Memories of West Berlin and West Germany E-Book

Hans J. Rokohl

• Herausgeber: BoD - Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 182

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

All my stories are autobiographical, so they're true, and they're positive. Who wants to read about bad things? There was a little bit of it, but I didn't think too much about it. In my post-war memoirs, I talk about my experiences during this time and the events that happened at that time. This continued into the years of the economic miracle. In the Heimatgefühle aus Neu-Tempelhof, I describe the world I lived in, including a bit of the city's history, and I haven't quite finished yet. Neu-Tempelhof is interesting for two reasons. It is historically significant and it is an example of urban development. The 60s were a time of young love, fun trips, and cool cars. People socialized with friends and co-workers. There is also contemporary history. In the 70s, they say goodbye to grandma and look to the West, with lots of free time for fun. In the stories from Kurfürstendamm, I describe my experiences on this street. It is also a journey through time, from the ruins of the memorial church to the boulevard in its festive splendor. Bill Haley's rock and roll, the Beatles' "Let It Be," and the Let's Twist Again song are some examples. The song by Hildegard Knef is unforgettable. My student Christmas stories are at the end. There are some interesting things in there, but I don't want to spoil the surprise. I have illustrated the stories, using my own photos, photos I found online, and photos from books. I thought to myself, "This will show that the stories are true." The illustrated stories from West Berlin are followed in a second volume by stories from West Germany, where I still spend the second half of my life.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Volume I

Stories from West Berlin and beyond

Preface to Volume I

Post-war memories

Feelings of home from Neu-Tempelhof

In the 60´s

In the 70´s

Personal details from Kurfürstendamm

Student Christmas stories

Volume II

Stories from West Germany and beyond

Preface to Volume II

My Fraulein

Experiences on the water

Brewery tours

In and near Berlin

Romantic journeys

From the writing workshop

Poems

Short stories

Closing words

Volume I

Stories from West Berlin and beyond

Preface to Volume I

To start with, all my stories are autobiographical and therefore true, albeit of a positive nature. Who wants to read about suffering and misery? There was, but only a little of it and I didn't dwell on it.

From the very beginning of my post-war memoirs, I not only talk about my experiences during this time, but also about the accompanying circumstances, which are commonly referred to as the events of the time. This continues into the years of the economic miracle.

In the Heimatgefühle aus Neu-Tempelhof I describe the world I lived in, with a bit of the city's history, and I haven't quite closed the chapter yet. Because Neu-Tempelhof is not only interesting from a historical point of view, but also in terms of urban development.

The 60s are about young love, nice trips and great cars, social interaction with friends and colleagues. There is also contemporary history. In the 70s, they say goodbye to grandma and look to the West, with lots of leisure time fun.

In the stories from Kurfürstendamm, I describe my experiences on this boulevard. It is also a journey through time, from the ruins of the memorial church to the boulevard in its festive splendor. From Bill Haley's rock and roll to Let it be by the Beates and Lets twist again. The song by Hildegard Knef is unforgettable.

My student Christmas stories form the conclusion. There are some curious things in there, but I don't want to give any more away.

I have illustrated the stories, most of them with my own photos, some of the pictures I have taken from the Internet, some from literature. I thought to myself, this way I can prove the stories in their reality.

The illustrated stories from West Berlin are followed in a second book by stories from West Germany, where I still spend the second half of my life.

Post-war memories

From the beginning

My post-war memories begin with the Allied air raids on the center of Berlin. Simeonstraße, where I lived with my mother and aunt, grandma and grandpa, was completely destroyed in the hail of bombs. Thus bombed out, the Beck family was assigned an apartment at Burgherrenstraße 11, not far from Tempelhof Airport. Grandpa was put to work repairing Me 109s and other fighter planes. I will tell you more about life in Burgherrenstraße in the post-war period, from the time of the economic miracle until I finished school. But what happened before that? How and in what circumstances did the Beck family live in Berlin-Mitte back then?

