Served on July 16, 1958

Recently, however, an everyday object that seemed unremarkable at first glance took center stage in the media for a few weeks, briefly pushing the “GOETHE” into second place. During construction work to redesign the banks of the Rhine in Oberwesel, a message in a bottle was found that turned out to be quite something. Inside the green glass bottle was a menu from July 16, 1958, listing the dishes served that day on the Rhine steamboat “Drachenfels.” At the time, the paddle steamer was in service for the Cologne-Düsseldorf Line between Koblenz and Mainz.

Right next to the " KD" pier

The champagne bottle was discovered by landscape gardener Jonas Wolf. It had lain undisturbed in the ground, complete with its cork, for nearly 70 years before it landed on Wolf’s excavator bucket. The spectacular find sparked great excitement among Mayor Jan Zimmer and the staff at the tourist information office. Together with Stephanie Eidens-Holl, who manages the agency at the “ KD-Steiger” in Oberwesel as well as the adjacent tapas bar, wine bar, and café “Väterchen Rhein,” they first tried to pull the document through the bottle’s neck with a pair of tweezers—to no avail. “The paper had become slightly damp and was in danger of tearing. So Mayor Zimmer carefully broke the bottle and removed the card. It really is an extraordinary find, one that came to light right in our immediate neighborhood, near the agency,” says Stephanie Eidens-Holl.

Braised pork, fava beans, and potatoes

What was actually served for lunch on July 16, 1958, on the steamboat “Drachenfels”? The daily special consisted of wellfleisch (unsalted, boiled pork belly), thick green beans, and boiled potatoes. The whole meal cost 2 D-Mark. For an extra 30 Pfennig, you could get a “Königsuppe” (chicken soup with asparagus and meat) on the side. In 1958, 2 D-Mark would buy you about six eggs or 1.5 liters of beer in West Germany. So the meal aboard the “Drachenfels” was relatively inexpensive.

The sender now lives in the Eifel region

This is where the story of the message in a bottle from Oberwesel could end. But it doesn’t. Because on the back of the menu is a handwritten note in French. The text is hard to read, but it includes, among other things, a wish to find pen pals. The sender’s name is clearly legible: “Anni G. from Blessem/Cologne.” Blessem is not Cologne, but a district of Erftstadt in the Rhein-Erft district. As the “Rhein-Zeitung” first reported, the sender of the message in a bottle was found after an extensive search. She is Anni N., now 90 years old. She now lives in the Eifel region and, at the age of 22, worked as a ship’s cook on the “Drachenfels.”

Largest Collection of Messages in Bottles

The world’s largest and only collection of scientific and historical messages in bottles is housed in the library archives of the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH). The collection comprises approximately 660 historical message-in-a-bottle forms. Among them is the oldest known message in a bottle, dating from 1864. It was thrown overboard on July 14, 1864, from the ship “Norfolk” off Cape Horn. About three years later, it was found on the Australian coast near Portland. There is certainly a scientific basis for messages in bottles. In the past, they provided insights into wind and current conditions on the world’s oceans. In the mid-19th century, captains of German merchant ships were given an empty bottle and a small, pre-prepared form. This form, with the current date added, was thrown overboard at a precisely specified location inside the carefully sealed bottle. The finders were asked to note the location and date on the slips of paper and send them to the “Deutsche Seewarte” in Hamburg, a predecessor of today’s Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency, which has offices in both Hamburg and Rostock.

"Inside the bottle was a menu from the former ' KD' ship, the Drachenfels."