[en] We report on the first physics studies with the H1 detector at the e-p collider HERA based on data with an integrated luminosity of ∫ Ldt=1.5 nb^-1 which were recorded in July 1992. The total γp cross section was measured at an average center of mass energy of E_CM^γp=200 GeV as σ_γp^tot=(150±26) μb (preliminary). The analysis of the hadronic final states in the quasireal interactions of photons with protons shows clear evidence for hard scattering processes both in single particle spectra and jet formation and good indications for the dominance of resolved photon contributions as predicted by QCD. HERA allows the investigation of deep inelastic scattering down to values of x=10^-4 for Q²>5 GeV/c²; two orders of magnitude lower in x than present fixed target experiments. The distributions of the first 200 events which were observed and identified in H1 are in good agreement with expectations. First limits on leptoquarks are presented. (orig.)