Blast from the past

German member Karlheinz Wedhorn is taken back in time by the sight of some documents from almost a century ago

Last year, my American friend Andrew Hascher visited me at my photography studio in Bavaria, Germany. He dropped into conversation that his father had sent him some postcards and an ID card that perhaps I might like to take a look at. Naturally, I wanted to because old photographs are always interesting.

These images showed two men in work suits, laughing in front of a turbine and, judging by their clothes, it looked to have been taken in Germany. The other document he showed me was an identity card issued in 1926 – during the German Reich – to a certain Georg Hascher, a machinist in the city of Augsburg. We quickly recognised the machinist in the first picture as the man in the passport photo. Then, with a grin, my friend handed me another image: two men, who were without a doubt sitting on a Harley-Davidson^®.

However, the real highlight for me was a postcard sent from Cleveland, Ohio, to Germany on 15 June 1927 and addressed to one Miss Rosa Schnell. It reveals not only a proud Harley^®owner who had emigrated to the US but also my friend’s great-grandfather. We have no information on who the passenger was, but it could have been another relative or friend who moved from Augsburg with Georg.

After the painstaking task of deciphering the text on the postcard, which was neatly written in Sütterlin script almost 100 years ago, we learned that the message to Rosa reads as follows:

Dear Rosa,

I want to let you know briefly that I have received your letter, for which I thank you very much. Well, how do you like my m-bike? My dear, it’s going like hell. You can see that you’re more likely to get somewhere here than in Germany.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t interpret the rest of the greeting. Nevertheless, this story has a happy ending: Rosa followed her Georg to the US, where they were married, and she took this postcard along with her. This little memory of his “m-bike” is preserved and she certainly couldn’t have dissuaded him from riding the devilishly fast Harley. Another photograph shows a newly founded local club for German Harley-Davidson riders, which was started by enthusiasts in Cleveland. This means, of course, that even back then Harleys were not just seen as a means of transportation, but that people were already using their motorcycles for trips and group rides during what was certainly their rare leisure time.

Today, Andrew is a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army and finds himself stationed in Bavaria, just 80km away from where his family was living in 1927. While 20 years of service have not been conducive to owning a Harley-Davidson of his own, it remains a “maybe one day” thought…