Has anyone ever had success sending religious themed items from USA into Germany? USPS denied my Weihnachtsgeschenke (Christmas gifts) to my gf because half of them are catholic themed stuff. Was told by the worker that the import law won’t allow this, classified under “Religion/propaganda”. HOWEVER, she (my gf who lives in Germany) looked it up and this doesn’t exist. the restriction phrase “Articles bearing political or religious notations on the address side.” keeps appearing but am unsure what “on the address side” means. Iäm going to try a different service.
German here. I’ve never heard about such a restriction, and I would be very surprised if it existed because it would violate freedom of expression and religion, both granted in our constitution (Grundgesetz). The only information about censoring mail that contained propaganda I found are from the times of the Cold War when two German states existed and both sides censored mail between the two states. But we all know that those times are long gone.
Can your girlfriend maybe provide a link from where she got the restriction “Articles bearing political or religious notations on the address side.”?
Hello DerSchneck, welcome to the board! Half-German here, and I have never heard of such a restriction either. The more details you can provide, the easier it will be to clear this up. Or to get upset about our stupid government (again!), which is also something.
I guess that the interdiction is a USPS policy, not a German law. Why USPS applies this, if indeed they do, I don’t know. As far as I know, libel and such apart, only verfassungsfeindliche (anticonstitutional) propaganda is outlawed in Germany, that is: nazi shit, terrorist materials inciting violence, communist propaganda perhaps, depending on how it is worded. The Catholic church does not fall under those labels yet, I believe. Would be interesting if USPS believed they did, and if so, to hear their reasoning why.
I looked it up, and there’s quite a list of odd items you can’t ship to Germany from the US, including pulverized cocoa beans, absinthe, and opened decks of cards. I believe that the description ‘on the address side’ means that you can’t write or affix anything religious or political in nature on the outside of the package on the same side as where the address goes.
Here’s a link to those regs, BTW;
That list does indeed include “Articles bearing political or religious notations on the address side.” Whatever a notation is in this context. I suggest sending the items declared as “material for historical and sociological studies” instead.
Ah, so it actually seems to be a restriction by UPS rather than the German authorities. I interpret “political or religious notations on the address side” as a slogan that actually appears where the destination address is notated, either on an envelope or a package. So sending, say, a crucifix or rosary is ok as long as no religious (or political) message appears on the outside of the mail. Why this is, I have no idea.
Or it may be directed at instruments of torture and self-mortification of the flesh and penance, like cilices. Particularly the spiked metal chain variant:
ETA: But that is Shirley not what you are sending your girlfriend, is it, DerSchneck? 
Maybe there’s a concern about Lutherans mailing faeces …?
How did the USPS deny you? Like, how did it come to be that anyone at the post office knew the specific religious nature of some items in a package?
A search yields an AI statement that “the United States Postal Service (USPS) prohibits political or religious slogans on address labels”, but I didn’t turn up a link with the specific regulation.
You can obviously send Xmas mail with religious-themed postage stamps.
Is “on the adress side” double-translation of the phrase “to the adressee”? As in “we can’t send religious or political material to those addresses”?
And is it possible that someone dug up something from the 1980’s when suchitems were considered deliberate provocation so the post office would not send verbotten articles to Communist East Germany? Or the USPS has not updated their regulations in 40 years? It sure looks like the sort of items East Germany would disallow…
(“No point in sending bibles. The East Germans just confiscate them at customs”)
I found this, but I assume it comes under
131.32 Prohibited and Restricted Articles
Articles that are prohibited by the destination country are nonmailable.
OP , what did you write on the customs forms? Perhaps that’s the issue- “Catholic Mug” vs “Mug” might make a difference.
A list of what you can’t send to Germany doesn’t include religious objects.
There are prohibitions or restrictions on sending various things, like leather goods, endangered animals, explosives etc.
So it might be problematic to send booby-trapped shoes made from white rhino hide blessed by the Pope to your buddy in Bavaria and boast about it on the address label.
Sounds like the USPS worker is mistaken and got confused, try again, possibly at a different branch. But we need context: did you hand them a plain box, they ask you what’s in it, and you say religious items? They mainly want to know about how to ship it (e.g. Advent calendar may be food), insurance, prohibited or restricted items, etc.
If instead it’s like a postcard where the content is visible on the package, that’s a different matter. I still think they’d be misinterpreting the law in that case.
Could you elaborate on what exactly was printed on the outside of the package.
Also, you said that USPS wouldn’t ship it, and that your girlfriend checked in Germany and said it was allowed. These are two different countries with two different sets of rules.
“Shoot, a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Munich with all that stuff.”
Clearly they do not want a fella to have one of those.
If you look further down the link that @Jackmannii shared you will see that the “Articles bearing political or religious notations on the address side” restriction is only for USPS, not UPS or FedEx. I’m sure the OP’s problem is a USPS worker mis-interpreting their internal rule.
Here is an old thread in a similar vein (TL;DR - the USPS prohibition against loose playing cards is based on obsolete German law which expired in 1981):
A few years back I was ordering lots of things from the US to Germany. I always told the sender to put “religious pamphlets” on the contents slip, as this (allegedly and apparently) made it less likely for customs to open the parcel.
ETA: This makes me sound like an international drug dealer, but it was mostly books and CDs.