 years of postal history.
However, the letters were always distributed in the same way: sorted by hand and delivered to the addressees on foot. Since the middle of the 19th century, there have been rural letter carriers, who have been civil servants since the German Empire. After the Second World War, six rural letter carriers and one local letter carrier worked for the Kürten post office. They had their fixed delivery districts of up to 20 km, which were covered daily.
This photo of veterinarian Dr. Wauer from 1962 shows the old post office with the two towers with the imperial eagle on the right and the Ahlenbacher Mühle restaurant on the left. The view is in the direction of Wipperfürth.
Although taken in the 1960s, you can still sense the atmosphere of the 19th century with the gravel roadway, the telephone poles next to the old street trees and no houses in the direction of the traffic circle.
With a little imagination, the stagecoach from Wipperfürth could appear in the distance at any moment.
Remark:
After the regional reform of 1929, Cürten became Kürten. Cöln was officially spelled with a "K" from 1918.
Sources:
Sautter, Karl “History of the German Post” (1951)
Part 3: History of the German Reichspost (1871 – 1943)
“150 years of Post Bergisch Gladbach 1842 – 1992”
(Ed. Post Office Bergisch Gladbach 1992)
Rheinisch Bergischer calendar 1957
August Kierspel: “When the Bergisch Gladbach mail vans still drove”
Rheinisch Bergischer calendar 1985
Paul Henseler: “From the everyday life of a Bergisch postilion”
Rheinisch Bergischer calendar 2000
Bernhard Geuß: “With the “Wupsi” through the Bergisches Land
Kurtener Writings 11 (2018)
Ute Jülich: “The first post office in Kürten”
Ute Jülich: “The Imperial Post Office in Kürten”
