Four Historic Postcards

In late June I ordered some historic postcards online, which arrived on 1st July.

The first card shows the Bismarck Monument in Hamburg. The Bismarck Monument was built between 1901 and 1906 and depicts Bismarck in the style of Roland, a knight with bare sword. Clearly visible from Hamburg's port, this is the largest German monument to the the first Chancellor of the German Empire and one of the city's landmark. For years I had been looking for a card of this monument, but the best one I could find only showed the head during the construction (see it here). Currently however the monument is renovated and there are plans to open a museum in the vault below, so hopefully there will soon be some more modern cards, but for the moment this one is great.

Another Bismarck is also shown on the second card. This one shows the Bismarck Memorial in Berlin, which was created between 1897 and 1901. This card is so old that shows the monument still in its original location in front of the Reichstag Building, but in 1938 it was moved together with monuments of Moltke and Roon and the Victory Column to its current location in the Tiergarten.

The third is also from Berlin and shows the Archenhold Observatory. Located in Treptow, this observatory is home to the Great Refractor, the longest pointable telescope in the World and the last remnant of the Great Industrial Exposition of 1896. 

Last but not least I also bought this card of the Saint Peter's Church in Petersberg. The Saint Peter's Church is one of the oldest aboveground churches in Germany and was for some years the resting place of Saint Leoba. Together with the Saint Michael's Church in Fulda this church is currently nominated for the European Heritage Label as important site of the so-called Carolingian Renaissance.