From the coal patch to paradise E-Book

Bernd Wengmann

• Herausgeber: novum publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 404

Beschreibung

As a child during the war, I remember a wooden gas bus that took me as a "Kinderlandverschickter" from the farm to grammar school every Monday morning. I lived there in the town during the week, probably as the youngest room master. On Saturday afternoons, I drove back through Freiamt to my mother and brother in Ottoschwanden. When the war spread to the south, the grammar school was turned into a military hospital. We returned to Dortmund unscathed via detours. This was followed by periods of holding out in the bunker and major bombing until the Americans liberated us. All in all, these were experiences that shaped my life and would remain a constant source of motivation. You should never give up: there is always a solution, there is always a way forward.

Leseprobe

1932-1941

When you are 90 years old and write a book at this age, you have a long life with many eras and generations behind you and you think about today, everyone knows it.

I was born in 1932 in the Ruhr area, in the western suburb of Dortmund, in Dortmund-Huckarde. Not far away were coal mines where coal was extracted and steelworks where steel was produced and processed, in the midst of smoke, stench, noise and an already turbulent time. After the 1920s, this was characterized by poverty, unemployment, political unrest and the rise of nationalism.

My mother came from a family of miners, together with two sisters and two brothers, from Dortmund-Derne. My mother's father worked at the colliery, as they said. He worked as a hewer right in front of the coal. These were the men who, after working 600 to 1000 meters below ground, would get out of the transport lift as the blackest on their faces and reach daylight again. Grandpa Derne, as he was also known, worked in one of the many coal mines across the Ruhr region. Grandma Derne, from whom many recipes still exist, spent her life working in the house and garden. A typical miners' terraced house with a large garden, pigsty, henhouse and rabbit hutch had to be looked after. For miners in particular, the largest part of their livelihood was self-sufficiency. The pigsty was part of the house directly behind the kitchen. This meant that waste from the kitchen did not have to go far, in today's terms the garbage can for kitchen waste. The pig was part of the family, so to speak.

From the rear exit, the main entrance from the street was only used for visitors, you walked across the chicken yard and the rabbit hutches into the infinitely long garden. An arbor was only used by visiting family on Sundays. The kitchen garden was divided in the middle by a long, narrow path. Every spring, the garden was freshly dug over and the edges to the left and right of the path, the furrow edge, were firmly beaten with a spade 12 to 15 centimetres high as a substitute for an edging. This created a path border of earth that remained firm throughout the growing season. A large part of the garden was reserved for pig fodder, which was then stored for the winter in the so-called earth mounds. Otherwise, all the vegetables needed for summer and winter were grown. In the cool cellar of the house were barrels of beans and other vegetables. The shelves were full of jars of fruit and vegetables.

I still think of the type of houses with gardens when we visit Dresden, in Hellerau. Here, at the turn of the 19th century, a competition was held by the local furniture industry to create an entire village district with a wide variety of building types, from terraced detached houses to multi-storey buildings. The focal point is the market square, and thankfully everything is a listed building, so that the characteristics have been preserved without any conversions or extensions. Many typical owner-occupied estates no longer exist simply because of the addition of garages. Many estates were also built in the Ruhr area, mostly by large factories, using various construction models in the 1930s.

We lived in such a settlement. I was born in the actual village area, in a commercial building. The house still stands today, including the bakery, which is still there. The memory of this stay is a picture of me receiving a drum for Christmas. The memories were more of the new house. The tour of the building site in the baby carriage was to have been my first visit to a building site before my professional career. The estate was built by several developers, often from the industry itself. There were detached houses, semi-detached houses and also two-storey factory houses. All the houses were accessed by a road that ran straight and in a wide curve. There was little traffic and few cars, which is why garages were only added later.

However, everyone had a large garden, which was bordered by a privet hedge towards the street. In front of each house stood a sour cherry tree, which also characterized the time. Only fruit trees were planted as trees. As children, we naturally had space to move our bicycles and our ball bearing transport boxes. Smaller pitches were made of ash, we had no balls. We played with logs, which we simply made ourselves. The toy, one and a half to two centimetres in diameter from a branch, 12 to 15 centimetres long, sharpened at both ends, was to be transported to a target by hitting the tip with a stick. Races took place in our street on bicycles and didn't always end happily. I was riding with my little brother on the front of the pole when we crashed into the only object on an island - a lamp. The injuries, my brother with a tear in the skin across his forehead and my wound, a tear in my right eyebrow, called for a doctor. We still have the souvenirs today. In winter, when it was frozen, we skated on the old fire pond at the Wischlingen estate. We had to attach the older model to our shoes, well, it was a wobbly affair.

