Postcard Echternach seen from the Ernzerberg, J.M. Bellwald, Luxembourg

Luxembourgian postcard from the early twentieth century showing a black-and-white phototype of a general view of Echternach, the oldest town in Luxembourg, seen from the Ernzerberg on the German side of the Sauer. The image shows in the centre left the two towers of the Basilica of Saint Willibrord with the adjoining abbey complex, the dense town heart surrounding it, and at the bottom the Sauer river with the railway line running along the bank. In the background, the hills of the Luxembourgian-German border territory. At the top, the caption "Echternach vom Ernzerberg gesehen" in German lettering. Published by J.M. Bellwald in Echternach under number 27, with the bilingual header "Grand-Duché de Luxembourg - Großherzogtum Luxemburg" on the verso. The verso is unwritten and unposted, with a divided back. The card has a vertical fold down the middle.

Echternach was founded in 698 by the Anglo-Saxon missionary Willibrord as a Benedictine monastery and developed into one of the most important religious centres of medieval Rhineland. The abbey church was rebuilt several times over the centuries and was severely damaged in 1944 during the Ardennes offensive, before being reconstructed in the nineteen-fifties. This card shows the basilica in its pre-war state, with the characteristic double-tower front that had dominated the town's profile since the eleventh century. Echternach is also known for its annual dancing procession at Whitsun, inscribed on the UNESCO intangible cultural heritage list since 2010. The photographer-publisher J.M. Bellwald, based in Echternach, systematically documented his town and its surroundings during the first decades of the twentieth century and is among the principal regional publishers of the Mullerthal area. The vantage point from the Ernzerberg, on the German side of the border river, gives the card a cross-border perspective typical of this region.