Almost 13 years have passed since our last postcard to the Kuhnts in 1924, and the world has changed: theirs and the one around them. Back in 1924, Germany had finally come out of a post-war economic crisis and flourished socially and culturally for the first time since World War I. Over the next 5 years, many Germans enjoyed relative prosperity until the Great Depression in 1929 wiped out most of the gains. High unemployment rates and social and political unrest led to the collapse of the government and eventually to the appointment of Adolf Hitler as chancellor in 1933.
At the time of our next postcard in 1937, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party have been in power for 4 years. The Nazi dictatorship and its propaganda have permeated everyday life in Berlin and far beyond. Since the Nazis have risen to power, civil liberties have been suspended, political opposition has been eliminated, and those who are considered “subhuman” by the Nazi regime are discriminated against and persecuted. It’s 2 years before the start of the Second World War, and even though many suffer tremendously under Nazi rule, the most horrible atrocities still lie ahead. Many Germans live their lives in apparent tranquility. They go to work, spend time with family and friends, and kiss their kids goodnight, while the regime prepares for war, genocide, and mass murder.
Last time at Unanswered, we left Richard and Margarethe at Allerstrasse 47 in Berlin, where they have been living since at least 1924, and will continue to live up until at least 1931, at which point their address book record disappears. We don’t have any other postcards that were sent to Richard and Margarethe between 1924 and 1931, so we don’t know a lot about them or their family during this time, but we did find another clue that helped us get a little more insight into Richard’s and Gretel’s life in the mid-20s and early 30s. Johannadamberg from the Genealogy subreddit deciphered the last word in the address field of our last postcard as “Eisenwarengeschäft/hardware store”,
which suggests that the card was sent to a store rather than a home address.
I took a closer look at the available business phone books from back then and found Richard in the one from 1928 as the contact for a Beleuchtungskörper Handlung/light fixture shop at Allerstrasse 47.
So it looks like Richard and Margarethe owned a store at the same address they lived at in 1928. I was curious about what that looked like. Was Allerstrasse 47 a business or an apartment building or a family home? Did Richard and Margarethe really live there, or was this just the address of their store? Maybe the building was still around and could help us find some answers.
Today, Allerstrasse 47 is a 5-story corner apartment building with several retail spaces on the street level. The building looks renovated but could very well be a hundred years old or maybe even older. During the Second World War, large parts of Berlin, especially in the inner city, were destroyed by air raids, artillery, and street fighting, so many present-day buildings in Berlin were built after the war. However, according to this interactive map from the newspaper Berliner Morgenpost, which shows the approximate age of buildings across Berlin, today’s Allerstrasse 47 was built sometime around the turn of the 20th century. So it’s safe to assume that this is still the same building that Richard and Margarethe had their store in, and one of those shops that you see on the street level may very well have been their hardware or light fixtures store back in 1928.
So far for the store, but I was still not sure about Richard’s and Margarethe’s living situation at the time, so I took another look at their address book record from 1928:
The abbreviations after the house number “47.”, “Gh.”, “Erdg.”, and “T. 9130.”, stand for Gartenhaus/garden house, Erdgeschoss/ground floor, and Fernsprechanschluss/telephone connection (with the phone number 9130). You can learn more about abbreviations in German address books right here if you are interested. So according to these abbreviations, the Kuhnts live in a garden house, on the ground floor, and have a phone. As you can see, the phone number is also mentioned in the business phone book entry of their store, so I assume that this is first and foremost a business line.
I had never heard of a Gartenhaus before, so I dug a bit deeper and learned that these kinds of houses were part of a specific apartment building style in the late 19th and early 20th century in Germany and Austria called Mietskasernen. These apartment buildings were structured in a front building, one or two side wings, a depot, and a rear building, or Gartenhaus. Gartenhäuser were built inside the inner courtyard of the Mietskaserne, often parallel to the front building, to maximize the number of rentable apartments on the plot.
Allerstrasse 47 fits the description of a Mietskaserne quite well.