As a family, we also spent a lot of time with my father's grandparents. Grandpa was a handsome man with a moustache, head of the electrical department, 800 to 1000 employees. His stature alone commanded respect. My grandparents lived close to the colliery, at the other end of our village. I remember that we also lived there for a while because the funeral of my youngest brother, who died young, I think when he was six months old, of diphtheria, a common disease at the time. It was the time when penicillin was discovered, but it wasn't produced seriously for American soldiers until 1941, without the usual trial periods of several years.

My grandfather Wilhelm's house, on my father's side, was also a typical house with a garden and a barn for chickens and pigs. There wasn't enough space to grow potatoes, so we had to pick them up from the farmer, transport them by horse and cart and put them in the cellar. The potatoes, three varieties, were of course also for the pigs in the barn. It was always a family gathering when the pig was slaughtered by a butcher. I could explain every process, but I'll leave it at the fact that a lot of boiled hot water was used to remove the wool from the skin, as the pig's hair was called. The pig was hung on the ladder in the yard all day so that the meat could bleed out. Processing began in the evening and the first meal was roasted panners, cooked from blood, flour and bacon and kept in bowls. Pieces cut from it, about one and a half centimeters thick, were then fried in the pan, a favorite dish of mine. Sausages and freshly prepared meat were distributed among the family. There were no fridges back then. Instead, there was a chest with a lid in the cellar where the meat was salted and stored. This method was already used in early seafaring. Of course, the cured meat also included streaky and fatty bacon.

At family gatherings, "slices" were often made. These consisted of raw potatoes, sliced or cut like chips. In the cast iron pan, the size was chosen according to the number of people, small pieces of fatty bacon were spread over the whole base of the pan. Salt was added and a cup of water was poured over everything. A lid was put on and after about 2o minutes the pan stood in the middle of the table, where everyone helped themselves to the spicy potatoes with their golden brown crust. We still enjoy cooking this dish today.

Grandpa Wengmann's family had five children, three girls and two boys. The grandfather, a handsome, respectable man, had a very gentle wife who was unfortunately very ill.

I started school from our new house in 1938. We lived on the border of two districts, so I went to school in Dortmund-Rahm. The school survived all the attacks and still stands unchanged today. We walked to school across open land through an agricultural area with associated farms. Today, this area is built over by roads and housing estates, only the railroad crossing still exists. It was nicer in my youth. The farms also had lilacs standing at the edge and they usually bloomed at the right time, on Mother's Day.

Our teacher was easily recognizable due to a harelip. Today you could easily operate on them, but in the past they were changes to people that were accepted even without embellishment.

School life was defined by the blackboard and the chalk pencil. We wrote, calculated and drew with them. We learned the German Kurrent script, which Goethe had already practiced. But the blackboard also changed: there was ink in the inkwell and the pen, together with a rag and blotting paper. Then there was the pencil and, of course, the eraser. When I think of these beginnings at school, I can't help but think of the ever-changing equipment in our office over the last 40 years.

The family life of my father, mother, my four years younger brother and me usually consisted of visiting relatives on Sundays. Every 14 days we took the streetcar to Grandma Derne, although there was also a grandpa. For whatever reason, he was never mentioned. Incidentally, all of my mother's relatives also arrived, which was a tradition. I loved it as a child, especially as I was the eldest grandchild and loved sitting on Aunt Lilly's lap. I loved being with Grandma Derne, even on vacation. I always wanted to stay there on Sunday evenings. Mother's siblings were also there with their friends, so there was a big round table. Aunt Hetti, mother's sister, was like Grandma Derne, the smallest. She married Uncle Heinz from Huckarde. Apparently, the offers for relationships and the coming together of partnerships were decisive at that time. Aunt Toni, mother's third sister, was drawn to the highest mountain in the Sauerland, to Winterberg, where she later married. She ran a youth hostel there, which I occasionally went to in later years to go skiing. Uncle Heinz, the older brother, was a professional soldier. We paid him great respect with his uniform and size. Then there was Paul, the youngest, a latecomer who I only really see in front of me in military uniform. He only got married after the war and later took over Grandma Derne's house.

Grandpa Wilhelm could be reached without a streetcar. Buses? I walked until I got my first bicycle. This was also important for the family's domestic needs. There was something edible in another garden, like rhubarb, which we didn't have or which was better at Grandpa's.

At Grandpa Wilhelm's house, people tended to meet sporadically or together on special occasions. With the exception of Aunt Maria, who lived in Essen with her family, the relatives lived in Huckarde. There were no big moves at the time. They went out in the same town, got to know each other there, got married and stayed there.

Aunt Christine, father's eldest sister, was no exception. She was a seamstress and the whole family were her customers. I remember a blue coat that Aunt Christine sewed for me from a dyed wool blanket in the middle of the war.

