German stamps have always been among the most popular of collecting specialties. The German Area is vast philatelically and has typically been broken down into sub-specialties. Few collectors, especially native Germans, attempt it all. The philatelic breakdown is as follows: pre-German Confederation-States collecting, 1870-1930 Empire, and Wiemar Republic, 1930-45 Third Reich, and post 1945 Bundes Republic (in English, Federal Republic). There are many additional subpecialties, such as Colonies or Occupations, but it is by these era divisions that the main country of Germany is usually collected.
Philately has always been a major hobby in Germany and in all of the German speaking areas. Germans, Austrians, and Swiss have always been the most avid collectors. They have the most detailed and specialized catalogs, the highest quality stamp album producers (in fact four major different publishers produce German hingeless specialty albums), and have the largest and most successful stamp dealers. Their philatelic societies dwarf ours. Philately always was a mainstream hobby with estimates of the adult population collecting being as high as 20% as recently as thirty years ago. What has happened in most of the world to stamp collecting has happened in spades to Germany. Fewer German children have collected in the last thirty years; so now fewer German adults collect. Additionally, the German Federal Post Office has twice demonitzed new issues in the last thirty years