The idea came to me while reading a crime novel by Philipp Kerr. In the first book of his “Berlin Trilogy” (March Violets), he describes the impression his protagonist, private detective Berni Günther, got of Simeonstraße when he visited a Jewish fence there. Incidentally, the Kerr crime novels were the basis for Volker Kutscher's “Babylon Berlin”.

From Alte Jakobstraße, which runs parallel to Lindenstraße, you can see Simeonstraße through the gate, followed by Wassertorstraße, where you can see the Evangelical Simeon Church. At the end you come to Prinzenstraße, where there was a crossing in GDR times. Kerr's protagonist describes Simeonstraße in 1936 something like this:

“Simeonstraße was only a few streets away from Neuenburger Straße, but differed in that in Neuenburger Straße only the paint was peeling off the window frames, but in Simeonstraße the

window glass was missing. A really poor area. The 5- to 6-storey tenements stood high above the narrow cobbled street, over which clotheslines were stretched.”

“Sullen youths loitered in the dark doorways, staring at the snot-nosed children playing noisily on the sidewalks, unimpressed by the swastika and hammer-and-sickle graffiti on the walls of the houses, not to mention the obscene images”

“Below the littered street level and in the shadows of the buildings were cellar stores offering goods and services. But there was no need for them.”

The Beck family lived at Simeonstraße 7 for at least 20 years. This can be seen from daughter Ilse's birth certificate, which was issued by the Prussian Registry Office VI from 1924 to the end of 1944.

My mother and my aunt Ille spent their childhood there, went to elementary school and were baptized and confirmed in the Simeon Church. I was also baptized there. Grandma was very fond of this.

The picture shows the street around 1930. People are trading firewood for potato peelings. In the background you can see the passageway to Alte Jakobstraße, on the other side of the street, where passers-by are walking, you can see one of the cellar stores. The poor pavement can also be seen. If you were to walk in the other direction, you would reach Simeonkirche.

I wonder if the Becks were queuing here too. And whether they lived all the time in the dark first floor apartment at the back of the house that I remember. In a photo from 1935 at the fountain in Urbanstraße in March, all four of them don't look like poor people, but rather well-dressed for the time. Perhaps Kerr exaggerated the circumstances in his novel. As a Scot, he knows that things were similar in Glasgow.

For the Becks, the assignment to Tempelhof was probably a gain, an apartment for the better-off. Even if they all lived in one room. Bright, with a balcony, there was central heating and an elevator, which later also worked.

Simeonstrasse 1944/45

To anticipate, Simeonstraße no longer exists. It was completely destroyed during the war. You can still find it on previous city maps, see illustration.

We lived in this street at the time, in a rear building or side wing, on the first floor, the apartment was dark. Grandma and Grandpa probably had a janitor's job, and my mother and I and my Aunt Ilse (Ille) lived with them. I can't say why I lived there and not with my father as a family. My father had probably been there too. I know that from Grandma because I always had to put my left hand on the table when I ate.

At the end of 1944, Berlin-Mitte was completely destroyed by Allied air raids, because the backyard factories produced material that was vital to the war effort. The whole of Simeonstraße (see arrow) was also in ruins. Only the Simeon Church (see arrow), where I was baptized (see family book entry), remained standing.

There are photos of me and my mother from that year.

I can still remember one of those nights. Grandma or my mother dragged me across the burning ruins, my dark bobble hat over my head. We found accommodation with one of Grandpa's sisters, Frieda or Erna, in Jahnstraße in Kreuzberg. I still remember the wonderfully blue Mensch-Ärger-Dich-Nicht glass play figures.

After that we were evacuated from Berlin, my mother stayed with me and Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Ille stayed in Berlin.

