European Union for and by Communication Networks: Continuities and Discontinuities during the Second World War

Abstract

International audience ; The Second World War stopped most of the activities of the international infrastructure organisations like the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) or the Universal Postal Union (UPU), which had managed the transnational flows of communication since the mid-19th century. Nevertheless, this did not stop international postal and telecommunication cooperation completely. In 1942 the German PTT administration convened a European postal and telecommunication congress in Vienna that pursued the work done by the ITU and UPU. They founded a 'European Postal and Telecommunication Union' (EPTU) in accordance with the ITU and UPU conventions. This article argues that the EPTU was an important step toward the Europeanization of intra-European connections. Within EPTU ideas as well as norms, values and practices of postal and telecommunication governance in view of uniting Europe continued (nearly unbroken) from the interwar to the post Second World War era.