Content: Administration of services, personnel, cash management and accounting - Collection of legal provisions and decrees, including judicial decisions on postal, telegraphic and telephone services - International postal agreements and treaties with individual states - Supervision and regulation of postal services, organisation of subordinate postal and telegraph institutions - German postal institutions abroad, especially in German New Guinea, on the Caroline Islands, Mariana Islands, Palau Islands and Marshall Islands, on Samoa and in Shanghai - relations of the Oberpostdirektion with shipping companies, railway companies and forwarding agents - postal statistics - postal traffic with overseas countries, also establishment of postal steamship lines - air and rail postal services - radio and radio broadcasting

Explanation: When the North German Confederation was founded, the postal system was organised as a unified state transport authority with the simultaneous disappearance of the territorial postal institutions. Bremen received a federal post office. In 1871, postal sovereignty was transferred to the German Reich. In 1874, the Reichspostverwaltung appointed Bremen as the seat of an Oberpostdirektion, which became the medium Reichspostbehörde. In addition to the territory of Bremen, its area of responsibility included the part of the administrative district of Hanover on the left bank of the Weser, parts of the administrative district of Stade and the administrative district of Thedinghausen in Brunswick. Until the First World War she was also responsible for the postal services in German New Guinea, on the Caroline Islands, Mariana Islands, Palau and Marshall Islands and Samoa. From 1934-1945 the Oberpostdirektion was called Reichspostdirektion Bremen. In 1943 it also took over the district of the Oldenburg management, which had until then been independent, and which included the Weser-Ems district. The privatization of Deutsche Bundespost was initiated in 1989, and in 1990 it was separated into the postal service and telecommunications divisions at OPD. At the end of 1992, the Postal Directorate was divided into the Postal Service and Telecommunications Directorates. Since 1995 they have been part of Deutsche Post AG and Deutsche Telekom AG. Lit.: Christian Piefke, Die Entstehung der Oberpostdirektion Bremen, in: Postgeschichtliche Blätter aus der Weser-Ems-Gebiet, Vol. 1, H. 1, 1955, S. 2-3; Werner Guddat, 100 Jahre Oberpostdirektion Bremen, Leer 1974; Theodor Windmann, 100 Jahre Oberpostdirektion Bremen, in: Postgeschichtliche Hefte Weser-Ems, Vol. 1, 1955, S. 2-3. 4, H. 4, 1973, p. 77-84; Johannes Rust, Die Postgeschichte des Bezirks der Reichspostdirektion Bremen für den Kriegsjahre 1939-1945, Bremen 1949; K. Johanns, Die ersten Schritte. Attempt to reconstruct postal conditions in the Reichspostdirektions district of Bremen after the end of the Second World War until the resumption of limited correspondence on 1 July 1945, in: Philatelie und Postgeschichte, 20, No. 89, 1986, p. 1-19; Alexis Wegener, Die Post in Bremen und Bremerhaven 1945-1964, in: Wachsende Städte an der Unterweser, 1965, p. 88-96; Der OPD-Bezirk Bremen, in: Zeitschrift für das Post- u. Fernmeldewesen, 7 (1955), p. 41-53; Oberpostdirektion Bremen (ed.), Oberpostdirektion Bremen im neuen Haus, Bremen 1985; Herbert Leclerc, Von Apia bis Yap. Former German postal institutions in the South Seas, in: Archiv für deutsche Postgeschichte 1982, pp. 7-32; Fritz Thole, Die Leiter der Oberpostdirektion Bremen, in: Postgeschichtliche Blätter aus dem Weser-Emsgebiet, vol. 1, H. 1, 1955, p. 3, H. 3, 1956, p. 29-38, vol. 2, H. 6, 1961, p. 118-119. Reference: Christian Piefke, Die Entstehung der Oberpostdirektion Bremen, in: Postgeschichtliche Blätter aus der Weser-Ems-Gebiet, vol. 1, H. 1, 1955, p. 2-3; Werner Guddat, 100 Jahre Oberpostdirektion Bremen, Leer 1974; Theodor Windmann, 100 Jahre Oberpostdirektion Bremen, in: Postgeschichtliche Hefte Weser-Ems, vol. 4, H. 4, 1973, p. 77-84; Johannes Rust, Die Postgeschichte des Bezirks der Reichspostdirektion Bremen für die Kriegsjahre 1939-1945, Bremen 1949; K. Johanns, Die ersten Schritte. Attempt to reconstruct postal conditions in the Reichspostdirektions district of Bremen after the end of the Second World War until the resumption of limited correspondence on 1 July 1945, in: Philatelie und Postgeschichte, 20, No. 89, 1986, p. 1-19; Alexis Wegener, Die Post in Bremen und Bremerhaven 1945-1964, in: Wachsende Städte an der Unterweser, 1965, p. 88-96; Der OPD-Bezirk Bremen, in: Zeitschrift für das Post- u. Fernmeldewesen, 7 (1955), p. 41-53; Oberpostdirektion Bremen (ed.), Oberpostdirektion Bremen im neuen Haus, Bremen 1985; Herbert Leclerc, Von Apia bis Yap. Former German Post Offices in the South Seas, in: Archiv für deutsche Postgeschichte 1982, pp. 7-32; Fritz Thole, Die Leiter der Oberpostdirektion Bremen, in: Postgeschichtliche Blätter aus dem Weser-Ems-Gebiet, vol. 1, h. 1, 1955, pp. 3, h. 3, 1956, pp. 29-38, vol. 2, h. 6, 1961, pp. 118-119.

