Now Berlin's vacuum post lies disused. 31 November this year marks its last official day, and the old system is now in the hands of developers. The entire area around the old post office is to be redeveloped into offices and housing.
Our guide told us the future of these few remaining parts of the infrastructure is in doubt, although volunteers are ready to help recreate the vacuum post in all its former glory.
While most people will not remember the vacuum post, it does have its place in history. The principle of the system was that a message was received as a packet of information and then sent to another point. From this second point, it could be delivered to its final address or sent on to another post office to continue its journey. In that way a packet could travel a considerable distance across Germany.
The principle of transmitting a packet of information from point to point to delivery is the same one that underlies the internet today. In that sense, the vacuum post was the world's first internet.
Talkback
My brother's first job was as a human back-up for an internal pneumatic mail system, and banks and hospitals still use "Lamson tubes".
There's an article here about the technology
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2004/0524widernettubes.html
and a company here that makes the kit
http://www.ptubes.com/tubeupgr.htm
The comparison with data networking isn't bonkers either. The cylinders would have machine-readable routing information on them, so mechanical devices could redirect them to the right destination.
Now if you want to talk crazy technology, how about vacuum driven Atmospheric Railways?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_railway
I've seen this in use quite recently for sucking away tubes of excess cash (notes) in supermarket tills.
... I'm taking a Hoover and a pipe wrench.