1929 – The sailing freighter Bremen is enclosed by ice on the frozen Kieler Förde in Germany. Four men and an Opel car stand next to the ship on the ice. Scan © Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com
The story behind the image
The winter 1928/29 was extremely cold. In fact, it was so cold that large portions of the Baltic Sea were frozen all over, including the Kieler Förde – that’s the arm of the Baltic Sea that leads into Kiel – and the canal that connects Kiel to the North Sea. Several ships were enclosed by thick ice and had to to wait until it was melting again.
This original postcard is a real gem from this period. It shows four men standing on the thick ice next to the bark Bremen. There is also an Opel sedan car. The German caption reads:
Strong Winter 1929 – For the first time a car on the Kiel harbour
The Bremen had been built in 1902 in France (as René) and was sold in 1923 to Germany where it got renamed to Lisbeth. In 1926 the ship was renamed once again, now operating as Bremen mostly transporting saltpeter from Chile to Europe. The image in Kiel was captured during this period. Following the world economic crisis the Bremen was put out of service and scrapped after 1932. Turn to Wikipedia for more details (in German).
The Bremen was not the only ship surrounded by ice in Kiel! There were more than 1,000 sailors on more than 60 ships captured by the ice. All these people needed food and drinks, and for the local merchants this meant big business.
Bert Morio of apt-holtenau.de has the full story (in German). Funnily, his article opens with the same image as above, but without the caption. Several other images seem to be coming from the same publisher or photographer.
The official site kiel.de also features a detailed write-up (in German.)
Oh, and since I’m in a sort of winter mood (at the time of writing), please expect a mni series of winter images over the next couple of days. 🙂
Design ideas
The high resolution image
| Capture Date | 1929 |
| Photographer | unknown |
| Location | Kiel, Germany |
| Image Source | Postcard, 8.8 x 13.8 cm |
| 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 | 6249 x 3593 Pixels |
| Copyright | © by Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com |
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