Biographical episodes from different Germanys E-Book

Gerd Müller-Hagen

• Herausgeber: novum publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 154

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

In "Biographical Episodes from Different Germanys", the now almost 80-year-old author provides anecdotal insights into his life, which began in January 1945 when his family fled what is now Poland and was initially shaped by growing up in the GDR. He talks about the hurdles of the time, the political discrimination, his time in a Stasi prison and his academic career, which was nevertheless successfully crowned with a doctorate. The reader is given an insight into the reunification period and the professional opportunities that the author seized in a united Germany. The tensions between the East and West German perspectives on history - which persist to this day - are illustrated in a differentiated manner.

Leseprobe

Biographical episodes from different Germanys

I am almost 80 years old and have experienced different Germanys.

These Germanys are the post-war period up to 1949, the GDR and partly the FRG from 1949 to 1990 and the united Germany from 1990 onwards.

"Different" in the sense of "deceased" also means no longer in existence. This applies to Germany until 1990.

But what no longer exists is by no means completely past. It has shaped experiences and thus thinking and behavior - right up to the present day.

The GDR joined the FRG. For this reason, and also because management levels in the East are disproportionately in West German hands, the pressure for East Germans to adapt their thinking and behavior was and is considerably greater than for West Germans, who are often not even aware of such a requirement.

Foreword

Starting in 2019, I tried to take stock of my biography. Above all, I wanted to "leave something for our children and even more for our grandchildren".

While writing, I was able to draw on old letters and other documents which - now freed from professional and voluntary burdens - seemed so interesting and captivating to me that my report should also be of interest to a wider circle of people.

I report on my life in almost 40 biographical episodes from a critical, distanced, but now also relaxed and reconciled perspective.

It began shortly before the end of the Second World War in Silesia and has so far lasted almost eighty years. My life was shaped by the political upheavals and challenges in Central Europe, which had to be endured during this time and, as I now know, were also allowed to be enjoyed.

I learned how privileged I was to have my grandfather's horses when I fled. My Silesian family was spread across West and East Germany. I grew up in the later GDR in a rural environment and experienced differences between East and West during mutual visits, which were very difficult from the East after the "Wall". At school, I stood out because I didn't belong to the "Young Pioneers", so I was denied higher education (attending a secondary school). I turned down an offer from West German relatives to stay there illegally to attend a grammar school out of solidarity with my East German family. So from 1960 to 1962, I learned the trade of a chemical worker and at the same time obtained an evening school leaving certificate. In between, the Wall was built in 1961. However, by 1962 I had acquired a higher education within the GDR through my own efforts. So I was able to start studying chemistry at university in 1962 and looked forward to a career in the GDR.

This came to an abrupt end when I was arrested by the Ministry for State Security on the charge of "agitation". I experienced a Stasi prison from the inside, was sentenced accordingly and barred from studying at all colleges and universities in the GDR. This put my career in the GDR back to "square one" with an uncertain outcome.

The rector of the university offered me the opportunity to apply to resume my studies after two years of demonstrably good work in socialist agriculture. I reluctantly fulfilled the condition. There was no alternative. Breaking through the wall would not have been "my thing". I continued my studies under the watchful eye of my former fellow students, who were now two years further along in their studies, until I completed my doctorate.

Even without direct proof, I knew that I was under special "care" by the Ministry of State Security - although I was supposedly rehabilitated - and tried to behave accordingly. I largely succeeded, but not entirely, as some of the episodes in my book show. I did not join the ruling state party of the GDR and was able to work reasonably successfully in the chemical industry, probably aware of the limited career opportunities that this would bring.

1Escape from Silesia

I was delivered on 9 April 1944, an Easter Sunday, in Neusalz an der Oder (Silesia) by my grandfather Dr. Rudolf Müller-Hagen, who was the surgeon in charge of the hospital there. His wife, grandmother Hanna Müller-Hagen, assisted him as a trained Johanniter nurse.

At the time, my mother, Sigrid Müller-Hagen, née Peukert, lived with her father Max Peukert and her 14-year-old sister Christa Peukert in the small village of Guhlau near Lüben in Silesia. My grandfather Max Peukert had a farm there that specialized in horse breeding - German Rhenish cold blood. My mother had traveled by train to her father-in-law's clinic especially for the birth. My father, Adolf Müller-Hagen, fell on June 12, 1944 as a first lieutenant and pilot in the air force in Bohemia and was buried in Guhlau. The report is based on information contained in letters and documents from 1945 regarding our family's escape from Silesia. I was only nine months old at the time and possibly one of the last living participants. In my early childhood, we talked a lot about this drastic event and its consequences.

I remember that.

I later neglected to ask my mother any specific questions. There were other challenges that we had to face in the years that followed. My mother died in 1997.

A large proportion of the letters on this subject come from her estate.

The information contained in the letters, including dates, can be used to reconstruct the course and circumstances of the escape:

On January 18, 1945, two German fighter planes collided in front of my mother's eyes over the Guhlau estate; one crew was killed, the other was able to save itself by parachute.

