What connects the view of the Tölz Calvary and the view from the Loisach bank over the old town of Wolfratshausen with the Münsingen moraine landscape including the parish church of St. Johann Baptist Holzhausen, which stands on the hill? All three images are undoubtedly among the most typical of the area in the Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen district and can therefore still be seen on classic postcards today. A medium that seems to have been buried by the flood of images from social media and messenger apps. This is supported by the fact that in Wolfratshausen, for example, postcards can only be found in a few shops and the range of images is limited.
Open detailed viewHolzhausen with the parish church of St. Johann Baptist perched on the hill is a popular motif. (Photo: Claudia Koestler/oh)
Does this show how marginal the postcard business has become, with only older generations possibly keeping it on the market? “It’s not the advertising tool that I really need,” says Maria Bader, the young Lenggries tourism director. The importance of postcards has declined sharply in the last decade. Many people now send photos they have taken with their mobile phones directly via the messenger app.
Open detailed viewSending holiday impressions to loved ones at home is something many people do digitally these days. (Photo: Boris Roessler/dpa)
According to Bader, every tourist in Lenggries with a guest card receives classic postcards as a free welcome gift, including pens. “They really appreciate that,” says the tourism director. The panoramic views over Lenggries or the Sylvenstein reservoir are particularly popular. Postcards are generally not as popular anymore. Often, grandchildren write to their grandmothers or grandfathers, says Bader. “Which is a shame, because a postcard is simply more personal.”
Open detailed viewMaria Bader from the Tourist Info Lenggries regrets the decline in demand for postcards. (Photo: Manfred Neubauer)
Just a parallel valley further west, Daniel Weickel thinks it is too early to give up on the medium. “I still write postcards myself,” says the 37-year-old tourism director of the community in the Zweiseenland. His two children think it’s just as great. “Because it’s something special.” Sitting down and taking the time to pick up a pen is a sign of appreciation for the people someone is writing for. “Postcards are very credible and important to us,” says Weickel.
Open detailed viewWrites postcards himself: Kochel’s tourism director Daniel Weickel. (Photo: Harry Wolfsbauer)
Kochel wants to try a test with free postcards this year
He is referring to the marketing effect. According to him, the tourist information office in Kochel am See wants to try a test this summer. The municipality will produce a batch with different motifs for guests free of charge. The lettering will be based on the motto of Kochel’s communication strategy: “Simple. Natural. Inspiring”. “We don’t just want the picture to speak for itself, we want to design the postcards in a contemporary way,” says Weickel. The offer is free so as not to create competition for the businesses that sell the medium.
What could be shown on the postcards of the Kochel commune? Weickel is thinking of the Herzogstandbahn or the Walchensee power station, landscape motifs of lakes and mountains. In general, people buy postcards at their places of residence, albeit to a lesser extent than at weddings. How old someone is doesn’t matter.
Open detailed viewA possible motif: a cabin of the Herzogstandbahn above Lake Walchen. (Photo: Private/oh)
Around 30 kilometers further north in the district, however, Hermann Paetzmann wonders how many people actually still send postcards to the post office these days. He last produced postcards on a larger scale in his printing business for the 1000-year anniversary of the founding of the association in 2003. At the stand of the Flößerstraße association, on whose board Paetzmann is active, he gives away caricature postcards with a drawing of the Wolfratshausen wolf and church tower. However, collage motifs with the tourist highlights in particular are still in demand. “It’s a good selection.”
Open detailed viewHermann Paetzmann is a printer – but his last order for postcards was a long time ago. (Photo: Harry Wolfsbauer)
Open detailed viewThe classic views of Wolfratshausen were created for the 1000th anniversary of its founding in 2003. (Photo: Hartmut Pöstges)
These include the old town with the central axis of Marktstrasse and Loisach in the aerial photograph, the raftsmen’s monument or the view of the parish church of St. Andreas from Bergwald-Perspektive. Postcards from the Peatzmann printing company with these motifs by photographer Siggi Menzel have been available for about a month in the stationery shop and post office on Bahnhofstrasse. Because people have repeatedly asked specifically for Wolfratshausen postcards, says Sonja Piller.
Open detailed viewThis postcard from Wolfratshausen, probably created around the turn of the century, comes from the archive of Christian Steeb. (Photo: private/oh)
Fabian Krell from the magazine and tobacco shop in the Loisachpassage confirms this. The owner himself commissioned cards with various motifs. The buyers came from all generations, he says. However, the selection of views with a Munich connection is larger than those with pictures of the rafting town. And if you look closely, you can still see the Isar department store, which has since been demolished, in the picture. Wolfratshausen is a small town, so the number of motifs is limited, says Krell. And anyone who has been to Munich and forgotten to buy one there is happy to do so. In general, however, buyers wanted cards with pictures of the location they were staying in.
