Extraordinary vintage photos of Germany in its earliest days

Early Germany: in pictures

When the first modern photograph was produced in France in the 1820s, Germany didn’t even exist. Instead, the German Confederation was a loose league of 39 sovereign states. By the end of the 19th century, these individual states had merged into a single nation. Germany was fast emerging as a world power, and, thanks to new photographic technology, it was all caught on camera.

Click through this gallery to see stunning images from Germany’s earliest days...

1839: Germany’s first photo

At the same time that Louis Daguerre was perfecting his famous 'daguerreotype' photographic technique in Paris, Bavarian mineralogist Franz von Kobell was conducting his own early experiments. He used a tubular camera to capture images on photosensitive silver chloride paper, and one of his first images was this one of Munich’s Frauenkirche, the city’s Catholic cathedral. It’s now thought to be the earliest surviving photograph ever taken in the German lands.

1850: An early cityscape

Technology moved on quickly from von Kobell’s early efforts. This image, taken just over a decade later, also depicts Munich’s Frauenkirche, but in the distance as part of a wider cityscape. In the foreground on the left hand side is one of the pump houses that supplied water to the rapidly growing city. Its architecture may be distinctly less glamorous, but it performed a vital function that allowed the population of Munich to hit 100,000 around the middle of the century.

c.1850: Building Bavaria

In 1837, King Ludwig I commissioned sculptor Ludwig Schwanthaler to create a giant bronze statue that personified his kingdom of Bavaria. The result was a 60-foot-tall (18m) giant, named simply Bavaria, that weighed more than 87 tonnes and needed to be cast in parts. Here, proud workmen pose with the statue’s chest and right arm before its final assembly in Munich. It still stands guard over the city today, though its unveiling in 1850 was a low-key affair since King Ludwig had been forced to abdicate during the revolutions of 1848.

1853: The Zwinger Palace

The Zwinger Palace was named for its location in Dresden’s zwinger – a buffer space between two city walls – but Augustus the Strong of Saxony wanted a palace of decadence rather than defence. Built between 1710 and 1728, it featured what is still seen as some of Germany’s finest Baroque architecture, and was surrounded by magnificent pleasure gardens. Both elements are on display in this image – one of the earliest German photographs taken outside Bavaria.

1855: Cologne's unfinished cathedral

The builders of Cologne Cathedral weren’t in any rush. They started in 1248 and kept working until around 1560, before taking a break that lasted until 1814. When work finally resumed, Johann Franz Michiels decided to record progress with his camera. In this photo, the nave is still under construction, while a wooden crane left over from medieval times still sits atop the stump of the south tower. It was finally removed just before the cathedral was finished in 1880.

1864: German trains gather speed

Germany was an early adopter of the railway. Its first line opened between Nuremberg and Fürth in 1835 – a four-mile (6km) route traversed by British-built rolling stock – and within a year the Maffei company near Munich began manufacturing locomotives. Soon, German-built engines were steaming all over the country. Less than 30 years later, Maffei workers gathered to celebrate the 500th locomotive leaving their factory, and the occasion was photographed.

1864: The Hamburg shipyard

Hamburg’s location on the Elbe River near the north German coast meant that it served as the region’s primary port for centuries. Merchant vessels like this three-master being built in the Hamburg shipyard exported German goods around the world and drove Germany’s industrial revolution. But Hamburg didn’t have a monopoly over North Sea trade, and the Danish port of Altona was just a few miles downriver. German generals would soon come up with a plan to deal with their Danish rivals.

1864: Defeating Denmark

By the 1860s, the German Confederation was dominated by the largest and most powerful state within it: Prussia. The Prussian leadership increased military spending and strengthened national unity against external enemies – following a patriotic policy of "blood and iron". In 1864 the Prussians led an invasion of the Danish province of Schleswig on behalf of the Confederation. Here, Prussian engineers are hard at work maintaining and repairing vehicles to go to the front.

1870: The Iron Chancellor

Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck was the driving force behind the war with Denmark. He then provoked war with Austria to strengthen Prussia's position yet further. Although Bismarck (seen here on the right) was relaxing with his hunting hounds when this photograph was taken in 1870, Prussia was already at war again. This time, Bismarck's Prussian-led confederation was fighting France, and by 1871 German troops were marching through Paris. When the war was over, Bismarck formally united the German states into a single nation.

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1870: Berlin from above

As the capital city of Prussia, Berlin naturally became the capital of the newly united Germany. Wilhelm I of Prussia became Emperor of Germany, but his residence stayed the same: the City Palace or Stadtschloss, seen in the centre of this image. Disappearing behind it is Unter den Linden, a boulevard named for the linden trees that run along its length from the palace to the Brandenburg Gate. At the time this photograph was taken, Unter den Linden was home to grand houses built by Prussia’s aristocrats who wanted to be close to the king.