***

Leisten near Schnega 1945 to 1947

In Berlin, the bombing raids increased more and more. Mothers and their children were evacuated. My mother, grandmother and I came to Hitzacker on the Elbe, which is now part of the Lüchow-Dannenberg district in Lower Saxony. The area became famous for anti-nuclear demonstrations against the final repository for radioactive waste that was to be built there. There is still a photo of me sitting there looking after the allied air units on their flight to Berlin. Maybe I'll find it.

Then we were assigned to the Müllers in Leisten near Schnega, see map below. The Müllers had a farm in the Lower Saxon style, as shown here. The house consisted of a residential part and a barn part. In the barn there was a gallery with rooms for maids and farmhands. Now we were quartered there. Downstairs were the cattle, some cows and two horses in the stables, upstairs on the gallery were the chicken nests. There were also lots of fleas.

My mother and grandma made themselves useful in the household, after all, the pigs had to be fed too. I, on the other hand, was less useful. When the farmer's wife asked me if I had stolen another egg, I sheepishly said yes. My mother's head turned red every time. Well, sugar eggs were my favorite food. I wasn't a good little boy in other ways either. Once I was gone, half the village was looking for me. I think I had gone to a soccer match in Schnega. I don't know whether I was picked up there or, more likely, whether I was standing outside the door again. But I still remember the wooden pattens on my bottom.

Grandpa, meanwhile, who worked as a saddler repairing airplane seats in the hangars at Tempelhof Airport, was given an apartment nearby at Burgherrenstraße 11. That meant a room in a four-room apartment on the fourth floor, which he had to share with Aunt Ille. Another room was occupied by Mrs. Kater and son Charles. In mid-June 1946, Aunt Ille, now married, moved in with her husband's family. My cousin Wolfgang was born in October. We stayed in Leisten with the Müllers because the supply situation in Berlin was catastrophic. Also because my mother had her appendix taken out in the next town, I think it was Uelzen. She almost died from it. She was left with a large, disfiguring scar. In the summer of 1947 I was of school age, but not fit for school. I had to leave my sugar-egg paradise, but I didn't have to listen to the squealing of the stabbed pigs any more.

Here you can see the line from Berlin to Schnega today. The hamster trains certainly ran like this back then.

Burgherrenstraße 11 - 1947 to 1949

On the map you can see where Burgherrenstraße house no. 11 is located, see arrow. Me and the neighborhood children, and those from Dudenstraße 11 around the corner, played in the street. Small Karee: Burgherrenstraße, Schulenburgring, Methfesselstraße, Dudenstraße. Large Karee: Dudenstaße, Platz der Luftbrücke, Manfred-von-Richthofen-Straße, Schulenburgring. Otherwise in the Kaiser-Corso, in winter with the sledges up the Kreuzberg (Viktoriapark).

So my mother, grandma and I were back in Berlin, now in Tempelhof. How the four of us lived in one room is a mystery to me. Thank goodness Aunt Ille was staying with her husband's family. I once visited her secretly, Grazer Damm so and so at Kiefer. She stood there in the kitchen like Cinderella in a fairy tale and couldn't shut her mouth. I was only a good seven years old. She then brought me back. Soon afterwards, my marriage to Hans Kiefer ended in divorce, he got custody of my son Wolfgang and Aunt Ille had to move out. There were five of us in Burgherrenstraße.

I don't remember the currency reform, the subsequent blockade and the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany, but rather the conditions associated with it. You could buy something with the new money if you had more than the allotted 60 + 20 DM, I got something from the school meals and the others got social food. Grandpa kept rabbits on the balcony to eat. I can still see the skinned animals in front of me. The best thing was going to the Grunewald forest with Grandpa to collect firewood. The district heating in the apartment didn't work back then.

I have already written elsewhere about the school drama at the then 6th Tempelhof elementary school, now the Tempelherren School. Here I have recorded the route to school that my friend Volker Seidlitzski and I took for years. The buildings of the above-mentioned Karees were still intact, behind them in the direction of the church there was only rubble piled up on the street

I have already written elsewhere about the school drama at the then 6th Tempelhof elementary school, now the Tempelherren School. Here I have recorded the route to school that my friend Volker S. and I took for years. The buildings of the above-mentioned Karees were still intact, behind them in the direction of the church there was only rubble piled up on the street.

