Greetings from Strassburg

Greetings from Strassburg. Imperial Palace. New Bridge and Railway Bridge Across the Rhine. Published by G. Schoder (Jacob Dietler), Göppingen.

Inaugurated in 1898, the city’s principal synagogue on Quai Kléber (Kleberstaden), just northwest of the old city, was designed on the model of medieval Imperial cathedrals in southern Germany by the Jewish architect Ludwig Levy (1854–1907) who created the plans for at least eleven synagogues, none of which survived the Nazi onslaught. The reform-oriented synagogue accommodated up to 1,600 of the roughly 4,000 Jews living in the city at the time. Against the backdrop of the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine by Germany following the Franco-Prussian war of 1870/71, the postcard seems to have a clear (propagandistic) message. The Imperial Palace (now Palais du Rhin) was inaugurated in 1889 to provide the German Kaiser with a conspicuous seat of power in Alsace. The two bridges, which had previously connected France and Baden, were now inner-German bridges. Finally, the proud new synagogue was presumably included to suggest that by no means all self-respecting Jews had moved to France following the German annexation.

Postcard from the book: Jews in Old Postcards and Prints