1872: The Baltic Sea Flood

Hurricane-force winds blew through the Baltic Sea in November 1872, with devastating impact. The storm whipped the waves into a frenzy and caused the sea level to rise by up to 11 feet (3.3m), leaving coastal communities across the Baltic underwater. Schleswig-Holstein was among the worst-hit regions, with 15,000 people left homeless. This barn at Niendorf near Hamburg was destroyed, but its inhabitants at least survived. Overall, the storm surge left about 300 people dead.

1872: Lehrter Bahnhof opens in Berlin

Berlin’s Lehrter train station opened in 1871 to host trains to and from Hanover, but it faced competition from several other railways. The Magdeburg-Halberstadt Railway Company aimed to differentiate itself by making grand stations out of stone. The platforms serving Lehrter’s five lines were covered instead by an iron-arched dome, and the richly decorated Neo-Renaissance façades meant the terminus became known as 'the palace among stations'.

1879: The first electric train

The Berlin Industrial Exhibition opened in 1879 to show off the new technologies that were being developed in Germany. Many visitors arrived at nearby Lehrter train station, but once they were in the exhibition they were amazed to see an electric locomotive chugging around a track without smoke or steam. Built by visionary entrepreneur Werner von Siemens, the miniature train pulled a total of more than 80,000 visitors around a 3,300-foot (1,000m) track. Two years later, the first public electric tramway began operating on Berlin's streets.

1880s: Marienplatz

Munich’s main square has been the heart of the city ever since it was founded by Henry the Lion as a market town in 1158. The Old Town Hall was built in the 15th century, but by the 1870s the building – seen here with its tall spire on the right – was too small for Munich’s city government. Instead, the Neo-Gothic New Town Hall (left) was built on the opposite side of the square. Seen here in the centre of the square is the Mariensäule, a column dedicated to the Virgin Mary that was erected in 1638.

c.1880: The magnificence of Stolzenfels

Stolzenfels Castle was originally built in the 13th century to ensure that vessels sailing up the River Rhine paid their tolls, but Frederick William IV of Prussia transformed it into a pleasure palace in the 19th century. However, Frederick William didn’t keep the architectural jewel (pictured here around 1880) all to himself. He opened the doors to visitors, allowing all to marvel at its Gothic-Revival splendour at close quarters.

c.1885: Trains fuel Stuttgart industry

Stuttgart was one of Germany’s fastest-growing cities in the 19th century, and it was all down to the railway. When the first station was built in the 1840s, the city had around 50,000 inhabitants. When the station was rebuilt with a magnificent Renaissance-Revival façade (pictured) in the 1860s, it had grown to 70,000 on the back of new factories and mills supplied by rail. By the early 20th century, there’d be almost 200,000 people in the city, and Stuttgart would be one of Germany’s industrial powerhouses.

c.1885: Neuschwanstein Castle is (almost) completed

King Ludwig II of Bavaria was not satisfied by the royal palace in Munich, so he commissioned this masterpiece in the foothills of the Alps in 1868. It was an ambitious and expensive venture: costs spiralled and work ground to a halt when Ludwig was declared insane and deposed in 1886, before dying the next day in suspicious circumstances. Neuschwanstein Castle was still covered in scaffolding, but the Bavarian authorities decided to finish construction and open it to the public to recoup some of the cost.

1888: A royal funeral

Construction of the Brandenburg Gate began in 1788 on the orders of King Frederick William II of Prussia, who wanted a triumphal monument to celebrate the achievements of his uncle, Frederick the Great. Exactly 100 years later, the Brandenburg Gate played a major role in the funeral procession of Frederick William’s grandson, Kaiser Wilhelm I (pictured). It wasn’t the only royal funeral of the year. Wilhelm’s successor, Frederick III, died three months later of throat cancer and left the throne to his son, the notorious Kaiser Wilhelm II.

c.1890: The 'two cathedrals'

This image of Berlin’s Gendarmenmarkt supposedly shows the square's 'two cathedrals' – the French Cathedral in the foreground, built for Berlin’s French Protestant population in the early 18th century, and the German Cathedral in the background, built for German-language services shortly after. But neither church is a cathedral in the formal sense of the word, as neither plays host to a bishop. Both buildings suffered bomb damage in World War II but have since been renovated and remain places of worship today.

c.1890: The National Gallery and Museum Island

After more than 50 years of planning, Berlin’s National Gallery finally opened to the public in 1876. It included many notable paintings by German artists, including pieces by Caspar David Friedrich and Adolph von Menzel. It wasn’t the capital’s only cultural treasure, and the small island it sat on was also home to the Old Museum (seen here on the left), the New Museum and Berlin Cathedral.

