ABSTRACT
In Germany, the very necessity of the functionability of public administration continuing in spite of political change required a regulative idea which allowed the politico-administrative system to define itself irrespective of the prevailing regimes. The occupying powers exercised influence also on the structures of administration, for instance by installing separate political and administrative heads of communal administrations in the British occupation zone. The structural interventions by the occupying powers did not affect the continuity of the administrative state. The differences were in the degree of differentiation of the spheres of action, in the mode of state control, and in the structural design of the politico-administrative action context in the West. The Federal administration as extended to eastern Germany has uniform basic features. The rhetoric of New Public Management has made its appearance in many public offices in Germany. In Germany, there are considerable reserves for classical privatisation, especially in the Lander and communes.
