Formal greeting without specific recipient

Question

When writing a formal email or letter to a specific person in German I usually use:

Sehr geehrte Frau X
Sehr geehrter Herr X

However when the receiver of the letter/email is not an specific person or is unknown, I'm not sure which form should I use (the English equivalent of "to whom it may concern").

In this cases sometimes I just write:

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren

or I include the name of the company:

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren der XXX

Is this the correct German greeting for formal letters? Or there are other formulas that fit better when the recipient is unknown?

Answer 1

The best choice is

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,

Nothing can go wrong if you use this standard salutation.

This is not necessary:

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren der Firma Müller & Mayer,

Because you already send the letter or e-mail to this company.

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In a letter you write:

Sembei Norimaki, Hauptstraße 17, 1234 Nest am Fluss, am 10. August 2017

_{(some blank lines)}

An die Firma
Müller & Mayer
Industriepark 85c/14
9876 Großstadt

_{(some blank lines)}

Vertragsverlängerungsantrag

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,

wie bereits vor einer Woche angekündigt, wende ich mich heute an Sie, um nun den Antrag zur Verlängerung meines Vertrages zu stellen. Bla bla bla ...

Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Sembei Norimaki

_{(note that postal codes in Germany have 5 digits, in Austria and Switzerland they have 4 digits)}

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In an e-mail the information about the sender, the receiver, the date and the subject are in other parts of the message (in the header). So in the body you just write:

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,

wie bereits vor einer Woche angekündigt, wende ich mich heute an Sie, um nun den Antrag zur Verlängerung meines Vertrages zu stellen. Bla bla bla ...

Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Sembei Norimaki

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Addendum

Some additional information about salutations in letters and uppercase/lowercase writing:

As you can see, in my examples the salutation ends with a comma, and the first word of the body of the message starts with a lower case letter (if it's not a noun, which always has to begin with an uppercase letter). This is, because the salutation is understood as part of the first sentence of the letter. The salutation is just separated from the rest by an empty line.

This is the correct way everywhere where German is spoken. But in Switzerland there is also an additional variation in use, that is correct there too, but is unusual in other countries. In this Swiss variation there is no punctuation at the end of the line, and the body starts with an uppercase letter:

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren

Wie bereits vor einer Woche angekündigt, bla bla bla ...

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The salutation at the end normally begins with an uppercase letter, because normally it is not part of the last sentence:

... Ich bedanke mich schon jetzt für ihre Mühen.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

But it also can be part of the last sentence. In this case it has to begin with a lowercase letter:

... Ich bedanke mich schon jetzt für ihre Mühen, und verbleibe

mit freundlichen Grüßen

Answer 2

Whenever I address somebody without a specified recipient (for example a hotel), I use:

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,