The Iceman Cometh
Calm before the coming storm
Though it is a Sunday evening and the predominantly Christian Germans frown upon Sunday commerce, certain deliveries were tolerated because of the lack of refrigeration. Blocks of ice were kept in “ice boxes” to cool milk and butter and to preserve meats and other perishables. In this photograph we see a Stuttgart neighborhood’s handsome young iceman speaking with a valued customer who views his visits as highlights of her week. Neither might suppose that the affable, ginger-haired tradesman will be taken from his daily rounds in little more than a month to be maimed in Belgium where his reserve infantry regiment will be sent by train from Stuttgart.
Above the two in the street is a painted poster advertising “Wallruth” cigarettes, a brand made in Stuttgart and distributed only in south Germany. The sporting gentleman is noteworthy because he typifies the common view of upper-class society with whom smokers of “Wallruth” would probably wish to identify, especially those toward the bottom of the economic scale.
The monocle and the rowing cap are symbols of the German leisured class who, in 1914, would attend universities and enjoy private incomes, relieving them of the need to work. The aristocracy was still admired though they, like everyone else, fell upon hard times at the end of the looming war.