As you can see, it’s a corner building, with a side wing, that creates an expansive inner courtyard with its neighboring building. It’s hard to tell if there’s a Gartenhaus in the courtyard, with the trees obstructing the view, but I assume that this is where Richard’s and Margarethe’s apartment may have been or maybe still is.
So, did Richard and Margarethe own a store and live at Allerstrasse 47?
You may remember that I can’t confidently place Richard in the years after the First World War up until 1924, the year the last postcard was sent. Well, there is an address book record of a Richard, working as a plumber in Berlin from 1921 to 1925 (which is the year Richard’s record at Allerstrasse 47 first appears) and living at Schillerpromenade 13. What stands out about this address is how close it is to Allerstrasse 47. It’s a 4-minute walk. Now, this might just be a coincidence, another Richard Kuhnt living nearby, but maybe Richard and Margarethe were living at Schillerpromenade 13 before or maybe even while they had their store on Allerstrasse 47. Maybe both Allerstrasse records in the address and business phone books only refer to their store, and they never actually lived at Allerstrasse 47. I’m not sure either way, but if I had to guess, I’d say Richard and Margarethe owned a store at Allerstrasse 47 and lived in an apartment in the Gartenhaus at the same address.
One more quick excursion before we move on to 1932: The store at Allerstrasse 47 may not be the first or only store that the Kuhnts owned. Last time at Unanswered, we looked at phone book records from before the First World War, and between 1913 and 1915 Richard is listed as the owner of an Eisenwaren und Werkzeughandlung/hardware store at Scharnweberstraße 147. To learn more about the store, I looked for the listed phone number and came across a different record from a Carl Staamann, owning an Eisenmöbel/iron furniture store at the same address with the same phone number. Is this the same store? If so, did Richard just work at the store, did he co-own it with Carl, or did he purchase or rent it from Carl? Are these two different stores that share a phone line?
Address book records from back then show that the building at Scharnweberstrasse 147 is owned by an E. Staamann, and there are other Staamanns and Staamann businesses registered at the same address. Carl’s record for the iron furniture store persists until 1915, which is when Richard’s profession in his address book record changes from the store to “Kaufmann/tradesman” and the store address at Scharnweberstrasse 147 disappears. Carl’s entry changes address to “Berliner Straße 4. 5 E. T. 3438”. Over the years, it stays at the same address but changes business from an iron furniture store to a factory, to a car repair shop. Interestingly an Alfred Staamann, who changes profession to “tradesman” the same year Richard does, stays at Scharnweberstraße 147 past 1915. I’m not sure if and how the Kuhnts and the Staamanns are related, but the Staamanns owned the building and several businesses in the building before, during, and after the Kuhnts worked or owned a shop there. I’m not confident that Richard and Margarethe owned the hardware store at Scharnweberstrasse 147, but I’m confident that they owned the one at Allerstrasse 47.
Okay, let’s move on to 1932.
Both the address record for Richard and the business phone book record for his store disappear in 1932, and there’s no potential record match or postcard until 1934, when a new Richard, “Handelsmann/tradesman”, appears at Maybachufer 11. The record changes to Gräfestrasse 13 in 1936 before Richard, the tradesman, disappears completely in 1937. A new record, however, appears for a Richard Kuhnt at Dresdener Straße 11. I have no evidence to confirm that the tradesman at Maybachufer and Gräfestrasse is indeed our Richard, but considering his profession and that the record disappears the same year the Dresdener Straße record appears, it’s a strong possibility.
The profession of the Richard Kuhnt at Dresdener Straße 11 is listed as “Hauswart/caretaker”, so I would not have immediately connected him to our Richard, but this is the address where he and Gretel receive the next postcard in 1937.