Aunt Lisbeth, my father's second eldest sister, ran a small neighborhood grocery store with her husband. Uncle Heini had a three-wheeled delivery van and I was often allowed to go to the wholesale market to buy fruit and vegetables. I can still see the store today with a weight scale, triangular bags for flour, sugar etc. Nothing was packed. Nothing was packed.

Uncle Wilhelm, the youngest son, was a tailor. I always remember him sitting on the tailor's table. But he only worked when the money ran out. He loved going out locally and apparently he used to say: "Let it cost a cow."

There is still my father Bernhard, who also worked at Hansa colliery as head of the apprenticeship system. Between 10,000 and 12,000 people worked at the colliery, including 300 to 400 apprentices. There were all trades and commercial professions. There were also separate schools, such as vocational schools and training courses for engineers. Overall, work was carried out in three shifts.

My school days were still normal, only in the mornings until 1 pm. In the afternoons, I did gardening, shopping and housework in addition to my homework. I also enjoyed cooking. I didn't always have my favorite foods for dinner. Milk soup with oatmeal or semolina wasn't bad, if it wasn't for the sour cream, which I couldn't stand. We had lots of fruit in the garden for the Sunday cake, but if there wasn't enough, black elderberries from the edge of the cemetery provided variety. There was no cream, but egg whites were whipped just before eating.

As a special feature at that time, if Easter wasn't too early, we had fresh lettuce in the heated, glass-covered manure bed. Yes, it was heated with 30 centimeters of horse manure from the colliery horses or from the street. The horse still had its importance as a draught animal in agriculture or trade. It was also used underground in the colliery as a draught animal for coal wagons.

The stove in the kitchen, also used for heating, was typical with a fireplace and oven. After lighting the fire, it was heated with wood and coal, transported from the cellar. There was a toilet, also for the tenants, on the second floor. Baths were taken every Saturday with water heated on the stove in a tin tub in the middle of the kitchen. The traces of dirt on the edge of the tub were huge, as we lived in the filth of industry, which worked without any dust filters.

White laundry was not recommended and neither was drying in the fresh air. The industrial dirt was everywhere, even on the areas where we played as children. Before leaning out on a windowsill, it was necessary to clean it first. The dust was also very thirsty, no wonder there were so many breweries in Dortmund.

Politically, the brown danger became more and more apparent. The number of supporters increased, as is unfortunately the case today. There was a war when I was seven years old and some of my friends' sons were called up. As children, we liked the uniform and the insignia, but we didn't realize the seriousness of the situation. There were new ration cards, and we supplemented our food supply with our own garden, which was good for those who had livestock and a garden.

1941-1949

As the war spread, the danger for those at home also increased. The first bombs fell in the cities and the authorities reacted by organizing a mother and child evacuation. Rural areas as far away as Bavaria and southern Germany were selected where people should feel safe. Every town at risk, especially in the Ruhr area, tried to find accommodation. We, my mother, my brother Heinz and I, were also allocated a place in the Black Forest.

This village, then with a population of a few hundred, is located in Breisgau, in Freiamt, is called Ottoschwanden and is close to the district town of Emmendingen. The village lies at a healthy altitude of a good 400 meters - and is, I didn't know it at the time, the sunniest place in Germany.

Ottoschwanden, situated on a plateau, was a typical Black Forest farming village with a main road and scattered farms. We and another family, Mrs. P. and her daughter from Dortmund, ended up on one of these isolated farms. The farm was close to a small center, the Freihof, with a hotel, restaurant and small stores. Our new landlords were Mr. and Mrs. B., who also had two sons, Fritz and Ernst, a little older. There was also the grandfather, always sitting on the stove bench with his long beard. The helpers were a maid and a Pole who, like many Poles, had fled from France. They were also sent to camps in Switzerland as prisoners and from there to places of work or training.

In his spare time, he sat in the foyer to the cowshed and conjured rings out of copper coins.

The farmhouse consisted of a residential building, downstairs the kitchen with courtyard connection, the parents' bedroom, a small parlor and the lounge with dining area and tiled stove. On the second floor there was the Sunday parlor, the bed and breakfast, also with good Kirsch, and two bedrooms for the two host families. I woke up at 5:30 a.m. and went to the cowshed to help. I had already laid out my clothes nicely in the evening so that nobody would notice me getting up. My mother didn't agree to my helping, as I had to go to the village school afterwards, together with the children from the farm, Fritz and Ernst.

