Bremerhaven, Germany, Oct. 8, 1947: Workers at the Bremerhaven wholesale fish market examine the catch brought in from the trawlers that day.

In the immediate post-war years, the fishing port had — apart from its legal market — also a thriving black fish market as Germans living in Russian-occupied Germany — less than 100 miles east — would travel into the city to buy fish.

This image is from a series of images titled “Fish Black Market,” taken October 8 and 9, 1947, but not believed to be of the black market. None of the images were ever published and no caption information was supplied by the photographer at the time.

In October 1948 S&S declared the Fish black market “practically dead.” From the article: “German police who formerly arrested hundreds of back marketers coming here largely from the Russian Zone now catch only a few persons each week when regular raids are staged in the main rail station.” The disappearance of the black marketers was attributed to the new Deutsche Mark, increased difficulty faced by Germans living in the Russian zone to leave the zone and come back, and diminishing scarcity of fish in the stores.

Stars and Stripes’ Europe archive holds a numerous images documenting the post-war years in Germany. While the newspapers photo collection’s main focus was (and is) the U.S. Armed Forces, and its photographers focused on the U.S. zone of occupation in Germany and the buildup of U.S. forces and installations during the immediate post-war years, they did sometimes veer off to document daily life of regular Germans during this time.

Notice the “mist” rising from the bottom left corner of the image? The original negative that this image was captured on suffers from a preservation issue called “silvering,” where the silver particles rise to the top of the gelatin layer of the film. During a preservation survey of Stripes’ photo collection in 2018, archives staff found that especially the 4x5 negatives from the late 1940s and early 1950s were suffering the most from this preservation issue. As the “silvering” will eventually cause the image captured on the negative to fade, the affected negatives were pulled and prioritized for scanning.

October is Archives Month, so keep your eye out for more treasures from the Stars and Stripes Archives on the Archive Photo of the Day pages.

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• Bremerhaven fish market, 1947