A river village: ferry, ox carts and timber, 1937
Cyclists pass a Durchfahrt verboten sign, oxen haul a cart off a ferry, a single ox draws a machine along the bank, and men unload logs.
A round enamel sign bars cars and motorcycles from a village lane, and two men on bicycles ride up towards it. At a cobbled landing a flat ferry puts in and a pair of oxen hauls a heavy wooden cart off its deck while men with bicycles wait to cross; a pale ox draws a small wheeled machine along the sunlit bank, and men in caps and braces roll stripped logs off a wagon at the water's edge, a large church and a radio mast on the far bank.
Oxen and cows still drew the carts on many small farms of western Germany, where a horse was a luxury and a tractor out of reach. The motorisation the regime promised, with Ferdinand Porsche's people's car and the new motorways, had not yet come to villages like this.
