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The Federal Press Office from 1949 to today

On 15 September 1949 Konrad Adenauer was elected Chancellor. A day later the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany set up the Federal Chancellery as the "office of the Federal Government". This was also the day on which the Press and Information Office of the Federal Government ("Federal Press Office") was founded. A brief retrospective: following the experience of the notorious Reich Propaganda Ministry of the totalitarian Nazi regime the first Federal Government based the structure of the Federal Press Office on organisational forms from the Weimar Republic. Adenauer wanted not only a press office in the Chancellery, but also an independent authority. The Head of the Press and Information Office of the Federal Government is directly answerable to the Chancellor.

Since the end of 1998 the Press and Information Office of the Federal Government has been developed specifically into a modern service provider - a service provider for German citizens, for the media and the Federal Government.

The "Federal Press Office" ("Bundespresseamt"), the shorter term often used for the Press and Information Office of the Federal Government, is, however, misleading because the Federal Press Office is not an authority which somehow regulates or even supervises the press. There is no such authority in Germany. The press is free and there is no censorship (Article 5, Para 1, Sentence 2 and 3 Basic Law).