On the farm, the farmer's wife was busy all day feeding the pigs and chickens and cooking. On certain days, she also baked bread in the oven at the distillery. They also made butter, baked cakes and tended the vegetable garden. She also made the homemade slippers from straw and hemp for everyone in the house. I can still see a few rows of hemp in the field today; today the police would come. Nobody thought about "smoking weed" back then, as it is called today. The food was typical southern German cuisine with lots of pasta, the cherry and strawberry cake was similar to the Swiss "Wähe", a real treat. In the field, during the break, there was lovely country bread with dried bacon and home-made cider.

The farmer himself liked to sit in the outbuilding with the oven and distillery. This is where the cherry and plum schnapps was distilled. It was also used for medicinal purposes when I once came into heavy contact with my foot with a pitchfork.

Apart from the threshing machine, there were no machines on the farm. The oxen served as tractors, which I was allowed to lead when they had to pull a large wooden wagon with wooden wheels, loaded with potatoes that had just been harvested, up the hill. The land on the farm was rather flat to the west and sloped steeply to the east, where the potatoes were grown. The livestock consisted of dairy cows, cattle, pigs and chickens, enough for self-sufficiency.

The farmer, the maestro, liked to smoke Villiger cheroots on the bench in front of the house, right next to the cider cellar. The Swiss had a branch in Emmendingen. His grandfather, who had a long golden beard, usually sat by the tiled stove and smoked his own pipe stuffed with tobacco. The tobacco was grown in the fields and processed for sale and for personal use.

A special feature was the only motorized vehicle, a 250cc BMW from Maestro, which he needed especially for tasks in the community, where he worked part-time.

The farming family and the newcomers lived together without any problems. It was also good that the host family's children were only a little older. I wasn't lucky, because the ninth school year at the school in Ottoschwanden was over and I was able to move on to the tenth school year at the grammar school in Emmendingen. It was unthinkable that I would have to travel this distance for two and a half hours each morning and evening on the wooden carburetor bus. So there was no other option but to move out of Ottoschwanden on weekdays and look for a place to stay in Emmendingen, as a ten-year-old room-master, so to speak. We, mother and I, went looking for a place to stay with childcare. I can't remember today why we went to the He. hat store, directly opposite the Reformed Church. Perhaps our maestro had connections there and knew that the family also had two boys, a little older, and that they were looked after by a childminder because the parents were both working. Mrs. He. had the hat store and Mr. He. was the director of the Swiss stump factory, and tobacco perhaps also came from the farm in Ottoschwanden.

The family still had a room available for me and I was looked after by a lady-in-waiting, even though I wasn't a prince. The grammar school was called Dietrich-Eckart-Gymnasium, a huge building for the town and the whole surrounding area. The next largest city, Freiburg, was a long way away by the transport standards of the time. Traveling back and forth by bus, which I was expressly allowed to do as a ten-year-old traveling alone, was stressful enough. School finished at 1:30 pm on Saturday so that I could then take the bus to Ottoschwanden, right across Freiamt. The bus covered every corner of Freiamt, a hilly area with few villages but many hamlets, all of which had to be served. It wasn't just people: It included mail, parcels, everything but livestock.

Once I arrived at the farm, I immediately got to work. I had a thorough change of scenery before taking the wood carburetor bus back to my second home at 5:30 a.m. on Monday morning.

During the week, it was school and studying with my lady-in-waiting. There weren't any really planned leisure activities, even with a change of pace, especially as He.'s children were older and had their own interests. We often had to collect herbs, dry them in the attic and then deliver them for testing. I was actually looking forward to Saturday on Mondays after arriving, of course because of the farm. I even wanted to become a farmer back then. A little booklet, which I'm holding in my hand right now, documented the results of my grades and was checked by my farm lady. Cheating was not possible. The booklet went to my father at intervals and then came back to me with the not always nice comments. After all, he was a teacher and checking my grades was supposed to increase my effort at school.

The first year was over and I had made the transition to second grade, it was the middle of the war. There were also ration cards in Emmendingen, and on Mondays a little extra from the farm was of course very welcome for the kitchen. The bacon, home-made butter and country bread from our own oven also tasted good in the town.

I still have fond memories of the cherry harvest in Ottoschwanden. Beautifully packed in chip baskets, they were brought to the bus station for the town on a bicycle trailer. Even on Monday, I was often surrounded by cherries or other fruit on the bus. The cherries with a lower quality reputation were put into a fermentation barrel, and from this we got the famous Black Forest kirsch. A wooden crate, probably made by the colliery's carpentry workshop and padded on the inside, transported cherry brandy from the Black Forest to the Ruhr area during the war and many years later. The schnapps was so valuable that it was kept in the cupboard in my parents' bedroom. My mother once wondered about a very long sleep that always took place at midday. I had once sipped the bottle and the long sleep was the result and at the same time the proof of my misdeed.