To: Fam. Richard Kuhnt Dresdenerstr. 11 Berlin S.O. 36 Deutschland
Meine Lieben, Ihr werdet von Käthe gehört haben, dass ich ein bissel krank war, heut bin ich zum ersten Mal außer Bett, und da sollt Ihr einen Gruß haben. Wir warten sehnsüchtig auf den vom Papa angekündigten Brief. Hoffentlich seid Ihr gesund. Brief von uns folgt. Herzlichst F. + B. Herzlichst Euer B.
My dears, you will have heard from Käthe that I was a little sick, today I'm the first time out of bed, and so you should have a greeting. We are waiting longingly for the letter papa promised. Hopefully you are healthy. Letter from us follows. Sincerely, F. + B. Sincerely your B.
Okay, there’s a lot to unpack here. First, the address confirmation: Richard and Margarethe are indeed living at Dresdener Straße 11, and according to address book records, Richard is working as a Hauswart/caretaker, maybe even in the same building they live in. This card also introduces us to three new people: Käthe, F., and B.
The front of the card shows a row of houses in Zaandam, a city in the Netherlands, that still exists today. In the lower-left corner, you can see a description of the image in Dutch: Oude Geveltjes Blauwe Pad. In a wonderful coincidence, my husband is from Belgium, and Dutch, or more precisely Flemish, is his first language, so he helped me translate the description to Old Little Facades Blue Path. The Blue Path or Blauwepad was a picturesque neighborhood of wooden houses in Zaandam. The path originated in the 17th century and was originally called Jacob Claes Nomenspad. Many of the residents of the Blauwepad worked in the surrounding mills and factories. According to the Zaan mill database, the picture on the postcard was taken sometime between 1925 and 1927, at least a decade before the card was sent in 1937.
To the left, behind the houses, you can see the top of the De Huisman sawmill. Here’s a close-up of the mill from 1927:
The De Huisman mill was built around 1750 as a snuff tobacco mill and was later also used for the production of mustard. In 1912, the mill was purchased by Gerbrand De Vries, who established a box factory in the mill and used it to saw wood for the boxes. The mill came to a standstill during the Second World War and fell into disarray. To make space for the expansion of the adjacent Schildersbuurt neighborhood, the city bought the mill in 1950 and moved it to Kalverringdijk where it was converted to a spice mill. The mill went through an extensive restoration in 2010 and is still used as a spice mill today.
There’s a handwritten “x” in the middle of the postcard and a note in the upper left corner that reads either: “da ungefähr unsere Villa/about here our villa” or “so ungefähr unsere Villa/approximately like this our villa”. I’m not sure if the handwriting reads “da” or “so”, so I don’t know if the sender is indicating that this is the approximate location of their villa or that their villa looks somewhat like this one. As the sender uses an “x” rather than an arrow to mark the spot, I lean towards assuming that they are indicating a location, rather than making a comparison. Judging by the message on the back of the card, I don’t think that the sender is on vacation. They share that they have been sick, but don’t comment on how unlucky that would be while being on vacation. They also share that they are waiting for their father’s letter, and they mention someone named Käthe, who they assume has already been in contact with Richard and Margarethe. I don’t have the evidence to prove it, but I think that at least F. + B. live in Zaandam, probably somewhere around the “x” that the sender drew on the postcard. I assume that F. and B. moved to their “villa” recently, as it seems like they are introducing the location of their new home to their family with the postcard.
To find out what location the “x” may be marking, I tried to develop a better understanding of the layout of the area back in the 1930s, and it looks like the De Huisman mill (marked in orange below) was at the end of the Blauwepad, so to the left on the image of the postcard. According to aerial photos, the Blauwepad was a straight path with a single row of houses and without any turns.
Based on the position of the De Huisman mill on our postcard, I assume that the houses that can be seen on the card are towards the end of the path. I found this picture of the houses Blauwepad 78 and 80 in 1959, and I’m quite sure that the house in the middle, Blauwepad 80, is the house to the right of the “x” on our postcard. Take a look.
Keep in mind that there are more than 30 years between the picture on the postcard and the photograph, but take a close look at the door of Blauwepad 80 on both images.
