What could be one of the worst nightmares for a German? The inability to fax across important documents. And these machines are falling out of favour. Deutsche Bundesbank has immortalised the nightmare by posting on its website that it’s the end of the road for receiving faxes starting January 31.

“Please note that the Deutsche Bundesbank can no longer be reached by fax as of 31.01. 2025. For directions to the Central Office of the Deutsche Bundesbank and information on making deliveries, click here,” reads a message on the bank’s website in Germany.

Like the underground music scene and Germany cannot be separated, the same goes for fax machines. Going by the latest figures from Bitkom, the country’s digital advocacy group, four out of five companies continue to use fax machines and a third do so frequently. A massive 82 per cent of German companies still use fax machines, according to the survey.

Eva Högl, German Bundstag’s parliamentary commissioner, put out a detailed report earlier this year, highlighting the digital problems facing the military. For example, some barracks and training facilities may have no Wi-Fi. Medical records, for example, are kept on paper, raising the question of quick retrieval. And many documents are still faxed, reports Financial Times.

Torsten Herbst, a member of the German Bundestag or parliament, said in interviews there is a series of fax machines in the parliament.

“When I was elected in 2017, I walked to my office and there was a fax machine inside. I thought it was a mistake. I called the administrator at the Bundestag, asking why did you send me a fax machine? I don’t need it,” he told NPR. He was told: ”Oh, yes, you need it. If you want to send an inquiry to the government, use the fax machine!”

Faxing is also alive in Japan and in some places in India. Countless emails are sent but it has to compete with millions of faxes that are sent daily.

A worldwide survey in 2017 found that of 200 large firms 82 per cent had seen workers send the same number of, or even more, faxes that year than in 2016. But that figure has fallen over the years, especially during the pandemic. Many offices still have fax machines but employees don’t use them.

At one point, faxing was “cool”. Michael Jordan’s 1995 return to the NBA saw him fax: “I’m back.” Perhaps this was the most popular two-word fax in the history of the machine. In 2011, save-the-date invitations for Prince William and Kate’s wedding involved the fax. And Dolly Parton at one point stuck to faxing and it went out even to her goddaughter, Miley Cyrus.

Sticking around with musicians, Phil Collins said in 2016 that he didn’t divorce Jill Tavelman in 1996 by fax: “I was arranging time to see the kids and referenced the fact that [the marriage] was over, but it was translated as me finishing our relationship by fax.”