Here is another photo of me, taken on 27.07.1947, shortly before I started school. The white sweater is knitted from sugar sack yarn. You can see the discomfort on my face. A hard time for children too.

Burgherrenstraße 11 - 1949 to 1953

After the founding of the FRG, Berlin retained its four-power status. Along the border to the Soviet sector, white signs with the inscription “You are leaving the American sector...” were posted everywhere.

At Burgherrenstraße 11, everyone tried to keep their heads above water. Aunt Ille worked as an assistant in a print shop. She later found a job somewhere near Frankfurt am Main (Taunus), away from the cramped living conditions in Berlin. She traveled a lot, probably invited. There is a photo of her posing in front of a convertible. My mother met her future husband in 1948, but they didn't get married until 1952. I remember that “Uncle Kurt” first lived in a furnished apartment in Kleineweg, but then went to work in France in between. My mother received a widow's pension and I received a half-orphan's pension. In return, I had to go to the police station in Neu-Tempelhof at regular intervals, it was terrible, like being paraded. At the beginning of the 1950s, my mother and Kurt moved together to Eisenacher Straße in Schöneberg. I stayed with Grandma and Grandpa, probably less because of the cramped living conditions there and more because Grandma thought I would be better off in Burgherrenstraße. Grandpa found work in the emergency program, see picture.

Elementary school was terrible for the first few years, then it got better. I kept up with the lessons. Volker S. and I took it in turns to be the final lanterns. We should have had extra lessons and remedial teaching, but no one thought of it. We were also lazy and just wanted to play. The two photos show a happy bunch of boys. That was a carefree time

Like a good half of the class, I then went on to secondary school, which at the time was called the secondary school of the practical branch (9th OPZ). There was also the technical branch for those who did well in English and the scientific branch for the really good students. We had two high-flyers who went to the Askanier-Gymnasium from year 5 onwards branch for the really good students. We had two high-flyers who went to the Askanier-Gymnasium from year 5 onwards.

Burgherrenstraße 11 - 1953 to 1956

In mid-summer 1953, Walter M. suddenly appeared at the door of Burgherrenstraße 11 after eight years as a Russian prisoner of war. I didn't know Uncle Walter, but Grandma and Grandpa did. He had become engaged to my Aunt Ille during the war or shortly before. There's a photo of the two of them, he in uniform, she still a girl. You can clearly see the engagement rings on their left ring fingers. So, the two moved in together, first to a room in Tiergarten and then, probably already married, to an apartment in Haselhorst. A year later, they had a daughter.

My mother and my stepfather Kurt found a new-build apartment in a social housing project in Schöneberg, Geßlerstraße. 4th floor, 2 rooms plus balcony, central heating. What more could you want? But - from then on they were called Merten. Now only grandma and grandpa and I lived at Burgherrenstraße 11. I got the little girls' room. Here is the floor plan of the apartment with the respective occupancy.

Television in the new apartment

Things slowly started to look up. Everyone had work: Grandpa worked again as a fine bag maker well past his retirement age. Didn't stop until he was 75. My uncle Kurt worked as a “staircase terrier” (conductor) for the BVG, my mother as a cleaner. Uncle Walter became an authorized signatory for a large painting company. Grandma and Aunt Ille were housewives. I did quite well at secondary school. The building trade advertised “Be smart, go into construction”. I started an apprenticeship as a carpenter at Stöve Zimmerei. The Merten couple bought a VW Beetle. As the slogan on the right says, “Full throttle into the economic miracle”.

Burgherrenstraße 11, 4th floor, right - What has remained

What has remained? From the outside, a West Berlin apartment with a postwar history, as in many other households in Berlin; from the inside, a shared home, almost a community of destiny.

