AUGUST 1943 – Edith and Otto Schweim on the balcony of a villa in Malente-Gremsmühlen, Germany. © Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com
The story behind the image
Today, exactly 100 years ago, my grandparents got married in Schönwalde am Bungsberg in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.
Sadly, I do not have any images of their wedding, so I selected an image from summer 1943 to celebrate this day.
Otto was born in 1894 in Kiel in Germany where he met Edith in the early 1920s. Edith was born in 1905 in Oldenburg in Lower Saxony and had moved with her parents to Schönwalde am Bungsberg. In the early 1920s she was receiving an education as a corset maker – most likely in Kiel – and achieved her ‘master’ title in this profession. And she became owner of a successful shop that survived until the 1970s.
The church in Schönwalde did not see many weddings around that time. Otto and Edith were just the eleventh couple to get married in 1923. So it was quite special and intimate to get married here.
My mother told me that Otto was Edith’s great love, for all her life, and I think this love shows in this photo.
It was shot in Malente-Gremsmühlen in August 1943. At that point in time, they had been married for 20 years already. The family had moved to a holiday appartment for families because the war was raging in Kiel, and Otto and Edit wanted to get the kids out of the dangerous war zone. Their home in Kiel was near to the military harbour, and over the past months several aerial bombs had hit the ground within 200 meters of the house.
In Malente they found peace for many years and they were also close to Edith’s parents.
The high resolution image
| Capture Date | August 1943 |
| Location | Malente-Gremsmühlen, Germany |
| Image Source | 6 x 6 cm Print |
| Digital Image Source | EPSON Perfection 4870 Photo |
| Digital Image Source Format | TIFF, 48 bits/pixel, sRGB |
| Edited Image Format | JPEG, 24 bits/pixel, sRGB |
| Edited Image Dimensions | 2384 x 1589 Pixels |
| Copyright | © by Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com |
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