The description of the image from 1959 on the Zaan image database mentions that the brick building in the back was built in 1928, which makes sense, considering that the picture on our postcard was taken sometime between 1925 and 1927 and doesn’t show this building. Now you might be wondering: “But where’s the De Huisman mill in the photo from 1959?” Well, remember it was purchased by the city and moved in 1950, so it’s not in the image in 1959 anymore.
I also found this picture of Blauwepad 74 - 76, the house furthest to the right on our card.
The description in the image database states that the house was demolished in 1930, which explains why it is missing from the picture from 1959.
Based on these images and their descriptions, I’m quite confident that the house to the right of the “x” on our postcard is indeed Blauwepad 80. I found an image of the back of Blauwepad 80 from 1932, just 5 years before our postcard was sent.
If the sender of our postcard indeed marked a location with the “x”, I’m assuming that it would be somewhere back here. In this image, you can see the De Huisman mill in the background and the smaller Windhond mill in front of it. The Windhond mill was located behind the brick building next to Blauwepad 80. To the right, you can see the houses Van der Helststraat 9 - 15, which are part of the adjacent Schildersbuurt neighborhood, built in the 1920s and 30s on the meadow behind the Blauwepad.
Looking at all these images, and again assuming that the sender of the postcard indeed marked the location of their home with the “x”, I think that F. + B. live in the Schildersbuurt neighborhood, maybe even on Van der Helststraat.
While the Schildersbuurt neighborhood still exists today, the Blauwepad is long gone. In the 1950s, the city decided to expand the Schildersbuurt neighborhood and started buying up and demolishing the houses along the Blauwepad. By 1967, the entire neighborhood had disappeared. Today the area of the Blauwepad is completely redeveloped and known as the Jan van Scorelstraat.
The image below shows the Schildersbuurt neighborhood encroaching on the Blauwepad, which at this point is already going through demolition for the expansion.
The chronologically next postcard, sent two months later, on March 27, 1937, is another indicator that F. and B. may live in the Schildersbuurt neighborhood in 1937, and provides us with some more information on how they might be related to Richard and Gretel.
To: Frau Marg. Kuhnt Dresdenerstr. 11. Berlin S.O. 36 Deutschland.
Zaandam, 27.3.37 Liebe Grete! Nun ist der Urlaub bald vorbei, wollte dir nur mitteilen, dass ich am Dienstag früh 10:30 hier ab fahre und um 9:38 abends Bahnhof Friedrichstr. bin. Herzl. Gruß an alle von uns allen. Richard Friedel hat die ganze Woche auf Nachricht gewartet.
Dear Grete! The vacation is soon coming to an end, just wanted to let you know that I will be leaving here Tuesday at 10:30 am and will be at the train station Friedrichstr. at 9:38 pm. Greetings to everyone from all of us. Richard Friedel has been waiting for news all week.
The postcard is written by Richard and sent to Margarethe in Berlin. Richard is in Zaandam and lets Margrethe know that Friedel, who could be the F. from the previous postcard, has been waiting for a message all week. Now the front of the card once again adds some interesting and helpful details.
It’s a black-and-white image of a building in Zaandam. The lower right corner describes it as “Ambachtschool/vocational school”. There’s also a handwritten note: “Weh, dass wir schei-den müssen. Leider hat Papa nicht schönes Wetter. Herzl. Gruss Euer B./Woe that we have to part. Unfortunately, dad doesn't have nice weather. Greetings your B.”
Richard is on vacation in Zaandam, most likely visiting F. and B. Richard mentions Friedel, and the note on the front of the card is signed with “B.” and refers to “Papa/dad” and how sad it is that they have to part. I assume that Richard is visiting his son B. and his wife Friedel (maybe short for Elfriede) in Zaandam. I assume that B. is male as he writes “Euer” the male form rather than the female form of “ Your” in German. B. using “Euer”, which is plural, also indicates that although the card is only addressed to Margarethe, he expects it to be read by more than one person. As Richard is in Zaandam at the time, I assume that other people, maybe siblings, aunts or uncles, or grandparents are living with Richard and Margarethe at Dresdenerstr. 11. If the card would only be read by Margarethe, I would expect B. to sign with “Dein B.”, the singular form of “Your” in German.