Grandpa lived there until his death in 1979. Almost 35 years, 30 of them together with Grandma. I lived there, although not all the time. In the end, I had the Frau-Kater room as my Berlin visiting room. Grandpa was happy when I didn't come alone. What remains are the memories of my school days, the time of my training and further education and my student years.

I was a real grandma's child. No desire to go to school - lots of excuse slips. Something sweet with cola for breakfast, my teeth were getting worse and worse. But playing with Mrs. Kater's son Charly and my friend Volker was great. Others wondered what would become of the child.

My mother and Uncle Kurt came to the birthdays and holidays, as did Aunt Ille with Uncle Walter and later with my cousin Christiane. It was always a happy celebration. Gifts were always handed out. The big room was rented to Sabine, a young woman who worked as a trainee at a newspaper, I think it was the Tagesspiegel. She had met a nice American, with whom she later moved to California. Greetings from over there came from time to time. Grandpa usually argued with Mrs. Kater about the gas bill. After every cooking session, the meter had to be read and the consumption allocated to the respective household. We had a few visits from the American military police. Mrs. Kater had taken up with a Mr. Johnson, who served at Tempelhof Airport, but was probably better off with Mrs. Kater.

I'll spare you any more stories. The more interesting question is whether I would want to live there again. Because the apartments there are for sale. See the corresponding exposé below. Such an apartment would be nice, but no longer suitable. Let's leave it at the memories, the nice ones and the not so nice ones.

3rd floor: 4 1/2 room old building apartment with balcony and elevator near Bergmannkiez in Tempelhof Burgherrenstraße 11,12101 Berlin-Tempelhof, Berlin Purchase price 730,000 € Living space approx. 150 m2

Property description

This stately residential and commercial building on the corner of Burgherrenstrasse and Dudenstrasse was built in 1913. The entrance is particularly impressive: Beautiful natural stone strips on the walls and stucco elements on the ceiling emphasize the stately impression. The belt cornices have been preserved from the original stucco decorations. The residential building consists of a front building adjoining a small courtyard and a side wing with its own inner courtyard. The commercial premises are located on the first floor of the front building, with apartments on all other floors and in the side wing. In total, Burgherrenstrasse 11 has six commercial units and 21 stately apartments of various sizes. Many of them have a large balcony or a beautiful bay window.

***

Feelings of home from Neu-Tempelhof

A foreword

I have allowed myself to be inspired. From two revered poets and storytellers: Wilhelm Raabe and Theodor Fontane. I came to Raabe when senior teacher Rockstroh taught us German literature philologically, not just tried to. I wrote a quote from Goethe for my A-levels, which we had never studied. Raabe wrote his “Chronik der Sperlingsgasse” as a young man from the perspective of an old man. That is certainly more difficult than trying to do it the other way round, as I intend to do.

Fontane, like Raabe, a representative of poetic realism, focused more on the places with his “Wanderungen durch die Mark”. In his novels, for example in “Stechlin”, he tells wonderful stories about his protagonist. These are not big stories, but rather small incidents with a time reference.

So much for the literary background. Now to the place, or rather a district in Berlin, just as manageable as the Spree Island in Berlin, where Sperlingsgasse is located, or Fontane's Neuruppin. Neu-Tempelhof was created just over a hundred years ago. It was created as an urban development project. But a lot has happened there.

Where did the name come from? - A memory

The memory first. The pond of the old Tempelhof village church was frozen over. As schoolboys, we had to try out whether the ice would hold. It didn't for me, so I collapsed, standing in ice-cold water up to my chest. But it happened so close to the embankment that I was able to crawl out. It got really cold on the way home. Because Alt-Tempelhof is not Neu-Tempelhof, at the northern end of which was Burgherrenstraße, where I used to live. The wet clothes on the line and me under the warm shower, or was it a warming bath after all.