Europe 1957-58, by my father

[James Bond Agent 007]

This is a follow-up to my thread showcasing old photos of Boston, taken by my father.

In the late 50's my father was in the Army, and was stationed in Germany for some time. It would appear he took the opportunity to do a bit of sight-seeing while he was there, and took some pics. I'll throw in some of his Army pics too, just for the heck of it.

Most of these are from 1957, with a few of the Army pics taken in 1958 (mostly early in '58 judging by the winter scenes). I'll put all these Europe pics in an album at my Flickr account here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/138263...57686336797950

Thanks to MonkeyRonin's suggestion in the Boston thread, I started up my old computer that had a copy of Photoshop on it and played around with the auto-color tool. I also started playing with the auto-level and color levels, contrast and some other tools to fix the ones that had turned red (which were numerous). Most of them I got pretty good, but there were a few that were so far gone there wasn't much I could do; fixing one color messed up another color, and so on. Later on I might even re-visit the Boston photos and really spiff 'em up good.

I won't post all at once, there's about 120 of them. While I'll group them by city/geographical location, otherwise they're in no particular order.

I'll start with London. As in the Boston thread, captions are by my father, some may be incorrect for all I know.

Westminster Abbey


Trafalger Square


St Pauls Cathedral


South from St Pauls

[James Bond Agent 007]

Regent Street


Picadilly Circus


Parliament & Thames


Mall from Buckingham Palace


And look who he bumped into on the street - Kirk Douglas!

[James Bond Agent 007]

Buckingham Palace


Big Ben


Big Ben/Parliament


Admiralty Arch


I didn't know they had a statue of Abe Lincoln at Westminster Abbey

[James Bond Agent 007]

Those are all the London ones. There's a bunch of Rome, Stuttgart, several of Bayreuth, a few from Holland, a few from Paris, one of Nuremburg, and a bunch from the Army camp in and around Neckarsulm, not all of which I'll show. There's also a few of the Navy ship he traveled back to the US on (which was this) and of his departure in Bremerhaven, which are kinda interesting so I'll show those too.

[SHiRO]

Hey cool pics! Thanks for sharing. Something very different from the usual stuff that gets posted here. I'm very interested in all the rest.

[LMich]

The Abraham Lincoln statue is more associated with Parliament (Square) then Westminster, though they are all in the same general area. Didn't get any pictures of it, but it was pointed out to us on a bus tour last I was there. Apparently, it was a gift from us, which explains why its there and the British were gracious enough to accept and prominently display it. lol

Interesting photos. It's always strange seeing how covered in soot everything was back then, and this goes for any industrialized country during the 50's. Some of the landmarks are almost unrecognizeable.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Here's the next batch - these are from Bayreuth, Germany, one from Heilbronn, Germany and some from Holland.

Bust of Richard Wagner in Bayreuth (he's a Wagner fan).



Wagner's villa, also in Bayreuth



Bayreuth street scene - "The Owl" restaurant



Some locals attending a Parsifal (Wagner opera) concert



More ...

[James Bond Agent 007]

This is supposedly the opera house in Bayreuth



Street scene of Bayreuth old town



1957 Bayreuth - Festpielhaus



Another side of the same building



And still another

[James Bond Agent 007]

Now we're in Holland ...

This is one of the pics I had a hard time getting the colors good ... Volendam



Doing some cleaning in Volendam



Marken, Netherlands



And some local girls in Marken



Street scene in Heilbronn, Germany



EDIT: Forgot this one from Volendam

[James Bond Agent 007]

Incidentally, if you want to see large versions of all these pics, click on the link to my Flickr album I put in the first post, then you can click on each photo and you get a much larger view.

[xzmattzx]

Great pictures so far!

[James Bond Agent 007]

Now we're in Stuttgart.

Here's a jazz sextet featuring Cedar Walton.


Some local girls, two of which are named Sandy Burday & Irene Landmesser.


The opera house. ????


And a different shot of the opera house.


One of these buildings is a legal brothel. Remember, this is my dad when he was in his 20's.


More ...

[James Bond Agent 007]

This is the sign outside of the legal brothel


This is a concert called "Get Happy" - Gary Crosby & Dale Grand


The train station - Banhoff


And the Banhoff interior


US Service Club facing Banhoff

[James Bond Agent 007]

This is a mosque in Schwetzigen. Yes they had mosques in Germany even in 1957! This was, probably more than any of the photos, one whose color I could not fix.


Caption for this is "Schloss - Ludwigsberg." I'm not sure if Schloss is the name of the city or the building, or if Ludwigsberg is the name of the city or building. I presume Ludwigsberg is the name of the city and Schloss is the name of the building, but you never know.


More tomorrow.

[James Bond Agent 007]

It looks like this is almost the same spot my father took of the mosque:
https://www.google.com/maps/@49.3803...hIbmVpMVpn!2e0

[James Bond Agent 007]

And because I'm bored ... this is the what used to be the service station across from the Banhoff:
https://www.google.com/maps/@48.7833...9NHWRp6SYQ!2e0

This is the Banhoff - from the closer side of the street. Street view has a gap where my father stood to take his pic:
https://www.google.com/maps/@48.7831...gXWFws_1Qg!2e0

2nd opera house shot:
https://www.google.com/maps/@48.7801...FJWUFZMUZL!2e0

Judging from street view, I think the first opera house shot isn't really the opera house. Anybody here know what it is?

[AviationGuy]

Originally Posted by LMich

The Abraham Lincoln statue is more associated with Parliament (Square) then Westminster, though they are all in the same general area. Didn't get any pictures of it, but it was pointed out to us on a bus tour last I was there. Apparently, it was a gift from us, which explains why its there and the British were gracious enough to accept and prominently display it. lol

Interesting photos. It's always strange seeing how covered in soot everything was back then, and this goes for any industrialized country during the 50's. Some of the landmarks are almost unrecognizeable.

I noticed the soot in the pics, too. By the time I visited in 1978, the buildings looked much cleaner.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Just for future reference, after I'm done with this one I will also have threads on:
-- Several shots of NYC in the 60's
-- A whole bunch of Nova Scotia in 1963, mostly featuring Pictou
-- A handful of LA and SF in 1968 and 69.
-- A pretty good number of Montreal and Quebec City in 1969.

[begratto]

Fascinating. Many of these places look much better now then they did back then.

Thanks for sharing those pics.

[Crawford]

Wow, very interesting! I have family in both Stuttgart and Heilbronn.

West Germany was just a few years old at this point, and there were probably still vacant lots and scars from the war in these cities.