On January 22, 1945, all the streets were jammed with refugees, and ten refugees from the Guhrau district were accommodated in the Guhlau manor house. Chaotic conditions prevailed at the Oder bridges, cannon thunder could be heard and long-distance calls to Neusalz/Oder were not accepted. A team of horses from the estate never returned. The following night, another had to be handed over to the Volkssturm. A railroad line was shot at. Two boxes of silver and valuable crockery were buried in the duck house. Grandfather Peukert feared that all rubber-tired wagons and horses were about to be confiscated by the Wehrmacht or the Volkssturm. So far, his horses - because they were important for Silesian cold-blooded breeding - had largely been spared the war effort. Despite the obviously threatening situation, there was no evacuation order for the civilian population.

To protect his 21 and 14-year-old daughters and his nine-month-old grandson, grandfather Peukert ensured that they were able to escape from the immediate danger zone illegally on January 25, 1945 on a Luftwaffe road transport to Görlitz. He was reported to the police in his district town of Lüben for this "activity that undermined the armed forces". It was probably only due to the fact that the front had already moved far to the west on January 26 that there was no more time to punish him.

However, the evacuation order came that day. The feared confiscation of horses and rubber wagons did not take place.

Now he had to put together a "Guhlau trek" within three hours with 15 horses, four draught oxen and the appropriate wagons, including a Landauer (a carriage with springs on both axles and a hood) for mothers with small children, and all the inhabitants of the small village. At the end of the Second World War, "treks" were organized transports of people for the purpose of escape. This trek even had a field post or trek number and could, in principle, be reached by post.

This meant that the Guhlau Peukert family was initially separated during the flight. The daughters and their grandson travelled in a Luftwaffe tractor via Bunzlau, where they experienced the demoralized end-time mood of the billeted soldiers in a restaurant, and Kesselbach to the Görlitz area. On January 30, they were billeted with a farmer's family in Ebersbach near Görlitz (west of the Neisse), who were known for their horse breeding, and lived there for about two weeks. In view of the prevailing severe snowstorm winter, this was a very favorable circumstance.

From the "Guhlauer Treck", Max Peukert reported on chaotic conditions in postcards from Jakobsdorf and Primkenau dated January 27 and 29: "it is terrible and impossible to make any progress and no accommodation ... the snowstorm last night was terrible ... two horses have already broken down". The first death was reported. The trek continued via Sprottau and Rothenburg in the direction of Niesky, where a break had to be taken due to exhaustion of the draught cattle. As it was now also unsafe in Görlitz, my mother, her baby and her sister joined the Guhlau trek in Niesky on February 13.

My mother did not use the Landauer intended for mothers with small children. She put my baby carriage on one of the covered rubber-tired trolleys and spent most of her time there. She told me that I really enjoyed rocking on the vehicle. Grandfather mainly led the trek along side roads to avoid road closures for the passage of motorized Wehrmacht transports as much as possible. The trek had to be interrupted several times for a few days because the horses were too overworked and had contracted "druse". The fact that the logistics worked is impressive when you think of the procurement of the respective night quarters, the catering for the draught cattle and the estimated 25 or so families. In practice, this was done in such a way that trek participants rode ahead by bicycle and announced the trek in the respective village designated as accommodation and discussed details with those responsible for the village.

From Niesky, the trek traveled via Guttau - from where one could see the glow of fire from the bombed Dresden - and Bautzen to Bischheim near Kamenz and from there via Radeburg to Niederebersbach. An overnight stay here on February 21, 1945 is documented by postmarks. From there, the trek crossed the Elbe in Meißen and reached the village of Pinnewitz near Lommatzsch on March 2, 1945 after about 55 km. Here, another "pit stop" had to be made due to illness of some of the horses. It was also necessary to equip the previously unbraked wagons of the trek with mechanical brakes in the local smithy in order to be able to cope safely with the upcoming "mountain stages". The plan was to take the trek as far as Bayreuth, which would have led through very mountainous terrain. The farm wagons, which were built for agricultural use in the flatlands without brakes, could not be held by the muscle power of the draught cattle alone on steep slopes.

After the horses were healthy again and the wagons had been fitted with brakes, however, the farmer leader of the Meißen district decreed on March 15, 1945 that the horses and draught oxen of the trek were to remain in the Meißen district. (Draught cattle were generally very scarce as a result of the war losses, tractors were much rarer than today, some had been requisitioned for the war and the supply of fuel was problematic). They were to be used here for spring tilling to secure "the final victory". All drivers and their families had to stay with their animals. The other participants in the trek were sent on to Bayreuth by the Deutsche Reichsbahn. According to reports, many of them eventually settled in the Bogen/Bavaria area.