In the middle of the school year, from one day to the next, the grammar school was closed. The Western Front was approaching and the grammar school became a military hospital. This was also the fate of many other Landverschickungskinder or families who were surprised by the approaching Eastern Front. From Dortmund alone, over 50,000 mothers and children were sent to supposedly safe areas, which they now had to leave again. The schools in the city were all closed in the last years of the war and later. Under these circumstances, my mother no longer wanted to stay in the Black Forest. She was homesick and didn't want to leave her father alone, even though he was hardly ever at home because of his job and his responsibilities.

The Hansa colliery had between 10,000 and 12,000 employees, and all of them had to be protected from bombs. This work, as head of air raid protection for the whole colliery, could not be limited in time. When are the bombers coming?

The first raids began in 1941, targeting industrial plants in the Ruhr region. There were relatively small numbers of English bombers, 100 planes, compared to later waves of attacks with 200 to 300 planes. So my father had to raise the alarm in good time and had overall control of all the air raid protection measures at the colliery.

The day came to say goodbye, but not forever, from the Black Forest. My mother wanted to go home, even though the bombing of the Ruhr area, especially Dortmund, was constantly increasing. So the return was not easy for us either, we children were seven and eleven years old. The Rhine line, where many freight trains also ran, was already being constantly bombed by low-flying aircraft. We then traveled at night in an empty coal train wagon across the Mittelland, from southern Germany via Kassel back to the Ruhr area. We arrived safely and were back in our family home.

In the meantime, our neighbors had built earth bunkers because the houses were single targets for the low-flying aircraft. For the time being, we had our own, shallow cellar. In the city, there were more and more public bunkers in addition to the existing tunnels. The time came when we stayed in them at night. Our father used a special radio station to inform us when we had to go into the cellar.

I went back to school, to the old elementary school in Rahm, because all the grammar schools in the city were closed. Our teacher He. came from the city and we always hoped he would appear the day after another night attack. But he also knew that my aunt Lisbeth had a small grocery store and that I could certainly put in a good word for him with her for two or three oranges. So I didn't have any school at that time, and as I often helped out with my aunt's work, the oranges - they were called oranges - were safe.

Grandpa Wilhelm's grandmother had died in the meantime, and the second son Wilhelm was drafted into the war. My father, the eldest, didn't have to go to war because of his work as an air raid warden. Fortunately, we had the support in the family that most families lacked when their fathers went to war. Then there were the first casualties, the war dead, and I remembered the newspapers that needed more and more pages for their publications.

Grandpa and Grandma Derne, whom we regularly visited on Sundays every fortnight by streetcar and a long walk, had also drafted their youngest son, Uncle Paul, in the meantime. The eldest son was a professional soldier and apparently had a good post in the country without having to go to the front. The Sunday visit was very special when Grandma opened a so-called CARE package from America.

The contents were a café and, of course, lots of sweets. The sender was a relative, a nun from grandma's family. Thanks to the self-sufficiency with pigs, rabbits and chickens, there was also plenty to eat. Good for those who could, when I think of all the city dwellers. But here, too, a lot of initiative was required. There were already the first balcony gardens and somewhere you could plant a vegetable garden on a piece of fallow land.

So we also had extra land on Aunt Lisbeth's property to grow vegetables and potatoes for the winter. The rationalizations became more and more, and we were happy about the success in our own garden and additional vegetable garden.

But the rations alone could not save us in an emergency. The attacks on the Ruhr increased. During the day, we could hear the airplanes, you couldn't count them, flying over us at high altitude in an easterly direction. The steady hum of the engines, which I can still hear today, accompanied us for hours.

It was an emergency, so my father had the idea of building a bunker in the garden. Every Sunday, when people had the day off, they worked for good food. Even internees helped out. The bunker was 2.50 x 2.50 meters in plan and about 3.50 meters high overall. Inside it had a round seating area 1.30 meters in diameter that could be reached on the knees. The door was a sturdy double door made of steel. The bunker was approx. 1.00 meters in the ground, the side walls were made of 60 centimetre thick concrete and the roof was a tent roof. All exterior surfaces were additionally clad with two-centimeter thick steel plates. Air holes on all sides were intended to provide fresh air in the event of an emergency, for example if the bunker fell over.

The bunker, it seemed, was built at the right time. In the evening, when we were at home, we always waited for our father to call us on the radio. The bombers are coming from the north, flying into Dortmund, immediately into the bunker. We heard the sound of mines, which are particularly large bombs with a big impact. If we heard them, we were spared, they said. I still don't know if that's true today. Opening the door after the all-clear was moving. There was a huge sea of lights over the city, we could see it from 10 kilometers away, as if it was next door to us.

