The public administration in Germany has been described as one of the world's 'classic administrative systems'. It was on German soil that one of the prime examples of the efficient service structure in public affairs originally developed which is so characteristic of the modern state. In view of the cracks in recent German history the continuing efficiency of public administration is considered remarkable. In addition German scholars - from Max Weber to Fritz Morstein Marx - whose works have attracted attention from far beyond the confines of Germany, have contributed to the establishment of basic academic principles for an international discussion of administrative phenomena. But even in Germany the negative aspects of state bureaucracies have not gone unobserved and criticism from abroad of our particular political system has not exactly spared our public administration either. In some places ideas may persist that no longer match the reality of state and administration in today's Federal Republic of Germany.