Now, let’s get back to the assumption that Friedel and B. live in the Schildersbuurt neighborhood, and let’s take another look at the aerial photograph of the Blauwepad and the Schilderbuurt neighborhood.
Do you see the large building behind the Blauwepad? Does it look familiar? Take another look at the picture on the postcard.
Yes, these are the same buildings: the Ambachtschool, a vocational school in Zaandam. The school was designed by architect Jan Schipper and opened in 1932, just 5 years before Richard sent this postcard.
Just two months earlier, Friedel and B. sent a postcard with an “x” indicating their home in the vicinity of the Blauwepad, and now Richard sends a postcard to Margarethe with a picture of a school in the same neighborhood. I don’t know if there’s a connection to the school in particular. Maybe Friedel or B. work there, or they attend school there, or maybe they even live there as caretakers. Maybe they just had this postcard lying around, or maybe Richard was interested in architecture and bought this specific card. Maybe there’s a connection, maybe there isn’t, but I do think there’s a good chance that the postcard is in some way related to the area that Friedel and B. live in and that Richard is visiting.
The chronologically next postcard is sent about 3 months after Richard’s visit, in June 1937.
To: Familie Rich. Kuhnt Dresdenerstr.11 Berlin SO. 36 Deutschland
Sonntag, den 6.6.37 Meine Lieben, heute waren wir an der See, es war herrlich. Wetter und alles in Allem wunderbar. Wir haben ordentlich in der Sonne gebraten und ich hab schon Farbe. Jetzt ist es 7 Uhr und wir sitzen noch gemütlich im kühlen Zimmer und dann geht es bald in die Betten. Also viele Grüße, ich soll noch Platz lassen Eure Käthe Wir freuen uns, dass es unserem Besuch gefällt. Herzl. Grüße B. und F.
My dears, today we were by the sea, it was lovely. Weather and everything wonderful. We baked in the sun and I’m already tan. Now it's 7 o'clock and we are still sitting comfortably in the cool room and soon we’ll go to bed. Kind regards, I need to leave room Your Käthe We are pleased that our visitor likes it here. Greetings B. and F.
We already know Käthe from the card Friedel + B. sent to Richard and Gretel back in January. We don’t know how Käthe is related to Richard and Margarethe or Friedel and B., but it sounds like she is visiting them. The front of the card shows a beach and reads “Castricum aan Zee. Het vrije strand/Castricum at the sea. The free beach”.
Castricum is a seaside town about half an hour northwest of Zaandam. The majority of the card is written by Käthe, who shares towards the end of her message that she was asked to leave some room. The last two lines are written by someone else. I compared the handwriting of those lines to the card from January and the message on the front of the card from Richard, and I’m quite confident that B. is the writer of those last lines. B. shares that they are happy that their visitor (Käthe) enjoys her stay.
The chronologically next postcard is sent only a month later, in July 1937.
To: Fräulein Hanni Kuhnt Dresdenerstr. 11 Berlin S.O. 36 Deutschland
Liebe Hanni, bald kannst Du den hiesigen Käse kosten. Viele Grüße B. Von meinem Ausflug nach dem Käsemarkt. B. hat doch Ferien und da haben wir die Gelegenheit wahrge nommen. Es ist sehr sehr interessant. Noch viel mehr mündlich herzlichen Gruß Mutti
Dear Hanni, soon you can taste the local cheese. Best regards B. From my trip to the cheese market. B. has holidays and we have taken the opportunity. It's very, very interesting. Much more orally Greetings Mom
This postcard is not sent to Richard, Gretel, or the whole Kuhnt family, but to Hanni Kuhnt at Dresdenerstr. 11. The card is signed by B. and Mutti, who I assume is Margarethe, visiting B. and Friedel in Zaandam. I think that Hanni is Richard’s and Gretel’s daughter and B.’s sister. Margarethe mentions the Käsemarkt, and if you look at the front of the card you can see De Waag, a national monument in a city called Alkmaar.