Some of the bombing, especially of transportation facilities, was carried out by low-flying aircraft during the day. This caused considerable problems for local and long-distance traffic. A railroad bridge near us was destroyed. Travelers, mostly with a lot of luggage on the run, had to walk along the main road between two railroad stations. We children still had school in the mornings, but in the afternoons we transported luggage. A few sturdy planks and ball bearing wheels provided by my father made a good transporter for transporting luggage from one train station to the next. With the proceeds, huge Reichsmark bills, there wasn't much to buy from what was left.

Our basis for cooking was still our own chickens, rabbits and the two vegetable gardens. We also had fruit from the planted apple trees and berry bushes. The feed for the chickens consisted of garden waste and boiled potato peelings. For the rabbits, on average there were between twenty and thirty of them, it was more difficult to organize green fodder. Of course there was vegetable waste such as carrot greens, but anything flatulent such as cabbage was to be avoided. Looking for dandelions by the wayside in the agricultural areas was a pain, because I wasn't the only one. I had a schoolmate who was the son of the resident of the estate. He was no stranger to me, as the director of the colliery lived on the estate. Grass, fodder in general, was scarce, fields and meadows were guarded by mounted police. Finding food here was hopeless. But we two children had the solution, there was green from the estate, twice a week a bag of freshly cut grass flew over the boundary wall. That was my salvation for the animals. In winter there were tubers stored in the earth bunker, such as turnips or carrots. Word got around quickly when there was a wagon with food at the station. Sugar beet was available and beetroot was already being cooked. I can still taste the aroma in the kitchen today.

We children, mainly me, were actually the masters of the house, as my father was more or less always at the colliery and in charge of air-raid protection. There was always something to do and we also had to watch out for the low-flying aircraft during the day. They had no mercy, and so many houses in our neighborhood were destroyed, with many deaths, just because about ten German soldiers thought they were defending a railroad connection and its crossing. One of these soldiers, a lieutenant, was obliged to stay with us. The soldiers looking for quarters simply came to the door, claimed a room and put others in danger.

In terms of our family, we were actually doing well with our perseverance measures. We were also able to visit Grandma Derne from time to time. The sons had survived the war so far, and the CARE packages from America didn't let up either.

Perhaps the initiative for countermeasures from individuals, not just the state, should also be greater today. But much is forgotten. What does today's generation know about the generation that experienced the war and its consequences? Apart from moaning, hanging on to the state drip, personal responsibility has become rare.

Grandpa Wengmann also survived the war according to the situation. The dangers of working at the colliery above ground were particularly great due to bombing, especially of industrial plants. He also lived near the colliery. That used to be the case; industry and living went hand in hand. But there were also many dangers lurking during the day. Many prisoners of war and internees worked there for the soldiers drafted into the war. In 1940 and 1944, many German and foreign workers lost their lives in firedamp explosions. Even in 1979, after the change in mining methods, there was another accident. The foreigners came from Poland, Russia, Belgium and France.

But a sad announcement now weighed heavily on Grandpa and his relatives. Uncle Willi, who was also drafted into the war, was missing. This is still the case today. All investigations by the special institutions have so far been unable to clarify the matter.

The bombing continued until the entire Ruhr area, the industrial center of Germany, was reduced to rubble. We people in the western suburbs were lucky with the area bombing. This was because the bombing approaches always came from the north. This had to do with the wind, and it was easy to turn to the west and fly back. Most of the city's industry was also located in the north. The low-flying aircraft supporting the infantry were still causing mischief. There were still pockets of soldiers or Volkssturm groups who thought they could still save Hitler's Germany in 1945.

From our house, which was the first in the estate, we had a good view of the main street and the inn on the corner. I was at the kitchen window and suddenly saw a dark figure with a rifle at the ready sneaking around the corner of the inn. A whole group of soldiers followed, and so we witnessed the entry of the Americans into our quarters. We, mother, my brother and I, were quiet and probably as white as cheese. We stayed in the kitchen and it wasn't long before there was a knock at the front door. Soldiers here? They searched the whole house and moved on to the next house. At 9 and 13 years old, we children were probably less scared than our mother, who was worried about us children.

Days passed and slowly people began to move around in public again. Word had gotten around that the Americans were giving out chocolate to the children, and that helped to ease our fears. We had radio contact with my father, and of course the men who stayed at home were thoroughly examined by the Americans, whether Nazi or not. It was no different for my father, a leading figure in the coal mine. But the fact that he was not a member of any party, especially the Nazis, was quickly clarified. My father was a devout Catholic and a member of the church council. Thanks to his responsible, indispensable work at the colliery, he was always able to prevent him from joining the Hitler Party.

My mother had also always refused to join any Hitler institution, such as the Mütterhilfswerk (Mothers' Relief Organization) and whatnot. Months before, she was asked to collect money for a Hitler institution in our housing estate, but she refused. A day later, this party man came again and told her that she had to collect now or that she had certainly already heard about where it was going. My mother was now collecting, even without her actual will.

