We have construction sites within the project too. One of them concerns automatic text recognition, because the much-praised AI can’t actually read – and therefore doesn’t understand a newspaper’s page layout either. But that’s where we come in: we train the AI as well…

A funny find from our documents: even back then, there were travellers who couldn’t or wouldn’t put up with roadworks: a roadblock when the new road is already finished? That surely still tempts the odd driver today to just drive straight past it. So too in 1837, the wine merchant Ahlers and another suspect, the coppersmith Rau…

“In the matter concerning the complaint against the town cellar master Ahlers for unlawful driving on the highway, the coppersmith Rau Jr. appeared in court today as summoned. When questioned, he stated:

I was travelling towards ^New Strelitz on the evening of 16 July this year, to attend the annual fair taking place there on the 17th. It was quite late when, having travelled from Weisdin along the old road, I reached the highway just before Neustrelitz. I found that a well-trodden path led onto the highway, and as I saw no other way, I followed it, […]” (LAMV, 4.12-3/13 No. 7, pp. 20–21)

However, as it transpired during the proceedings, the highway was not quite as easily passable as one might have thought, for he first had to pass through a barrier and eventually got into a serious altercation with the highway guard. Several witnesses were questioned to clarify the matter; some had yet to be found, as they had ‘fled’ to Stettin.