hindenburg

Santa Cruz Rio de Janeiro atual base aérea Da Força Aérea Brasileira

This is almost certainly Der Eiserne Hindenburg—the Iron Hindenburg—which stood next to the Victory Column in the Tiergarten. (The curved structure poking into the frame on the right would seem to match the base of the column.) This would seem likely to be from the unveiling, which was on 4 September 1915—the New York Times account can be read here. These statues were known as "Nail Men" and were used to raise money for the war: for a certain donation you got a nail of a certain color, which you then hammered into the statue. Unsurprisingly this led to some mocking imitations elsewhere. The statue did not do too well. Apparently even before the war was out bits were being stolen for firewood, and in the early '20s the whole thing was sold off as fuel. According to news sources, an artist managed to save the head, only to have it destroyed by fungus. (Love how the statue has magically grown to 110 feet tall!) Nonetheless, the head was apparently rediscovered in 1938 and placed in Berlin's Lehrter train station, only to be finally destroyed during WWII.

Great story, thanks. LOC, note transcription error on Hindenburg's name.

Thanks for your research severinus. We'll make the correction the next time we update the record.

Ryan (LOC P&P) Just to clarify, despite the nickname, it was indeed made of wood, so the original Bain caption is indeed correct; I just wanted to point out that it was more famously known as the Iron Hindenburg.

LOC, note transcription error on Hindenburg's name.

The Autobahn in front is the "Reichsautobahnstrecke 30", today "Bundesautobahn 5". The stream-lined bus is a Mercedes-Benz LoP 3100 of the Deutsche Reichsbahn (German national railway). In the 1930s the Reichsbahn operated an intercity coach service on the newly built Autobahn.