My Journey To America: July 21, 1914

Exactly 100 years ago today, my 18 year old grandfather, Kurt William Leucht, wrote the following entry into his journal:

 I got up at 8:00am in order to go to the luggage drop-off place.  I went to the Hamburg harbor and, just then, a Z3 [zeppelin] was passing by in silence.  I continued to view the harbor and later the area of St. Pauli-Landungsbrücke.  After a three hour walk, I got to the receiving location and took care of the things I had to do.  Next, I went to the train station in order to pick up my dad.

I still had an hour and a half wait, so I went to the café Klosterecke.  Traveling on the same train with my dad, were Mrs Traeger, her female sleeping partner and Mr Steinbruder, [who also had passage to America].  We all went to “HAPAG” and then we started to search for a hotel.  [HAPAG stands for Hamburg Amerikanische Paketfahrt Aktien-Gesellschaft (Hamburg American Packet-shipping Joint-stock company) and was commonly called the Hamburg America Line. It was the largest German, shipping company, serving the market created by the German immigration to the United States and later immigration from Eastern Europe.] We spent a considerable time together.  We took a streetcar to St. Pauli, where my father stayed behind, and I took them on to the luggage reception area.  At 1:20 in the afternoon, we returned.  The three of them toured the city, while I stayed to be with my father.  Dad and I took a walking tour of the city and arrived at the hotel around 9:00pm.  We went to sleep right away.

You can read my grandfather’s entire journal by clicking below.  It’s quite interesting!  Of course, I’m biased!   🙂

http://www.leucht.com/history/My_Journey_To_America-Journal_of_Kurt_William_Leucht-1914_to_1920.pdf

Thanks for your interest!
Kurt

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