Bertha Benz is Honored with Her Own Postage Stamp -- May 2, 2024

 

• Mobility pioneer and inspiring personality
• The Federal Ministry of Finance presents the stamp at the Mercedes-Benz Museum
• The name of Bertha Benz also lives on in the Mercedes-Benz automobile brand

A stamp for her birthday: Bertha Benz was born 175 years ago. The Federal Ministry of Finance is issuing a special postage stamp to mark the occasion. The Ministry has presented this work of art in a small format at the Mercedes-Benz Museum and also took this opportunity to honour personalities from all over Germany who render outstanding services to the memory of Bertha Benz.

From 2 May 2024, the stamp with a postage value of 70 cents will be available at all Deutsche Post AG points of sale. The special postage stamp emphasises the importance of Bertha Benz for mobility and the global automotive industry. It shows her portrait photo next to the Benz Patent Motor Car in which she undertook the first long-distance journey in automobile history in 1888.

“The special stamp honours an extraordinary woman. With courage, foresight and determination, Bertha Benz played a decisive role in shaping individual mobility as we know it today. Her intrepid drive in August 1888 is a milestone in the history of the motor car. She demonstrates the reliability and potential of this innovative means of transportation and paves the way for its future. Her legacy continues to inspire us today to push boundaries and make the seemingly impossible possible.”
Bettina Haussmann, Director of Mercedes-Benz Museum

Bertha Benz was born Cäcilie Bertha Ringer in Pforzheim on 3 May 1849. In 1869 she met engineer Carl Benz, and they got married on 20 July 1872. Benz makes the combustion engine suitable for everyday use in order to realise his vision of the horseless carriage. Bertha Benz played a large part in this, supporting her husband with her ambition and curiosity for technical innovations. The couple’s perseverance is rewarded: on 29 January 1886, Carl Benz applies for a patent for his “motor car with gas engine operation”.

But the new means of transporting people and goods initially met with strong scepticism. Bertha Benz takes action: in August 1888, without her husband’s knowledge, she drives more than 100 kilometres from Mannheim to Pforzheim with her two sons Eugen and Richard in the production version of the Patent Motor Car – the first long-distance journey in an automobile. In this way, Bertha Benz demonstrates the reliability and practicality of the vehicle to the public and also provides important impulses for technical improvements.

The rest is history: the automobile offers individual mobility in a new dimension. All over the world, it becomes part of everyday life. Since these beginnings, Mercedes-Benz has been continuously reinventing the automobile in an unrelenting process of innovation, and setting industry standards. Bertha Benz dies in Ladenburg on 5 May 1944, two days after her 95th birthday.

Carl and Bertha Benz received numerous honours during their lifetime – and far beyond: both were posthumously inducted into the prestigious Automotive Hall of Fame for their achievements, he in 1984 and she in 2016. A copy of the original patent, which no longer exists, was added to the Memory of the World Register of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in 2011. Here, the patent of 1886 ranks right next to testimonies such as the Gutenberg Bible, the Song of the Nibelungs and the Magna Carta.