UNDATED – View across the Dieksee from Gremsmühlen near Eutin in Germany. © Mark Zanzig/Zanzig.com/Photo: F. Henning
The story behind the image
Here is another historic photo from the coffee-table book I acquired containing 21 prints of the Ostholstein region in northern Germany, captured and published by photographer Friedrich Henning from Plön. (An important part of my family comes from Malente and Eutin, so I have a vital interest.)
The book and photos are undated but I’d estimate it to be produced between 1910 and 1915. One indicator is the price of 1.20 Mark. The Mark, also called Goldmark, was the official currency in the German Empire from 1871 to 1918.
The image is quite remarkable from the content perspective, because when you compare it to older images you understand the transformation of Gremsmühlen and the Dieksee from an early touristic destination to a more sophisticated one. In this case, in the period from 1897 to 1910 the Park Hôtel had been built, and the pier had been turned from a simple wooden construction into a genuine pier for larger excursion boats that had become popular.
The trend towards sophistication found its sad peak in 1973, when a hotel group had the fabulous idea of replacing the Park Hotel with a huge, 12-story concrete monster. (Here’s an insider report covering that building, and how it presented itself in 2019, in German.)
Design ideas
The high resolution image
| Capture Date | circa 1910 |
| Photographer | F. Henning, Plön |
| Location | Gremsmühlen, Germany |
| Image Source | 12 x 17 cm rasterized 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 | 3876 x 2801 Pixels |
| Copyright | Mark Zanzig/Zanzig.com/Photo: F. Henning |
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