WHIPS

On an auction I purchased this local post card with a German stamp. A rare early postcard from Gibraltar taken by a German ship, send on 06th July 1900 addressed to Germany, depicting Catalan Bay-Gibraltar bearing a German 10pfg stamp and cancelled on-board the ship on the 12th July 1900 KAIS DEUTSCHE/MARINE/SCHIFFSPOST/No.43 used by SMS Furst Bismarck with OEDERAN arrival on 20th July 1900.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_F%C3%BCrst_Bismarck
I went to the local achieves, and found some information when the ship arrived in Gibraltar. As you can see the ship arrived in Gibraltar on 06th July 1900 the Captain visited His Excellency the Governor, I am trying to get the Governors transcript for that day.

So the question is WHO from a crew of 560 sent the letter, to his mother or girl friend Olga. I am getting the letter translated.
There has to be a record and names of all the crew, in the German Naval Achieves.

I am requesting help from the German speaking Whip members. Please probe the German Navy to give you the names so we can then find the writer of the letter.

Regards gibbo

Olga Polenz must have been Arthur's girlfriend as he is addressing it with "Fräulein" which back then was only used for not married women. Good that you will have that postcard translated because I only can read parts of it. I cannot read the majority of it.

bb

bierbaer wrote:Olga Polenz must have been Arthur's girlfriend as he is addressing it with "Fräulein" which back then was only used for not married women. Good that you will have that postcard translated because I only can read parts of it. I cannot read the majority of it.

bb

u are the first geman that i know can not read!!! lol

bb I need you to do better, my boss's mother can't read it, she is 90 poor thing, its all up to you surely someone in Germany can read this.

PS how are we doing with the list of Crew names.

Regards
gibbo

I could translate it and help you, but.....

it's TOP SECRET information, so........

sorry!

eesti what a shame it was suppose to have been a surprise, whoever can translate it would have received $500,000.

Damn secret services....

I don't know if this can help, but I've tried to improve the image quality with photoshop:

Thanks Syd. It's though no written German we use nowadays, it is "Altdeutsch" and pre "Sütterlin" which was being used in the early 20th century but after 1900. And I cannot read it.
I can see single words but this is it. It though comes already close to Sütterlin:



bb

A colleague thinks to have the first part of the first sentence translated:

"Liebe <cantreadname>,

Wir sind glücklich hier in Gibraltar angekommen...."

"Dear xxx,

we arrived happily here in Gibraltar...."

bb