Free online German bank accounts

At the moment I am very unhappy with the bank account I have now, but when I am not in Germany anymore, I would still like to have a German bank account for occasional transactions.
Currently I pay pretty much just to have the account and I get charged when I don't collect my statements myself. I've heard that there are Internet bank accounts which are only usable via the Internet but they're free to have. Does anyone know of these, where to find and any positive/negative experiences?

Hi
a good friend of mine has a free online ING-DIBA Extra-Konto and is pleased with it. This is really only suitable as a saving account though, their current accounts cost 4€ a month.
Postbank offers free online banking for those under 26 or if you have putting 1000€ in the account a month. I used Postbank years ago and quite liked it, particularly as it is part of the cash group so you can get money out virtually anywhere.
Mind you, why do you want to maintain an account here?
Katrina

I have HVB who offer free online banking if you have more than a €1,000 balance (AFAIK). But I still get statement ever month.

These guys won the recent Stiftung Finaztest:
http://www.dkb.de/
and have only internet banking.

See:
http://www.dkb.de/privat/privat/dkb_cash_neukunden.php
for details.

Who has some personal experience with DKB? A coworker has an account there and mentioned it a few weeks ago.
A really nice advantage is that you can get money from any ATM without any extra charges. But besides that, is it good? What about risk? How safe is all this online-only banking?
Any additional info on this subject is welcome. Also comments on DKB especifically.
Thanks all.

I don't know about DKB, but I use the ING extra konto mentioned by Katrina and it works really well. They have a free online giro konto now as well. If you open one I could get a free gift as well!

I've had a DKB account for close to three years now. Can recommend it - the only thing is the free cash withdrawals is only on the (free) Visa card, so you have to transfer money from the current account to the Visa account before taking it out at an ATM. Not a great problem though since you get 3,75% (I think currently) interest on the Visa account compared to about 0,5% on the current account. You just need to make sure there's enough in the current account to pay your bills and EC-card usage

The only drawback I can see with straight online banking is if you ever get a cheque to pay in (electricity bill refund for example), or for checking identities it's easier to just take your passport down to the bank than faff around elsewhere. Not a great worry for me as there is a branch in Rostock, although it's only open about 4 hours a week!

There was a thread on the DKB a couple of months ago (but of course, you'll have already searched and found it!)