JANUARY 1963 – View towards south into the Schillerstrasse in Kiel, Germany, during heavy snowfall. © Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com
The story behind the image
Following the death of my grandfather Otto in 1956, the house in Kiel Wik got too big and too expensive, and my grandmother decided to sell it and move to a large appartment closer to the city center where the family-owned store was located. The appartment was located in the Schillerstrasse in Kiel, right in front of the popular Schrevenpark with its large lake and extended greens.
My mother took this image from the appartment on a day with heavy snowfall in January 1963. What’s truly remarkable about this photo is the almost complete absence of cars. One Volkswagen Käfer has been parked under the street light, further down the street there’s a sedan on the left and another two small cars on the right. That’s four cars.
Today, both sides of the street are lined with parking lots – and cars! I counted about 36 cars on the satellite image from 2021 for the section of the street that is visible in the image above. That would mean a ninefold increase within 58 years. Wow. Could this be really true? Well, it could be. In 1962 there were about 6.3 million cars registered in Germany. This number has risen to 47.7 million cars in 2021. That’s a 7.5x increase and close enough.
Anyway, I think this photo is an exciting document from a time where owning a car was still a dream for many.
The high resolution image
| Capture Date | January 1963 |
| Location | Kiel, Germany |
| Image Source | 7 x 10 Print |
| Digital Image Source | EPSON Perfection 4870 Photo |
| Digital Image Source Format | TIFF, 48 bits/pixel, AdobeRGB |
| Edited Image Format | JPEG, 24 bits/pixel, sRGB |
| Edited Image Dimensions | 4602 x 3103 Pixels |
| Copyright | © by Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com |
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