Postal Service in East Prussia

In East Prussia, the postal service was a very important state function. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, new post office buildings began to be built throughout East Prussia, which, by their very appearance, were supposed to speak of the significance of this activity. The largest and most impressive post office building was built in Koenigsberg in 1902. But in other cities of East Prussia in the late XIX - early XX century began to build new buildings of post offices, which had obvious similarities: red-brick, with two or more stepped forceps, towers, the coat of arms of East Prussia "black eagle" in the Gothic niche, with contrast plastered profiled geometric surfaces, with a set of windows of different shapes and sizes: Gothic, ray, round (rose). All these buildings clearly belong to the same architectural style, about the name and definition of which in the literature there is an absolute pluralism of opinions: historicism, neo-Gothic, Prussian national romance, East Prussian style.

An interesting fact is that the famous architect Friedrich Heitmann came to Koenigsberg in 1886 as the head of construction at the Higher Postal Directorate and possibly took a direct part in the construction of post buildings in Gumbinnen and Pillau (1904 at Kurfürstenbolverk, 8 (Sea Boulevard). Not all former post offices survived the war. Most fortunate was the postal building in Kranz, which remained almost unchanged and for a long time was used almost for its intended purpose (it was Rostelecom). The post office building in Koenigsberg and the post office in Pillau (Baltiysk) were partially destroyed during the war and later demolished, the former post office building in Insterburg (heavily rebuilt) houses a bathhouse.

In the photo of post offices in Kranz, Insterburg, Pillau and Koenigsberg.