In the last few months, outings and visits were rare due to the constant danger on the road. Everyone stayed at home and there was no more school. Stores were only open for as long as supplies lasted. Self-sufficiency was approaching 100 percent. Salvation from the six-year war in Europe and parts of the rest of the world, with 50 million war dead, came on May 8, 1945 with the capitulation of the German Admiralty on May 7, 1945. Not much changed at first, except that people could move around freely again in the immediate vicinity. Broken cities, failed administrations, empty stores and closed schools did not bring about any change in daily life. Having to provide for themselves somehow gave people the idea of hoarding.

The great exchange business began. If you give me, you get from me. Of course, people were primarily after food. And to buy these, you had to travel to the rural, agricultural regions. The Münsterland was ideal for the Ruhr region, especially as you could reach the towns by train. People stood on the outside running boards with silverware or other valuable items in their pockets to exchange these items for a piece of bacon, a little butter or fruit and vegetables. Nobody wanted money, because it had no value. Due to the hoarding operation, we children had a lot of work again with the transportation between the two train stations.

School also started again, my last school year was upon me. Together with the time in Rahm, then in Ottoschwanden and the grammar school in Emmendingen and now back in Rahm, I officially started my eighth school year. I didn't count how many school years I actually had. I didn't give much thought to going back to grammar school at some point because of the great uncertainty. The schools in Dortmund had all been destroyed and provisional arrangements were gradually being made. The situation I had already experienced with the schools was enough for the time being, I wanted to do an apprenticeship to bridge the gap, I wanted to become a gardener.

My father had other ideas. For Christmas, I was given tools such as special hammers that were fit for an art locksmith. The background was his masterpiece, a chandelier with seven lamps, consisting of chased brass and glass curtains made from a total of 400 glass cylinders, about 20 centimetres long. I took this lamp back to the office in Dresden as an heirloom, and it fitted wonderfully into the rooms of our Art Nouveau villa. Now it hangs again in the large living room above the large dining table in Thailand. I didn't want to know anything about my parents' thoughts and slowly, parallel to the last school year, I started looking for an apprenticeship.

We were also able to visit Grandma Derne again once the streetcars were back in operation. The rest of our relatives, who had all survived the war, also returned. Aunt Toni, who came from the Sauerland, from Winterberg, the highest mountain in the area, had the longest journey. It was always my wish to go to Aunt Toni's. I liked helping in the hostel she ran. Of course, I also wanted to ski, so I had to spend eight days with a locksmith to buy ski boots for my stay. I started skiing here and the end, which was my wish, I experienced again at the age of 90 at an altitude of 4000 meters on the Little Matterhorn Glacier in Zermatt. Winterberg was and still is the safest ski resort for the entire western region of North Rhine-Westphalia. In our day, there was no lift. Today, the whole of the Ruhr region is here and the bobsleigh and toboggan run is world-famous.

Grandma Derne's two sons had happily survived the war, Paul came back later and was ill. Grandma and Grandpa were happy that everyone was together again. The visitors enjoyed Grandma Derne's cooking and baking skills, which I still need recipes from. The macaroni served with the meal, coated in caramelized honey and breadcrumbs and served with dried apricots, is still very popular. Waffles, which were cooked over an open fire with a long waffle iron and shaped into a kind of funnel over the thigh, were also typical of the region at New Year. They were best fresh.

We lived, all of North Rhine-Westphalia, in the so-called American zone. There was also the French, English and later the Russian zone, which later became East Germany. So our American zone was controlled by the Americans until a new state was founded. There were also road controls. They were still looking for members of the National Socialist Hitler Party. People were arrested and sometimes detained. Denazification took place, a word we hear again today from the Russians in the Ukraine war.

There was no end to the work in the garden, helping Aunt Lisbeth stick in food stamps, fetching food from Grandpa Wilhelm's pickle barrel, queuing up by bike at the bakery in the neighbouring village, buying the first cornbread, helping in the kitchen, lighting the oven and fetching coal from the cellar, cleaning bicycles, cleaning chicken and rabbit coops, organizing food for them. My schoolwork was always done quickly. I had a good relationship with my teacher. Getting some oranges once again had an effect.

April 1, 1946 slowly dawned and my three-year apprenticeship began. The new master, the company H. R. in Kirchlinde, a neighboring village, first noticed my weak stature for this profession. But the tenderly weak can also be strong, which he noticed over time. The farm was about seven kilometers from our house. We would cycle uphill in the morning and downhill in the evening after a long day. There was a senior and junior boss who looked after the apprentices. The business was diverse. In addition to the tree nursery, seed cultivation, seed wholesale and horticultural supplies, there was also a seed cultivation area in Massen. A total of around 200 employees worked in the two companies. A tree nursery is a commercial cultivation area for a large number of trees and shrubs, practically everything that is later used by landscaping companies. Today, there are special tree nurseries that only grow avenue trees, for example.