On the square in front of De Waag, the famous Alkmaar cheese market is held every Friday during spring and summer, up until today. Alkmaar is about 30 minutes north of Zaandam and according to Margarethe’s message, her and B., who seems to have time off from work, decided to drive up and check it out. One thing that stands out to me from the card is that Margarethe says: “B. hat doch Ferien”. I am originally from Austria and I grew up in the 80s and 90s, so my experience might not hold for Germany in the 30s but the word “Ferien'' is generally used in relation to school, not for an adult who has taken time off. In that case, we would use “Urlaub”. This might be nothing, but it might also support the theory that B. may be working or attending the Ambachtschool, in which context the use of the word “Ferien” would make more sense.
The last postcard in 1937 is sent at the beginning of September.
To: Fam. R. Kuhnt Dresdenerstr. 11 Berlin S.O.36 Deutschland
9.9.37 Meine Lieben, vielen Dank für Euren n. Brief. Es wundert mich, dass der Geburtstagsbrief nicht pünktlich war, er ging schon Freitag hier ab. Wir haben heute zu zweit einen Ausflug nach hier gemacht, leider kein gutes Wetter, sondern Sturm. Aber die See ist doch herrlich. Das Gewünschte schicke ich Dir Mutti mit. Sonst alles gesund und munter, Brief folgt bald. Herzlichst Eure F. Herzlichst grüßt Frau Lewitt
My dears, thank you for your n. letter. I'm surprised that the birthday letter was not on time, it left here on Friday. The two of us went on a trip today, unfortunately no good weather but storm. But the sea is beautiful. I'll send you mom what you asked for. Otherwise everyone’s healthy and happy, letter will follow soon. Sincerely, your F. Kind regards Mrs. Lewitt
The postmark of the card shows that it was sent from Amsterdam, while the front of the card once again features Castricum aan Zee and a local Badhotel/hotel.
It’s the end of 1937, and we are 7 postcards and more than 50 years into Richard and Margarethe’s life. Over the past 50 years, Richard and Margarethe went to school, got jobs, and met each other in Berlin. They got married, moved in together, and owned or at least worked at a hardware store. Richard served in the First World War, and Margarethe went to live with her parents while he was away. When Richard rejoined Margarethe after the war, he worked as a tradesman and later on they owned another hardware store, at least until the early 1930s. I’m quite confident that Richard and Margarethe had at least 2 children, B. and Hanni, and while I think that Hanni might be in her teens or early tweens in 1937, as she still lives with her parents at Dresdenerstr. 11, I think that B., who at that time is already married and living in the Netherlands, was probably already born when his father joined the war. Richard and Margarethe move to Dresdenerstr. 11 in 1937, and they will stay there for almost 30 years before moving to their final home just 1.6 miles away.
It’s the end of 1937, and we are less than 2 years away from the start of the Second World War. It seems like up until now, the Kuhnts have been simply living their lives: going on vacation, basking in the sun, taking day trips, and going about their days, untouched by the horrors of the Nazi regime.
But is that really true? Who is B. and is F. indeed Friedel? Is B. indeed Richard’s and Margarethe’s son? Why are they in the Netherlands? Who is Frau Lewitt, and will we hear from her again? Is Hanni indeed B.’s sister? Who is Käthe? Who else is part of Richard’s and Margarethe’s family? How are the Kuhnts living through the Second World War and in the years beyond? 27 postcards and 30 years to go. More answers and more questions, next time on Unanswered. Continue here to part 4.
I want to send huge appreciations and gratitude to johannadamberg at the Genealogy subreddit for her help deciphering and transcribing the postcards of this month's article. Thanks so much for all your help and support <3
Background music in voiceover: Spring Flowers by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/ Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Fascinating! So much insight from the postcards… it’s beautiful.