‘I hereby let you know that I am doing well so far’

What did the soldier want to tell his wife and children on the 1916 postcard? To answer this question, Rainer Krumsiek researched technological methods for making faded writing legible again and came across the CSMC, where Ivan Shevchuk has already reconstructed numerous texts invisible to the naked eye using multispectral imaging, a non-invasive method used to recover faded or illegible writing on historical documents. The process involves capturing a series of digital images of the document under different wavelengths of light, ranging from ultraviolet through the visible spectrum to infrared. Each wavelength can interact differently with inks, pigments, and the material of the document, often revealing text that is invisible to the naked eye.

The resulting images are digitally processed and computationally combined into an ‘image cube’. Using specialised software, experts can enhance contrast, filter out background noise, and highlight differences between ink and substrate, thus making the faded writing legible again. The postcard in question is a comparatively easy case: after an hour, the analysis is complete.

‘Dear Anna and children! I hereby let you know that I am doing well so far’, it reads (‘Ich teihle Euch hirdurch mit daß es mir soweit gut geht’). The photograph, Friedrich Adolf writes, was taken ‘on our first outing in Bergisch Gladbach’ by ‘a gentleman we encountered in the forest. It snowed here today’. Further down, the writer inquires about the lack of letters from his daughter Hertha. Has she, once again, run out of paper? Or does she have too much studying to do? The dangers of the war still seem far away on this postcard; the small concerns are no different than in times of peace. 24 February 1916 was, it seems, a day to which neither the sender nor the recipients of the postcard attached much importance. Today, thanks to technical assistance, it is one of the few days to have left a visible trace in the history of a family.