1987 Germany East Berlin DDR Neptunbrunnen Fountain Dom Cathedral Postcard

1987 Germany East Berlin DDR Neptunbrunnen Fountain Dom Cathedral Postcard

Front

Full-bleed colour photographic postcard (Farbfoto) showing the Neptunbrunnen (Neptune Fountain) on the open plaza between the Marienkirche and the Rotes Rathaus in East Berlin, with the Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral) rising behind.

At the centre the great bronze fountain, designed by Reinhold Begas and unveiled in 1891, plays in full jet. The seated figure of Neptune, bearded and muscular, dominates the upper basin, holding his trident aloft with one arm and resting on a rocky mass populated by tritons, sea creatures, fish and a turtle from whose mouths arcing jets of water spray outward. Around the lower rim sit the four monumental bronze allegorical female figures representing the principal rivers of Prussia — the Rhine, Elbe, Oder and Vistula — reclining with their attributes on the granite kerb.

Behind the fountain rises the Berliner Dom in its post-war reconstructed form: the vast ribbed copper-green and dark-toned main dome with circular oculi, crowned by a slender lantern, gilt finial and cross, flanked by two smaller corner cupolas with lanterns, and with sculptural angel figures and pilastered stonework on the drum below. The heavy sandstone façades and arched windows of the cathedral are partly screened by trees.

To the right stands a long modernist slab-block of the 1970s, faced in pale prefabricated concrete panels with deep, regularly recessed window bays — typical DDR-era Plattenbau construction near Alexanderplatz. Tall curved-arm street lamps punctuate the plaza, and dense summer foliage fills the middle ground.

The foreground is crowded with visitors enjoying a hot summer day: young people in jeans, T-shirts and casual 1980s dress sit along the granite basin rim and on the steps, some perched against the bronze river figures, others walking across the paved plaza with shopping bags. Low white-painted metal barrier hoops enclose a broad bed of vivid scarlet geraniums that fills the entire lower portion of the image. The sky is rendered a strong pale turquoise, characteristic of DDR-era colour printing.

At the upper right of the sky are two pencil and ink collector’s or dealer’s annotations reading “A1” and “A2”.

Back

Divided-back colour postcard printed in orange-red. At the upper left is the Berlin anniversary logo — a rectangular frame containing the Berlin bear beside a stylised city gate and tower, with the dates:

1237 1987
BERLIN

Beside it the multilingual caption block:

Neptunbrunnen und Dom
Фонтан Нептуна и кафедральный собор (Fontan Neptuna i kafedralnyy sobor — “Fountain of Neptune and cathedral”)
Neptune fountain and cathedral
Fontaine Neptune et cathédrale

Farbfoto: Boldt, Berlin

The publisher’s imprint runs vertically down the centre:

BILD UND HEIMAT · REICHENBACH (VOGTL)
A1/III/26/13 · 01 15 0609/01 · DDR 0,20 M

A small orange DDR printing-house device appears at the lower centre, and four orange postcode boxes with guide dots sit at the lower right, beside which the sender has written the US ZIP code “19010”.

The left panel carries the sender’s message in blue ballpoint:

In East Berlin today I met Sarah Elsing — she spotted the Red Bryn Mawr shirt you gave me.

JA

The address panel at right, in blue ballpoint:

Mrs. Daudert
Physics Dept.
Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr, Pa. USA

At the upper right are two West German stamps: a 10 Pfennig Deutsche Bundespost Berlin definitive from the Industry and Technology series depicting a Nahverkehrs-Triebzug (suburban electric multiple-unit railcar) in carmine, and an 80 Pfennig commemorative in blue and black inscribed “Internationale Bauausstellung Berlin 1987” showing modernist apartment blocks overlaid with Vitruvian-man figure studies. Both are tied by circular Berlin cancellations, with a rectangular machine cancel reading “…1987” across the lower stamp. A blue and white airmail etiquette reads:

MIT LUFTPOST
PAR AVION

The card is an interesting Cold War artefact: a DDR-published East Berlin view carried out and posted with West Berlin franking, both marking Berlin’s 750th anniversary in 1987.

Estimated Era

1987, marking Berlin’s 750th anniversary (1237–1987), postally used the same year from West Berlin to Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. The photograph itself dates from the early to mid-1980s, judging by the clothing and the completed Alexanderplatz-area blockwork.

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