Opening your mailbox in Germany is terrifying. Photo: picture alliance/dpa/dpa-tmn | Christin Klose
Germans are world champions at sending troubling letters, says journalist Rachel Loxton in this week's Inside Germany column. That's why her biggest fear is checking the mailbox.
Next year will mark my 10th anniversary of living in Berlin. Like many others who come to the capital, I find it hard to pinpoint exactly how this happened. But basically it comes down to the great things about living here, like the wonderful culture, long summers and interesting people.
Throughout my time in Germany, however, there is one thing that I have become truly haunted by: my letterbox.
That little Briefkasten with my name on it in the hallway of my building has come to represent my deepest fears, my insecurities and my shortcomings – because I know the German authorities have got me figured out. Whether it’s the Krankenkasse, the Finanzamt or the Rundfunkbeitrag, I’m pretty sure they know me better than I know myself.
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They know how to stop me in my tracks. They know how to make me sweat. They know how to ruin my weekend.
Others who live in Germany will no doubt be familiar with this feeling. Whichever ‘Amt’ (government office) or 'GmBH' (company) or even Verein (association or club) is sending the letter, you can be sure it will be terrifying.
There’s something about the direct language paired with the mysterious demands that could send anyone into psychosis. Anyone who isn't used to this ruthless way of communicating, I mean.
Native Germans seem to brush these letters off with the understanding that they're par for the course rather than a matter of life or death.
But I'm liable to experience a small heart attack every time or at the very least feel like I’m a 10-year-old sitting outside the headteacher’s office at school.
The many troubling letters I've received
Over the years I've seen or heard about them all. I've been sent a bill by health insurers demanding thousands of euros. It took at least three excruciating phone calls and two letters to establish the bill was sent by mistake.
When I (finally) managed to join the KSK as a freelancer I was amused and mildly scared to receive letters addressed to "Frau LOXTON !" with pages and pages of figures that I didn't understand, and I'm pretty sure nobody could.
Even tax letters are like a mysterious code. Why don't they make it clearer how to pay instead of having two IBANS dotted around the edges of the paper?
And yes, after Berlin's radical rent freeze was declared unconstitutional and void in 2021, I felt the full force of it at my mailbox. I had to pay hundreds of euros back to my property company at the time.
Once I even received a letter from the Hausverwaltung (property management) explaining that I had to pay around €200 for a smoke alarm which I'd apparently stolen.
A smoke alarm that never existed. It had never been installed in the flat, which was newly renovated when I moved in.
At the time, I joked I needed a bureaucracy bodyguard to protect me from my German mail. If you find one, let me know.
This week another letter had me in a tailspin. It was from the Rentenversicherung (Pension Insurance), which is never a good sign.
After putting it off for as long as I could, I finally plucked up the courage to open the envelope. "Ihre Regelaltersrente wurde am 01.08.2053 beginnen," the letter stated. "Your pension will start on August 1st, 2053."
I almost fainted. Theoretically I'm aware I will have to work until I'm at least 67. But to witness it there in black and white in an official letter I opened on a Monday evening while the pasta was cooking was almost more than I could bear.
The letter also informed me of the (paltry) monthly payments I will allegedly receive in almost 30 years' time. Did I really need to know that in 2026? Personally, I'd pass.
While all bureaucracy is terrifying no matter where you live in the world, a special thing about Germany is it sure does love communicating by post.
That's why my mailbox has become such a source of terror. While some things are moving in a digital direction here, I don't think the country's love of posting letters is going to fade any time soon.
My friends and I joke that when we're in our 70s – no matter where we are in the world – a letter from Germany will make its way to our mailbox and demand a sum of money, or alert us to a document we failed to complete way back in the 2020s.
Because yes, you can leave Germany. But German bureaucracy will never leave you.
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