Where luxury rolled over German roads

In 1909, all German car owners were recorded centrally for the first time in the "German Automobile Address Book". 45,000 vehicles were registered - cars, trucks and motorcycles. Here you can see who was traveling where with which vehicle.

by Claus Hesseling

Today unthinkable:A book in which everyone in Germany who owns a motorcycle, car or truck is recorded. With 67.7 million motor vehicles, including around 48 million cars, the volumes would fill quite a few meters of shelves today. Things looked different more than a hundred years ago:The "German Automobile Address Book - produced using the official material of the listing authorities of all German states" listed 45,000 owners at the time. The book is the first source in which every owner is listed with their place of residence and occupation in Prussia and other areas of the former German Reich.

Have a browse!

Here you can search the address book, for example by name or location. The slicing of the places at that time is used, for example the cathedral city of Cologne appears as "Cöln". The Hamburg districts of Altona and Wandsbek, for example, were still independent communities at the time of publication.

Unfortunately, there is nothing in the address book about the automobile types. However, many of the manufacturers are unknown today, says Lower Saxony automobile historian Manfred Grieger:"At the beginning of the 20th century there were a large number of manufacturers, more than 150. Many of them only made three to five cars and were then bankrupt again. After all, every car was a handcrafted one-off." There are also gaps in the data set - apparently the local authorities were not always able to pass on all the data to the authors of the "Automobile Address Book".

"German Automobile Address Book" typed by hand

The "German Automobile Address Book" is part of the University Library of the Technical University of Braunschweig and was scanned in 2014 and made digitally available. However, the data was not yet searchable or structured in tabular form. This was done in 2019 by members of the Association for Computer Genealogy e.V. (CompGen). Using software designed for such purposes, volunteers typed the entries and saved the results in a database. This system has already made lists of casualties from the First World War with several million entries available digitally as text.

"It only took a few days to record the 1,210 pages," says Horst Reinhard, who was involved in the project. The members of the association are primarily interested in genealogical research and family history. "Of course there are the main sources such as church registers and marital status registers. But for us these sources from everyday life are very interesting."

More such address books were created in the 1920s and 1930s, but only for parts of the German Reich.

Regional distribution of automobiles and motorcycles in 1909

What the "Automobile Address Book" tells you, among other things:Most cars, trucks and motorcycles were in the west of the German Reich - that's where its industrial heart beat at the turn of the century.

Bring order to chaos

In times long before the internet and the digital license plate query, the "address book" was of particular interest to the police. Because at the turn of the century, the number of accidents with the still relatively new automobiles increased. This message could also appear today:"A fatal automobile accident occurred on Bassumer Chaussee just before Binghausen." Only:It dates from August 10, 1909, printed in the "Jeversche Wochenblatt".

In the accident on August 6, 1909, "the 11-year-old son of the merchant H. Bellersen from Twistringen" was fatally injured. The boy had been sitting in a horse-drawn carriage - and as the car drew closer, the driver was afraid that the horses might shy away. The boy ran into the street and was then hit by the car. "The car owner, a gentleman from Krefeld, was beside himself at first and wanted to shoot himself," it continues.

Luxury car - then as now

The invention of the car by Carl Benz was more than 20 years ago, but the vehicles were still relatively rarely seen on German roads. And that despite the fact that Carl Benz expressly wanted to build a vehicle for many with his "motorized carriage".

"You can make a good comparison to the present and the switch to electric drive in cars:It is often the case that technological innovations first appeal to people with an affinity for technology and who have an income or wealth. It was the same with cars," says historian Grieger. "It was interesting for them because they could leave the train behind. Not just the first-class compartment, but the whole idea of ​​different classes being transported together in one mode of transport. For certain sections of the nobility and the propertied bourgeoisie, that was it a way to stand out from the crowd."

Attacks on motorists

Where cars were on the road, questions now arose:Who has which rights? Pedestrians, cyclists, horse-drawn carriages - and the new automobiles. "The others generally didn't like automobiles at first. They made dust, they made noise, they caused accidents and endangered people who didn't have motor vehicles the most. Unlike cars, pedestrians don't have a crumple zone and are therefore naturally more at risk in an accident," says Grieger.

Sometimes this struggle for the street was fought by militant means. "There were attacks on motorists, for example with wire ropes stretched across the street. There were protests against noise and stench in the cities, and there were repeated attacks. In the memoirs of August Horch (founder of the Horch and Audi automobile plants, note . ed.) states that he always had a whip on board his vehicle."

Luxury car:unaffordable for workers

"For most people, a car was still unaffordable at the time," says automobile historian Grieger. "You can see that from another number:It was not until 1953 that the number of newly registered passenger cars exceeded the number of motorcycles or motorized motorcycles." In 1909 almost 50 percent of the vehicles registered in the "address book" were still motorcycles, and there were only a few trucks.

But every fourth entry is for a "car for luxury, pleasure and sport purposes". Because in the beginning, it was mainly aristocrats and the wealthy who sat behind the wheel or had themselves driven. The absolute number was highest in Berlin, but the license plate district with the highest proportion of luxury cars was Hamburg - with every second vehicle registered. Followed by Berlin and Bremen.

Later, professional groups were added that needed a car for their work - for example country doctors or people in sales. "For a Krupp worker at the beginning of the 20th century, a car was a luxury item, and very few could even afford a motorcycle," says Grieger. The owners of the "luxury cars" were mainly merchants and manufacturers. In the north, however, there were also manor owners, farmers and hoteliers - and:bicycle dealers.

After the First World War, the assembly line - a US invention - finally arrived in Germany - a milestone for mobility on the road. "Hanomag and other manufacturers adapted the assembly line and thereby reduced prices. A new discussion then emerged, namely a people's automobile, a car for many. In the end, however, that was not achievable in the Weimar Republic," says historian Grieger.

The automobile:From a luxury object to a vehicle for everyone

For comparison:According to the Federal Motor Transport Authority, 48.2 million passenger cars are registered in Germany today - almost 1,000 times as many as in 1909 in the German Reich, which had a completely different size than today's Federal Republic. However, the number of inhabitants was significantly lower than today:In the 1910 census, around 64.9 million inhabitants were registered in the German Reich.

Initially only a few women behind the wheel

At the time, it was mostly men who were behind the wheel. Only a few women appear in the "address book", for example Elisabeth Trincks, a widow from Lessingstrasse 24 in Hamburg. Or Alma Eichwede from Seelhorststraße 18 in Hanover. In the past 113 years, however, the situation has changed here too:according to the Federal Motor Vehicle Office, more than 19.3 million women in Germany held a valid driving license as of January 1, 2022 - at least in the passenger car category, both sexes are roughly equal.