Enthält u.a.: A. B. Steinberger, Report on Samoa, or the navigator’ islands made to the Secretary of State. Washington 1874

Contains among other things: Map of the islands of the western Great Ocean. M.: 1:15 000 000 Map of Tonga or Friendship Islands. O. M. 1879 Map of the Ellice or Lagoon Islands. M.; 1:1 500 000. Map of the Gilbert or Kingsmill Islands. O. M. 1879 Map of the Marshall Islands. O. M. 1879 Map of the North Coast of New Britain and the Duke of York Islands. O. M. 1879

Enthält u.a.: A. B. Steiberger, Message from the President of the United States transmitting a report from the Secretary of State and accompanying papers. Washington 1876

Enthält u.a.: Labour trade in the western Pacific. Sidney 1881 und Melbourne 1882

Enthält u.a.: Report of the appointed commission. By Captain Pallu of the Barrière Gouverneur de la Nouvelle-Calédonie. In order to study different interesting questions about free colonization. O.O. o.J. Handels- und Schiffahrtsverhältnisse (Samoa- und Tonga-Inseln), insbes. der Abschluß von Freundschaftsverträgen

Letters of the ship's doctor Dr. Alfred Abenhausen from aboard the passenger ships of North German Lloyd and the Woermann Line to German colonies, among others; all seven continents ** Scope: seven travel diaries, about 180 letters and postcards, about 30 photos Processing: completely transcribed; not digitized Planning: feeding into the Caliope network (2018)

