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AutorenbildPhotos Without Families

Photographer August Schöning from Hamburg


This handsome young man was August Schöning who according to the print on the back of the photo owned a photography equipment business in Hamburg, Germany.



I wonder if he took the photo himself. And someone has touched up his moustache by hand. I wonder if those were August's photo editing efforts? Oh, he would love Photoshop today!


August listed himself as a photographer in the Hamburg city directories of the 1900s through the 1930s. He was born on March 18, 1879, in a village close to Oldenburg at the Baltic Sea. He apparently wasn’t into farming like his father Johann Wilhelm Friedrich Schöning, or fishing and seafairing like many of his peers. Instead, he was fascinated by photography and by the latest photography equipment, and in order to fulfil his dream, he moved to the next big city - Hamburg.


He set up his business some time in the early 1900s. By 1907, he owned two businesses, one in Osterbekstr. 11 and the other in Gertigstr. 1.

By 1911, August had moved his business to Sierichstr. 36.


Looks like August focused all his attention and energy on his thriving business. Perhaps it was a goal he had set for himself before he could think about marriage and children. When August was 35, he married Emma Marie Scholte. She was 22 at the time. They exchanged their vows on April 3, 1914, in Hamburg. Theír daughter Anneliese Johanna Schöning was born in December the same year.


By 1920 August had set up his business in Oesterbekstr. 44 which would become his permament address for the following decades.

He continued to sell photography equipment. And when the first radios came on the market, he started selling those in the 1930s as well.

August passed away of a stroke at the age of 66 in the summer after the end of WWII. His widow Emma continued his business in 44 Osterbekstrasse in the following years.

I don’t know what became of August’s daughter Anneliese Johanna. She got married on October 10, 1942, but unfortunately I don’t know to whom.


August was obviously a man fascinated by technology and eager to learn about new equipment and processes. I wonder if he lived in today’s times, what he would think about all the technological progress of the last decades. I imagine he would be very excited and couldn’t probably believe his eyes that his photo endured more than a century and has now been digitally preserved forever.


Let me know if you're related to August Schöning!



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