Family Excursion

1940 – Two couples show a good mood while posing for a selfie in front of a car on a meadow in Schleswig-Holstein in Northern Germany. Scan © Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com

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The story behind the image

Here is another photo from our family archive. It shows my grandparents Edith, on the left, and Otto, second from right, my grand aunt Irmgard Wilke, on the right, and grand uncle Arthur Wilke, second from left. They have fun posing for this selfie in front of an Opel Super 6 two-door limousine. This model had been produced just between November 1936 and November 1938; sales start was in February 1937. During the short life span of the model line, about 46,500 cars had been produced (all variants.) You can read more about it on this page (in German.)

The car on the photo carries a number plate of the German Reich – IP 115947 – for the region of Schleswig-Holstein, i.e. the photo must have been taken between 1937 and 1945. I guess it was shot around 1940. It’s unclear where the photo was taken. It appears as part of a photo series from St. Peter but sadly there is no clear caption for this one.

I think it is an interesting photo as it shows the group in a really good mood – an indicator that the war had not been going on for long by then. Most of our archived photos from 1944 and 1945 do not show this light-heartedness anymore. Clearly, there business was still doing well and they could afford a relatively new car.

The original print shows a lot of sky, and I decided to crop it to a modern aspect ratio of 3:2, chopping off mostly the sky but also a bit of the meadow in the front. I think this works much better.

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The high resolution image

Capture Date	unknown, probably 1940
Location	Schleswig-Holstein, Germany
Image Source	6.5 x 6.5 cm 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	2566 x 1711 Pixels
Copyright	Scan © by Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com