Dr Denglish
A gong of sorts too for Klaus Zumwinkel, the Americanophile who has shaken the dust off Deutsche Post, Germany’s former state-owned postal group.
The Verein Deutsche Sprache, the association that safeguards the German language, has elected Zumwinkel “speech meddler of the year” for 2002 and called him the master of mixing German with English into “Denglish”.
The former McKinsey consultant has transformed the company since he took over in 1990 in typical management consultant style, halving the number of post office branches and leading the part-privatisation in 2000.
But it is his zealous rebranding of the business divisions of the private company he christened Deutsche Post World Net that earned him the award.
The website selling stamps is “postage point” rather than a Briefmarkenschalter. And Deutsche Post’s internet brokerage arm is called “easy trade”.
According to the purists, it should bear the snappy title Direktwertpapierhandel.
Deutsche Post defended its chief executive, saying that “an internationally active service company must name its services and products in the ‘world language’, English”.
Perhaps it is right. Last month it became one of the first foreign companies to win a temporary licence to operate in the lucrative British market.