Grandfather was appointed administrator at the manor of Lord von Ivernois in Pinnewitz and was allocated a two-room apartment with a fully equipped kitchen and even a small garden in the small castle with his family. It is reported that I survived the trek well, apart from a skin rash known as "cradle cap". I still have skin rashes to this day, but dermatologists use different terms for them. I learned to walk in Pinnewitz. It was here that my mother first learned that the Müller-Hagens from Neusalz/Oder had found shelter in Köthen/Anhalt, the home of my grandfather Rudolf Müller-Hagen. In the reports about the escape that I heard later, the eight weeks or so in Pinnewitz were something like an "idyll in the limbo of uncertainty".

This changed with artillery fire from the approaching front on April 26. Pinnewitz had to be abandoned in a hurry, the slower draught oxen and some wagons remained in Pinnewitz, as the trek had become much smaller. They reached Ossig in the district of Döbeln, settled in there and hoped to return to Pinnewitz. On May 6, the trek had to continue westwards, once again directly pursued by the front. On May 7, after more than 300 km of escape, they were pleased to have arrived in Königshain near Mittweida, initially "at the American". They stayed there in good accommodation for about two weeks. During this time, they were handed over to the Soviet army. They were initially spared looting.

Now that the war was over, grandfather hid his pistol in our landlord's dovecote. The valuables were also left there to avoid any uncertainties on the journey home (if the Red Army had carried out checks, finding weapons would have been disastrous for the owner, valuables would have fallen victim to looting). The journey home went very quickly because the trek was much smaller, the roads were no longer overcrowded, the vehicles were now equipped with brakes and the summer road conditions were much better. Grandfather had chosen a similar route, but we drove via Pinnewitz and Bischheim again.

The destination was Guhlau. Grandfather wanted to cultivate the fields despite the reports of extensive destruction in Guhlau, which were true. There was a threat of hunger. He still had enough horses and drivers, although a total of five horses had been stolen at gunpoint by Soviet army soldiers on the return journey.

But things turned out differently. On June 2, 1945, the "returnees" came across a herd of cows in Reichenbach/Oberlausitz, 15 km from Görlitz, which had to be looked after, i.e. herded and milked, by German girls on the orders of the Soviet army. They reported that all the Neisse bridges had been destroyed or closed. The journey therefore had to end in Ebersbach near Görlitz. The trek was disbanded and the Peukert family stayed with the same innkeepers as in January.

In those days, it was a matter of great regret not to have achieved the goal of the journey, the return home. Today we know that a successful crossing of the Neisse would not have led to a return home, but to the complete confiscation of property and expulsion with only hand luggage.

The unwanted new start in Ebersbach was helped by the fact that grandfather was able to contribute not only his expertise, but also his ability to work with draught cattle and team drivers. After the end of the war, agriculture in this region had hardly any draught cattle left as a result of war losses, confiscations and looting. The cultivation of the fields had come to a standstill. His horses, which were soon spread across several villages, helped to ensure that the fields, some of which had been neglected, could be cultivated.

He was also able to make an important contribution to the reconstruction of horse breeding, which was still essential for agriculture at the time, by using his highly valuable stallions.

In response to my inquiry, the Moritzburg State Stud near Dresden informed me in 2021 that a total of 14 stallions were listed there up to 1970 that were used as offspring of Peukert breeders. The most successful was called "Maikönig von der Landstraße". The "von der Landstraße" refers to the circumstances of his birth in May 1945 in a ditch on a refugee route. After arriving in Ebersbach on June 2, grandfather immediately became active by sowing suitable crops and was thus able to provide help for the extremely hungry population of Görlitz as early as September by delivering edible food (rapeseed leaves and green pelushkas). Despite these favorable circumstances, the new beginning was a profound, complicated upheaval with dangers and uncertainties.

A letter from my mother to her mother-in-law dated September 3, 1945 gives an impression of the considerable uncertainty in the post-war period:

"My dear mother!

As I have the opportunity to go to Dessau tomorrow, I would like to write a few quick lines. Today I received your letter of August 6, for which I thank you very much. We will probably not see the things you sent me in April again. That's another great loss, because I had some really good things in it. But it doesn't really matter anymore, because one day we'll only have what we're wearing. Dad is already feeling the same today. We've had an exciting afternoon. Drunken Russians wanted my father's bike in the field and shot at him with the MPi, the shot went into the sand in front of him so that he only got a fat face from the stones. Immediately afterwards they came led by a German and demanded to see him in the yard and in the house and beat up old Mrs. Schumann (I was in the garden and got Christa out of the window and we escaped). The Russians shot in the house and ransacked our apartment. They took Dad's and Mr. Royziki's suits, my black suit, 2 blouses, my watch and my leather jacket and disappeared. Since there's no crew here, they can't help us. - Everything else is the same, I just sent a letter to you today. - Yorkstrasse, where some of your things are supposed to be, is on the other side of the Neisse. I've often wanted to go home to go to the graves and check on everything. But I can't and don't want to leave Gerd-Adolf and now it's no longer possible to get over there.

The weather was glorious again today. There is also a lot of work outside. Previously, rapeseed leaves were sold as vegetables and now, more recently, green peloshes.

Now you my dear mother, father, Käthe and Rudi are warmly greeted by your Sigrid"