1st About the Aldinger-Ostermayer family: Karl Aldinger and Hertha Ostermayer married on 24 January 1944. The marriage lasted over six decades. Only the death of Karl Aldinger in 2005 brought her to an end. The ancestors of the married couple were widely ramified and can be traced far back through the stored documents of the inventory. Due to the numerous traditional sources and many patient family history researches, they were deeply anchored in the consciousness of Karl and Hertha Aldingers. During the Second World War Karl Aldinger (1917-2005) was a soldier (last lieutenant). He then managed various agricultural estates (Staufeneck estate, Schafhof estate, Alteburg estate). In 1957 he took over the management of the youth hostel in Esslingen, which he continued to run until 1963. He then ran a guesthouse in Saig (Black Forest) until 1990, which came from the inheritance of an aunt of his wife. Hertha Aldinger (1920-2012) had undergone agricultural training and had been a teacher of agricultural household science since January 1944. After 1 July 1944, she no longer worked for the company, but devoted herself to her five children (one had died very early) and supported her husband in his various tasks. The family archive Aldinger-Ostermayer documents the ancestors of Karl and Hertha Aldinger in almost all lines back to the end of the 18th century. There are rich documents on the families Aldinger, Trißler, Unrath (ancestors of Karl Aldinger) and Ostermayer, Görger, Baur/Giani, Heldbek/Gaiser, Riedlin and Schinzinger (ancestors of Hertha Aldinger). The documents refer to members of the upper middle class in Württemberg and Baden. Some family members were soldiers in the First and Second World Wars (among others Eduard Ostermayer (1867-1954), Helmut Ostermayer (1919-1941) and Karl Aldinger) and have left photos, diaries and memories as well as letters from the wartime. The Aldinger family provided agricultural estate managers for several generations. There are numerous physicians from the family circle: Dr. Oskar Görger (1847-1905), who founded his wealth through his practice in Australia, Dr. Eduard Ostermayer (1867-1954), who was still practicing in his 80s and was thus known in the 50s as Stuttgart's oldest practicing physician, Dr. Karl Schinzinger (1861-1948), also a physician in Australia, and Dr. Albert Schinzinger (1827-1911), who began his career as a surgeon and after his habilitation worked as a professor of medicine at the University of Freiburg (about him Pagel: Biographisches Lexikon outstanding doctors of the nineteenth century. Berlin, Vienna 1901, Sp. 1499-1500). Also worth mentioning are the pastors: Karl Ludwig Heldbek (1756-1829), pastor in Scharenstetten, Christoph Erhardt Heldbek (1803-1877), city pastor in Weilheim, Emil Heldbek (1849-1884), pastor in Auendorf, and Dr. Paul Aldinger (1869-1944), pastor in Kleinbottwar, colonist and pastor in Brazil. The Ostermayers were merchants for several generations, initially locally in Weilheim/Teck and from around 1870 in the Württemberg state capital Stuttgart. Max (1860-1942) and Gottlieb Ostermayer (1871-1910) finally worked as merchants in India. The Heldbek/Gaiser family also knew merchants whose activities later extended as far as Africa (Lagos). The most famous is Gottlieb Leonhard Gaiser (1817-1892). He tried to found a German colony in Mahinland (east of Lagos), but failed because of Bismarck's colonial-political restraint (Ernst Hieke: Gaiser, Gottlieb Leonhard, in: Neue Deutsche Biographie, 6 (1964), p. 39f.). Robert Karl Edmund Schinzinger (1898-1988), university professor and lecturer in Japan, and Ernst Ostermayer (1868-1918), professor and painter are to be emphasized as representatives of science and art. Albert Joseph Fridolin Schinzinger (1856-1926), the Japanese Consul General in Berlin, worked in the field of politics and diplomacy. 2. processing of the stock: The family archive Aldinger-Ostermayer was created step by step. In ancient times, outstanding documents were preserved and entrusted to the next generation. Initially, only a few documents were handed down, mostly letters or documents with a special memoir value. This happened with both the Aldinger and Ostermayer ancestors. Only later generations left behind complete estates, i.e. closed traditions. This was the case with Eduard Ostermayer and his son Helmut as well as Karl and Hertha Aldinger. For Oskar Görger and his wife Marie, original documents have been preserved to a considerable extent, but in smaller quantities. Family research on a larger scale had already been carried out in the 1930s in connection with the Aryan evidence by the Aldingers and the Ostermayers. Lore Braitsch, née Aldinger, collected older documents for the Aldinger family, which she also evaluated (e.g. speech in honour of Dr. Paul Aldinger, cf. Bü 360). After their death in 1998 these documents came to Hertha and Karl Aldinger, so that a family archive for the Aldinger and Ostermayer families grew together. Hertha Aldinger edited this. She supplemented the originals with copies and transcriptions. With admirable patience she transcribed the documents in old, no longer generally legible script, first by hand and later by typewriter. Already in 1996 she worked with computers. Even more important are their evaluations of the family records. She put together different material to certain persons as well as whole family branches, so for her husband Karl (Bü 179) and for herself (Bü 118). She also wrote the couple's memoirs under the title "Our 20 Initial Years" (Bü 246). She also wrote down her personal memories of her parents (Bü 181). For the Ostermayer (Bü 284, 304 and 334), Heldbek (Bü 453, 473) and Schinzinger (Bü 226, 237, 296) families she compiled material and wrote elaborations on the history of these families. Probably also the order of the family archive goes back to them. This only considered a separation of the individual family branches and was otherwise little structured. When the materials were handed over to the Main State Archives in January 2013, they were stored in guide files and the subunits were formed in transparent envelopes. There were also other types of packaging. A handwritten fixation of this order was made on the occasion of the transfer of the family archive to the main state archive in a transfer register (Bü 550). Hertha Aldinger's intensive family research and work have left traces in the state of order. The units were inflated by copies, often multiple copies. Original tradition and copy or transcription were not separated. The original letter series were torn, there was the group of already transcribed pieces and the group of still unprocessed letters. The archival order of the documents restored the series of the original letters. The copies have been reduced. There is little point in keeping an original and a copy of it in the same tuft. Multiple copies of the transcriptions could also be collected. However, different processing stages (e.g. concepts, final version) were left unchanged. There was a larger collection of postcards, which had been arranged after picture motives. This collection also contained described and run postcards, i.e. family correspondence. This had to be reassigned to the letters and cards. The collection of postcards was thus reduced to the undescribed pieces (Bü 506, 509), and the archival indexing attached great importance to a detailed characterization of the Büschel contents in the Contained Notes. This was especially necessary when the title recording for the tuft had to remain very general. The collection was structured in such a way that the central importance of Karl and Hertha Aldinger for the documents is emphasized. Karl and Hertha Aldinger are expressly referred to as related family branches. The spelling of the first names was standardized according to today's spelling: Helmut instead of Hellmut, Karl instead of Carl, Jakob instead of Jacob etc.. The index lists the women among the aforementioned families from the related circle of Aldinger-Ostermayer, but also mentions the marriage name. Women who have married into the circle of relatives are classified under their names of marriage, their names of birth are given in an explanatory manner. The stock P 45 "Familienarchiv Aldinger-Ostermayer" was sorted and listed by the undersigned in Spring/Summer 2013. The duration of the documents ranges from approx. 1770 to 2013, the volume of the stock amounts to 553 units in 6.1 m.Stuttgart, in October 2013Dr. Peter Schiffer

Bd 1 destroyed.