Open detailed viewFabian Krell sells specially commissioned cards with various motifs. (Photo: Manfred Neubauer)
This probably didn’t really distinguish people from the generations of a hundred to 120 years ago. But back then, postcards were the main medium for telling friends or family about trips and distant places.
Open detailed viewReproduction of a postcard from 1916 in the Ambach inn “Zum Fischmeister”. (Photo: Harry Wolfsbauer)
Open detailed viewA postcard from around 1900 shows Irschenhausen. (Photo: Hartmut Pöstges/Private archive Peter Schweiger / oh)
Collector Wiggerl Gollwitzer has one example in which a girl reports that she really likes the Wolfratshausen girls’ school and asks for laundry to be sent to her to put in the drawers of her dresser. “I’m interested in what people thought back then,” says the long-time former chairman of the Loisachtaler Bauernbühne and Wolfratshausen city councilor. “That’s one of the reasons why I started collecting postcards.”
Open detailed viewLudwig “Wiggerl” Gollwitzer collects postcards. (Photo: Private/oh)
In Wolfratshausen, the view from the Floßlände over the Loisach towards the old town is a permanent fixture
He currently owns between 450 and 500 postcards from the Wolfratshausen area with “easily” 50 different motifs, as he puts it. This variety of depictions distinguishes his historical examples from the period shortly before 1900 to the 1950s. There used to be many more publishers and art institutions as far away as Munich that produced postcards, says Gollwitzer. The main motifs at that time were the Floßlände with the view of the old town with the now demolished Four Seasons House and the town parish church. This view has been a perennial favorite over the decades, as has the view of the so-called Schwanenwiese at the Floßlände with many of the water birds named after it.
Open detailed viewA map from 1917 shows the most popular view of Wolfratshausen to date. (Photo: Private/oh)
Also very popular, according to Gollwitzer, was the depiction of the campsite, including the swimming pool and diving board at the time, or the picture by painter Richard Wagner of the last hairpin bend on the Wolfratshauser Berg downhill to Weidachmühle, over the old town and the parish church to meadows and the foothills of the Alps. Or the motif of Kathi Kobus’s café “Kathis Ruh”. It shows a perfect world, an idyll that probably never existed, says Gollwitzer.
And it is still a valid marketing tool today. This is at least suggested by the motifs on the postcards that visitors can pick up for free from the Wolfratshausen Tourist Information Centre on the Untermarkt – from the view from the mountain forest over the roofs of the city, a couple in the herb garden, confectionery with a piping bag, the raftsmen assembling the means of transport to black and white aerial photographs from the Isar Valley.
Open detailed viewThe Starnberger See is a popular motif. (Photo: Claudia Koestler/oh)
Nature and landscape motifs dominate the selection of postcards that Fritz Wagner sells in his Ambacher Verlag, based in Münsing. “We sell 500 to 600 of them a year,” says the owner. Financially, this is a side job. Fortunately, he can draw on the motif pool for the newsletters of the community and the neighboring municipality of Berg, which the Ambacher Verlag publishes. It is a seasonal business that is most in demand during the main holiday periods in summer and at Christmas. “The photo postcards sell best,” says Wagner.
Among them, the best-selling photos are of the Holzhausen band in the snow and outdoors in the summer. The exotic Bavarian coloring may be responsible for this. The historical postcards in the range sold less well, with the exception of one for Ambach’s 1250th anniversary celebrations. “People just want to show the current status,” says Wagner.
The Tölzer Tourist Information sold a total of 7,000 postcards in 2023
In the district town of Bad Tölz, around 7,000 postcards were sold at the two tourist information offices in 2023. “Compared to the past, this business is of course somewhat down. But it is still a good amount,” says spa and tourism director Brita Hohenreiter. Copies with the typical Tölz city views are particularly in demand. Younger guests also buy them.
Open detailed viewBrita Hohenreiter is the spa and tourism director in Bad Tölz. (Photo: Manfred Neubauer)
Open detailed viewPopular motif: evening atmosphere in Tölzer Marktstraße with the Winzerer monument. (Photo: Manfred_Neubauer)
The classic postcard is by no means completely gone. Even an enthusiastic collector like Gollwitzer does not believe in a real renaissance like the boom times up until the 1960s. But he would not want to miss the medium and likes to send a few copies himself from his vacation. “You have to sit down and think about it a bit before you write,” he says. That is what makes the postcard so appealing.