There were five foremen in the company. I was subordinate to the senior boss. My official apprenticeship was as a nurseryman. But I also benefited from the broad spectrum of the business. Whether summer or winter, we worked from 7:00 a.m., café time, until 12:00 noon, lunch time until 1:00 p.m., afternoon snack, and at 6:00 p.m. we finished work. On Saturdays we worked until 14:00. I took home ready-made sandwiches and a pot to keep warm for lunch. Every two weeks I was on Sunday duty, looking after the greenhouses and operating the heating. As there was little coke, the fire always had to be kept on a low flame with sawdust.

We had to record our work and what we had learned during the week in a diary and present it to the junior boss every Monday morning. Forgetting was punished by being called home immediately. We had vocational school in the city as a makeshift solution. There was a lack of rooms and teachers. Instead, the Americans gave us a glass of chocolate, the milk was only brown, or pea flour soup, which wasn't good for eating.

As there was a shortage of vegetables to supply the population, our company was ordered to grow some of the vegetables. We also benefited from this because on Saturdays, every employee was given a salad, cauliflower or other vegetables after work. The senior boss usually gave me a bit extra, perhaps to help me put on a bit more weight. The tree nursery also produced fruit trees, of course, and you couldn't have enough of them. Everyone who had a piece of land planted raspberries, gooseberries, currants, strawberries and fast-bearing fruit trees. It was hopeless to place orders through me. We had the quantity we needed for our own consumption.

After work, I also had work to do in my own garden with the chickens and rabbits. It was a hard time, everyone had to pitch in, only my brother was apparently too young. We didn't know how to complain or ask for help from the state, which didn't exist in the first place. Nobody would have listened to us either, as is common today via television. The people and the last generations have become so spoiled that today they only call on the state, whether they are workers, the middle class or the rich. The optimism that we, everyone, used to have is now a thing of the past. I always hear that everything is different today. Of course, you go on vacation three times a year, have two cars, maybe a boat by the sea. At the time of writing this report, despite the energy and oil crisis, there were once again huge queues at the airports to travel for the fall vacations. We didn't have any of that. A bicycle that was always being mended, and I was allowed to go on vacation to Grandma Derne's, where there was always plenty to do in the large kitchen garden.

The search for food was always there in the years leading up to the currency reform on June 20, 1948. The miners had a certain amount of coal or coke at their disposal, which could also be used for exchange. So it happened that coal was exchanged for a pig in Münsterland. My father's cousin had an old truck that would at least survive this transport. They drove off with the coke and exchanged it for a live pig. Officially, this was forbidden, so a hiding place for the pig was necessary to avoid being noticed by the Americans during a possible roadside inspection. A full-length crate under the driver and passenger seats seemed suitable. There was enough space underneath, but getting in and out was not so easy. As if they had suspected it, there was a military check with the sow under the Füttlis. Papers please and turn off the engine. Of course, they didn't want to understand anything at first. The soldiers repeated the request to turn off the engine. But Dad's cousin used hand gestures to make it clear to the soldiers that the engine would not start again if they turned it off. The sow kept making itself heard and by accelerating hard, the noises were overruled. In the end, they were able to drive on so that they could look after the sow in a wooden box in the chicken coop at home. The transport went over a pane of wire glass that covered the way to the chickens' underground roost in the cellar. The glass pane was enough for us humans and small transports, but not for the sow. She broke the pane and the first blood was shed before the sow was slaughtered.

The war was over and institutions, clubs and other communities slowly began to form again. The first founding tribe of the St. Georg Scouts Dortmund-Huckarde was founded in 1948 by my uncle Alfons, the husband of Aunt Christine, a seamstress, and my father. I was there with my cousin Alfons and three other comrades. We didn't have a place to stay, of course, because every space was needed to live in due to the great destruction. There was no room in the rectory either, even though the Pfadi St. Georg is a Catholic tradition. So the only option was to set up our first scout home in the cellars under the rubble of the completely bombed school. Every spare moment was used to expand and prepare for our first scout trip in the summer. Scouts love to travel, and so the first camp on the North Sea island of Spiekeroog was on the agenda. In the middle of the preparations, we were surprised by the currency reform in the French, English and American zones on June 20, 1948. In the East, this reform was prevented by the Russians. From a certain day onwards, anyone could exchange 40.00 Reichsmarks for 40.00 Deutsche Marks. There was no more for the first exchange.