1890: Hofbräuhaus and Bavarian beer

Munich is famous for its beer, and the Hofbräuhaus is perhaps the best place to drink it. Originally built in 1589 solely to supply beer to the Bavarian court, the brewery opened to the general public as a tavern in 1828, and soon became a hotspot for locals and visitors alike. It proved so popular that the iteration seen in this photo was knocked down in 1896, and a bigger beer hall built in its place. It still serves local brew today.

1891: Daimler’s new wheels

Gottlieb Daimler was a pioneer of a new form of transport: the petrol-powered automobile. He first fitted his petrol engine into a carriage in 1886. By 1891, when this photograph was taken of Daimler demonstrating one of his vehicles to prospective customers, he’d established a factory in Cannstatt and refined his design to build cars from scratch rather than converting old carriages. Alongside countryman Karl Benz, Daimler made Germany into an early world-leader in automotive technology.

1892: Edvard Munch rocks the Berlin art world

The Association of Berlin Artists was known to be conservative organisation, and so it proved when they asked up-and-coming Norwegian artist Edvard Munch to put on a solo exhibition in 1892. This photograph was taken in the solitary week that the exhibition was open – after that, the association’s members demanded it close since they considered Munch’s modern style rough and primitive. The scandal came to be known as 'the Munch Affair', but it can’t have put Munch off for long because the following year he painted The Scream – now one of art’s most recognisable images.

1893: Lilienthal takes flight

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? It’s actually German aviator Otto Lilienthal with one of his experimental gliders. Lilienthal’s experiments into winged flight went on to inspire the Wright Brothers, who used his aeronautical data in their own designs. He demonstrated his theories on a special conical hill he built just outside Berlin that allowed him to launch his contraptions no matter what direction the wind was blowing. Unfortunately, his passion proved his undoing. Lilienthal died in 1896 when a glider similar to the one pictured here crashed after take-off.

c.1895: Sun, sea and sand

The coastal town of Wyk auf Föhr in the Frisian Islands was first put on the map by the patronage of Danish King Christian VIII in the 1840s, and it continued to attract tourists after it came under the German flag in the 1860s. The dawn of the railway age made travel much easier, and Wyk became a thriving seaside resort, with sea baths and changing huts on wheels that could be pulled into the sea to protect users’ modesty.

1895: Hamburg, gateway to the world

Major renovations on the Hamburg docks in the 1860s opened up the port to more traffic, and soon the waterside was lined with vast warehouses. Railways ran right up to the waterfront, and the first ship-to-train transfer took place in 1872. Soon, Hamburg was known as Germany’s 'gateway to the world'. The Jungfernstieg, pictured here, became a favourite promenade spot for Hamburgers. It featured great views over the artificial Binnenalster Lake on one side and a long line of well-stocked department stores on the other.

1897: Rush hour in Berlin

At the turn of the 20th century, Berlin was the third-largest city in Europe with almost two million inhabitants. Major thoroughfares like Leipziger Strasse, pictured here, often came to a standstill at peak times thanks to the sheer volume of pedestrians, carriages and horse-drawn trams. Perhaps these Berliners are heading to nearby Wertheim’s, then the largest department store in Europe. It had opened a year earlier in 1896, and featured modern technological marvels that attracted upmarket clientele.

c.1900: The Wilhelm Memorial

Most modern-day visitors to Berlin’s City Palace have no idea that one of the largest sculptures ever created in Germany once stood there. The National Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial was dedicated to unified Germany’s first monarch, and featured a 30-foot (9m) statue of the emperor on horseback. Though it survived both world wars, East Germany’s communist authorities disliked the reminder of Germany’s imperial past and ordered its removal in 1950. Only the base remains on the banks of the River Spree, while the bronze lions that once circled the monument have an apt new home at Friedrichsfelde Zoo.

1900s: The many faces of Tempelhof

Tempelhof, a large green space to the south of Berlin, was used as a military parade ground by Prussian and German armed forces for almost two centuries. Here, Kaiser Wilhelm II reviews German troops alongside his family. Around the time this photo was taken, Tempelhof hosted the first test flight of a rigid airship and a flight by aviation pioneer Orville Wright. An airport was later built on the site but it closed in 2008, and Tempelhof has now reverted to a green space for Berliners to enjoy.

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