The year is 1920 and you’ve just moved to Berlin, city of dreams and endless possibilities. Your mates are already waiting for you at the local Kneipe as you skip down the sidewalk, fedora sitting perfectly, moustache twirled just like Kaiser Wilhelm’s. If only you could share this gleeful moment with your family back home. You stop at a department store, purchase a postcard and hastily scribble down a few sentences before entering the pub. As you order the first round of cold lagers, you remind yourself to drop off that postcard later. Life’s good.
A Night out in Mitte
If you think Berlin nightlife is a blast these days, you should see this postcard from 1914, showing the Alte Bauernschänke tavern in Mitte. Not a cell phone in sight – just pints, chit-chat and good people. If you’re thinking of paying the historic joint a visit yourself, however, we must disappoint you. The pub, where thirsty Berliners fashioning mighty moustaches once met for a couple of cold ones, has long been replaced by an office building, just opposite the Ministry for Families, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth.
“Greetings from Wittenau”
Though it hasn’t quite kept that reputation, there was a time when Wittenau – now the final stop on the U8 – was known as a posh, idyllic suburb just north of Berlin. In 1920, the upscale residential neighbourhood was officially integrated into the city. This greeting card, printed by crafty businessman Franz Borries to promote his local department store, showcases some of Wittenau’s main attractions at the time.
The Little Prince
Born and raised in Potsdam’s picturesque Marble Palace at Heiligensee (great location for a weekend picnic, by the way) little Prince Wilhelm of Prussia was a popular postcard motif in the early 1900s. Here he can be seen at around three years old, playing in the palace gardens, rocking some seriously snazzy high-knee boots.
Berlin winters
Opened in 1908 in Schöneberg’s Nollendorfkiez, Berlin’s first artificial ice rink also served as a location for concerts and shows, fitting close to 5,000 visitors.
Blimp over Berlin
A giant aircraft filled to the brim with highly inflammable helium gas and equipped with minimal safety precautions? Sounds like a great idea that will certainly never result in any devastating catastrophes! What’s particularly interesting about this imperial era postcard – showing a blimp hovering over the Berlin Palace (now home to the Humboldt Forum) – is the clunky 1900s photoshop. Peep the imperial guardsman with the spiked helmet, who seems to have been literally cut out of another picture and glued onto the bottom left corner.
Shiny happy people
Nothing screams Berlin like a three-hour wait at BER airport – though almost a century ago, things seem to have worked much more smoothly on the Hauptstadt’s runways. Something in those people’s beaming smiles tells us they have not chosen Ryanair that day.
Fangirl moment
Apart from landscapes and monuments, rare snapshots of the royal Hohenzollern family were among the most sought-after postcard motifs of the 1900s. In this picture, Kaiser Wilhelm II can be seen “surrounded by a cheery flock of girls”, as the caption somewhat awkwardly informs us. Imagine the same enthusiasm for current Chancellor Olaf Scholz!
Schwabenwirt Tavern
This bourgeois eatery in today’s Nollendorfkiez used to be a hotspot for rich Southern German cuisine. Apart from its historic value, this postcard is also proof that gentrification via wealthy Swabians began much earlier than one might have expected.
Rhino Mtoto
Ultimately a reminder of Germany’s all too often forgotten colonial heritage, this photograph shows the East African rhino Mtoto – captured by German “animal experts” on a “wildlife expedition”. Brought to the Berlin the same year as world-famous Gorilla Bobby – who is still featured in the company’s logo today – the baby rhino became one of the zoo’s main attractions in the late 1920s.
Palace for scale
At an impressive 215m, the “SS Kaiser Wilhelm II”, named after the last German emperor, was among the world’s longest ships in the 1900s – and what better way to prove that you have the biggest ship than to awkwardly photoshop it directly onto the Palace Square in Mitte? Originally a swanky ocean liner designed for the German upper class, the ship was eventually seized by the Americans in WWI and renamed “US Monticello” after Thomas Jefferson’s famous Virginia estate. Men and their boats, right?
Good Times at Schäfersee
Opened in 1928, this retro Späti at Schäfersee in Reinickendorf served snacks and refreshments to hungry weekend visitors. Although the “mushroom”, as locals nicknamed it, no longer exists, the surrounding garden is still worth a visit, with a café and a mini-golf course serving as worthy replacements for the cute joint.
Handball rivalry
Little is known about the history behind this postcard, which depicts a tense Handball match between Hannover and Berlin around 1930. As the postcard tells us, however, Berlin ultimately lost the game seven to eight.
This article was adapted from the German by José-Luis Amsler.
