Winter impressions from January 1952

Severe and even snowy winters are known to occur only occasionally in this country. Many people may still remember the amount of snow that covered the local region in February five years ago and only gradually disappeared again after around two weeks.

We should also mention the winter storms of February 1969 and January 1979 with snow depths of up to 15 cm for days on end or the most recent "white Christmas" in 2010.

This winter photo taken on Nordallee - now Adenauerallee - by photographer Richard Bittner shows what it looked like in Bocholt in January 1952. He positioned himself at Langenbergpark, the west side of which is on the left, looking south towards the city centre. The snow-covered avenue lives up to its name. There are even two rows of trees flanking the roadside on the left-hand side.

This month was actually a stormy one. Three storms hit the country at regular intervals until the end of the second decade. Only then did the weather calm down with slowly falling temperatures. As a result, snow showers became more frequent. This photo was obviously taken on 27 January, a Sunday afternoon, after heavy snowfalls had fallen and given the landscape a wintry appearance.

Temperatures as low as -6.4 degrees

No vehicles, neither cars, bicycles nor other vehicles crossed the road on this grey, barely sunny winter's day. Only walkers took the snow-covered road for themselves. The proverbial Sunday afternoon peace dominated the scene for a few moments.

The following night, the lowest temperature of January 1952 was measured in Bocholt at minus 6.4 degrees Celsius. The last day of the month brought milder temperatures with alternating snow and rain, so that nothing remained of the previous winter magic - apart from this classic photograph.