Germany

Modern public relations (PR) in Germany started at the beginning of the 19th century. Before then, a time in which medieval rulers, emperors, princes, churches and poets communicated publicly and when communication instruments were used that were similar to later PR instruments, can be called the prehistory of PR. In seven different periods, PR in Germany has developed from the first PR departments in the political sphere (1816, 1841), which were established to influence the public opinion to the public sphere over the first ‘boom phase’ in the Weimar Republic (1918-1933) and the Nazi period (1933-1945), and on to professionally organized communication departments of today in big companies or political organizations. PR, which in Germany today is sometimes called the ‘fifth estate’, has much institutional power and can be assigned a constitutive function for Germany’s democratic society.