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No more connections under this number: Germany switches off the last telephone boxes

3.2.2023

Translation: machine translated

By remote software command - this is how the death of public telephones in Germany was sealed at the end of January. But some of the cells still live on.

Announced in autumn 2022, this is now being implemented: telephone booths, or "Telefonkabinen" as they are called in Switzerland, will disappear from towns and cities in Germany in the coming weeks. At least where they are still around. There were once 160,000 of them. First in post office yellow, later in magenta, the pink colour of the Bundespost, which was privatised to become Telekom. But because nowadays everyone carries a smartphone around with them, the phone boxes have become superfluous.

This death comes as no surprise. At the end of an institution, feature writers and columnists outdo each other in nostalgia-fuelled articles with puns in the headline. So that I don't have to come up with my own, here is a small collection:

"The last penny has dropped" (Telekom)
"Last Call" (ZEIT Online)
"Life without a phone box is pointless" (Schwäbisches Tagblatt)
"Cell neighbours" (football magazine "11 Freunde")
"Auf Wiederhören" (Süddeutsche Zeitung)

I just realised: I also put a pun in the headline. Sorry, journalistic reflex.

Phone boxes - or phone booths - are likely to evoke a memory in almost everyone. Of the desperate search for the necessary change, of collecting phone cards with the credit to make a call, of old spy films in which phone boxes still played an important role. The ZEIT journalists Lenz Jacobsen, Matthias Daum and Florian Gasser reminisce for almost half an hour in a current episode of their "transalpine podcast". Very worth listening to.

Model railway electronics

Viessmann 1373 H0 Telephone boxes

Model railway buildings

Faller Phone booth federal post office

A second life for the telephone box

The dismantled phone booths are stored by Deutsche Telekom on a piece of land on the edge of a forest south-east of Berlin. A large proportion will be scrapped, but some will still find interested buyers. The "Neue Zürcher Zeitung" recently visited the storage site for a report and describes what people are doing with the phone booths. They are being converted into bookcases. Set up in public places, people can put books there for free and get new ones. Companies with open-plan offices are also among the buyers. They place the cabinets there so that employees have a place of refuge for an undisturbed phone call. With the smartphone.

Cover photo: Sludge G / Flickr

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Martin Jungfer

Head of Content

Martin.Jungfer@digitecgalaxus.ch

Journalist since 1997. Stopovers in Franconia (or the Franken region), Lake Constance, Obwalden, Nidwalden and Zurich. Father since 2014. Expert in editorial organisation and motivation. Focus on sustainability, home office tools, beautiful things for the home, creative toys and sports equipment.

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No more connections under this number: Germany switches off the last telephone boxes

A second life for the telephone box

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