a serendipitous find possibly of interest to the Krefeld Clan.
On a tumblr blog that posts lots of old postcards I discovered this group photo of young women from Krefeld, who in 1906 served as ladies of honour to welcome the emperor Wilhelm II to the city:
Die Ehrendamen beim Besuch Kaiser Wilhelm II in Krefeld, 2. April 1906. Source.
When I tried to find out who they were (seeing that our Krefeld Clan relatives had plenty of eligible daughters around that time), I discovered another group photo from an earlier imperial visit, and an amusing story to connect these two.
A few years earlier, the Kaiser had visited Krefeld on to celebrate the city's 200th anniversary of being part of the Kingdom of Prussia. (NB people in the Rhineland had rather mixed feelings about being ruled by faraway Prussia, but I guess by the time the 200th anniversary arrived they had gotten used to it.) On this visit, 20 young women of the city, all dressed in white, lined the stairs of the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum (built in 1894-97 as a memorial to Wilhelm I and still standing today) to welcome the monarch. Reportedly, he was quite impressed by this welcome and asked for their group photo to be taken:
Die Krefelder Ehrendamen beim Empfang der Kaiserl. Majestäten am 20. Juni 1902. Verkleinerung der von seiner Majestät gewünschten Original-Photographie. Source.
Various copies of this postcard are available for sale online (eg here and here). I'm dreaming of finding one with the inscription "hey look that's me" or at least with a useful name.
Legend has it (see eg here) that in subsequent smalltalk with the ladies, Wilhelm inquired whether they went out to dance quite regularly. He heard complaints that the young men of the city only had their textile businesses in mind so there wasn't all that much dancing happening. On the spot, the emperor promised to send some officers to Krefeld for the ladies to dance with. Chances are that the plans were already being hatched beforehand, but he did indeed order the 11th regiment of Hussars to be moved from Düsseldorf to Krefeld. That move happened on April 2 1906, and the emperor underlined his role in the deal by personally leading the regiment on the last mile into the city. The painter Carl Röhling immortalised the scene:
Obviously, ladies dressed in white were lined up and photographed again on this occasion, hence the postcard photo dated 1906 shown at the top.
The soldiers were known as the Tanzhusaren in reference to the story:
Source: Wikipedia
Of course the residence of the regiment in the city only lasted eight years until the hussars were sent to France for a fight in which their role as dashing horsemen soon proved to be obsolete. Much like the monarchy and the ladies of honour, so those pictures are a bit like a last hurrah of that world about to vanish.
No comments:
Post a Comment