Pictures of 1930s & 40s German Women

[Leo Niehorster]

<Mr. Picky> Fs. as used here is the abbreviation for Fernschreib-, = telex.</Mr. Picky>

The thin paper tape leading from/to the machine supports this.

Cheers
Leo

[tigre]

Hello to all ; thanks for shedding light on this Leo .....then it would be a Teletypewriter station. Cheers. Raúl M .

[Vikki]

A photo posted by Tigre was removed. Raúl, your photo contributions are great, but please remember that this is a public forum.

Best,

~Vikki

[Larrister]

Another from my collection.

Larry

[tigre]

Hello to all ; OK Vikki I got the point, no problem at all. Cheers. Raúl M .

[Vikki]

Hello to all ; OK Vikki I got the point, no problem at all. Cheers. Raúl M .

Thanks, Raúl. I thought you'd understand.

~Vikki

[Vikki]

Great photo, Larry. I love the woman's complete ensemble.

What is the Heinrich Kreutz watermark on the lower left corner of the photo? Is it photographer's studio information from the back of the photo that you transferred to the front as a watermark?

~Vikki

[Twotonic]

Source the multitude of (the forthcoming movie) 'Iron Sky' marketing paraphernalia... no lack of typical americanised bawdy representations to get the perv in some aroused. Btw, I'd imagine the prevalence of larger-than-normal mamaries and bleached blonde wavy locks was as prevalent in a cross-section of America's population, as Germany's at the time... wishful thinking reigns again!

[redcoat]

Sometimes I wonder why these beautiful German women lost the war...

Rod

Because some beautiful British, US, and Soviet women helped ensure they did

[Heimatschuss]

Hello Vikki,

What is the Heinrich Kreutz watermark on the lower left corner of the photo? Is it photographer's studio information from the back of the photo that you transferred to the front as a watermark?

I think it's a stamp of the photo studio embossed on the photo paper. I've seen such embossed stamps several times on old pictures.

The stamp says:

Heinrich Kreutz
Frankfurt A.M.
Zeil 81

and because of this I think this is a post-war copy of the wedding photo. Zeil was and is the main shopping street in Frankfurt, very posh. It seems stange that a shop there doesn't have a telephone number. There's obviously space left
on the stamp and due to its strange asymetrical form it looks more like an existing phone number has been removed than anything else.

Zeil street was completely wrecked in an air raid on Frankfurt in March 1944, complete rebuilding took until the 1960s. Until then many shops and stores resided in ruins provisonally repaired or smaller buildings built from the debris (http://www.aufbau-ffm.de/serie/Teil12/teil12.html). Getting a telephone installed in those times was
very difficult, especially in the early years.

It was quite common that people acquired new copies of important family photos after the war. They came with the scratched and crackled original copies they'd dug out of the rubble of their homes. The photographer made a working copy of the damaged original and then retouched the working copy to remove scratches, water stains, dirt and so on. The working copy then was photographed again to produce a repaired copy for the owner. There's a description of the procedures in the memoirs of former Flakhelferin Annemarie Heinz who worked as photographer assistant after WWII (Heinz, 1999, p.284).

References:

Heinz, Annemarie
Anna die Soldatin.
Stieglitz Verlag; Mühlacker, Irdning; 1999

Best regards
Torsten

[Vikki]

Interesting information, Torsten, thanks. I thought perhaps in this case Larry had transferred the photographer's studio information to the front of the photo, since many of the studio shots of the period that I have and have seen have the photographer's information printed on the back, and since I also know his skills with photo editing. Your information, though, is a very interesting anecdote of people rebuilding their lives after the war.

I wonder whether Zeil 81 was a photographer's shop before and during the war?

~Vikki

[Larrister]

Interesting information indeed. Thanks Torsten.
Would that mean that all embossed photographer's studio addresses are post-ww2?
I have several early photos that are embossed like this.

It seems a little strange that people post-war would want reprinted copies of photos depicting their Nazi past when most were trying to distance themselves from that era.

Larry

[Helge]

1939

[Vikki]

It seems a little strange that people post-war would want reprinted copies of photos depicting their Nazi past when most were trying to distance themselves from that era.

On a personal, rather than political, level, I don't find it strange at all, Larry. As Torsten suggests in his post, a photo like this may have been the only surviving photo a woman, or their family, had of the couple after the war. And in the quite possible case that neither of the two survived the front and homefront bombing, I can definitely see the family's wanting a reprint of the photo.

Best,

~Vikki

[Larrister]

Hi Vikki,

In hindsight I agree with what you say. A cherished memento of their wedding day most likely reprinted post war.
I wonder whether you agree with Torsten that embossed photos are post war. Most of mine are ink stamped but a few very early photos in my collection are embossed.

Cheers,
Larry