Klaus Zumwinkel, the chief executive of Deutsche Post, offered to resign today, one day after police mounted dawn raids on his office and home in a tax-evasion investigation.

A spokesman for Peer Steinbrueck, the German Finance Minister, said that Mr Zumwinkel had offered to go.

The state-owned KfW Bankengruppe holds a 31 per cent stake in the German postal business, which is quoted on the Dax stock exchange.

It is also expected that Mr Zumwinkel will quit as head of Deutsche Telekom’s supervisory board.

At the moment he is also head of the supervisory board of Deutsche Postbank, which is 50 per cent owned by Deutsche Post.

As police raided his office in Bonn and his home in Cologne yesterday, it was speculated in the German media that the postal chief had transferred millions of euros to a bank in Liechtenstein to evade German taxation.

Mr Zumwinkel has declared himself a multimillionaire and has been at the helm of Deutsche Post since 1990, when it was still in state ownership.

The group, which is active in overseas markets, including the UK, was floated in 2000.

His tenure in the top job at Deutsche Post has made him the longest-serving chief executive in the Dax index.

It is thought that Mr Zumwinkel could be suceeded by Frank Appel, the head of the postal group’s logistics and mail division, or John Allan, the finance director.

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