The Still Good Times E-Book

Fred H. Meyer

• Herausgeber: ibidem
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Ever since I left the land that was my home, wherever I have traveled and lived, I have been asked the same question: How could a Hitler happen, in the land of poets and scientists and thinkers, the land of music and arts, the land of plenty, the land of orderliness and efficiency, of cleanliness and dependability, the very land of humaneness? Born in Hannover in 1905 as a German Jew, Fred Harry Meyer (1905–1969) and his new Christian bride fled to the USA in the nick of time in 1937. His autobiography provides a vivid and detailed yet flowing picture of the life left behind in Germany up till 1932 and the events that led to Nazi Germany, World War II, and the Holocaust.

Leseprobe

ibidem Press, Stuttgart

Table of Contents

Timeline

Prologue

Chapter 1: The Family Milieu

Chapter 2: The Setting

Chapter 3: The Great War (1914–1918)

Chapter 4: The Sapling

Chapter 5: Apprenticeship (1918–1923)

Chapter 6: Living It Up

Chapter 7: Inflation Hits

Chapter 8: From Riches to Rags

Chapter 9: London and My New Life

Chapter 10: Living and Learning Abroad

Chapter 11: Back in the Heimatland

Chapter 12: Dreams of Love and Glory

Chapter 13: Forever Our Fathers' Children

Chapter 14: Rough Times Ahead

Chapter 15: All Quiet on the Western Front

Author's Note

Transcriber's (daughter's) Note

Copyright

Dedicated to my father,

but also to

my mother Hildegard

and to

my father's late love Zel

and her son Sheldon (“Alasom” [almost like a son of mine] as my father called him)

and to

our own crew (Marc, Eric, Tanya and Kim), who are doing him so proud today

Timeline

1903

parents' wedding date (Gustav Meyer marries Dora Salomon)

Schlägerstraße address

1905

date of birth (Jan 24)

1909/age 6

birth and death of first little brother

1911/age 8

move to Bödeckerstraße

birth of little brother Karl-Heinz

WORLD WAR I

1914/age 9

1915/age 10

1916/age 11

death of Karl-Heinz

1917/age 12

1918/age 13

German Empire loses World War I (Armistice in Nov.)

revolutionary uprising—Emperor overthrown

Weimar Republic established

move to Waldstraße

1919

Treaty of Versailles imposes peace terms

Hitler joins German Worker's Party

1920/age 15

1922/age 17

(mid-year)

Apprenticeship in Hannover

Prices increase 100-fold

1923 (July to Nov)

Prices increase btw. a million and a billion times their previous level

(Nov)

Inflation brought to an abrupt end by new head of German central bank, Hjalmar Schacht. A catastrophe for those who had borrowed heavily on assumption prices would continue to rise.

Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch attempt

(Dec)

Hitler freed from Landsburg Prison

Nazi Party wins 24 seats in the Reichstag

1924/age 19

Two-year stint in London

1925/age 20 (June)

Schutzstaffel (SS) is formed

1927

Paris/Breslau

(July)

Nazi Party holds its first Nuremberg Rally

1928/age 23

Berlin/Hannover

(May)

Nazi Party wins fewer (14) seats in the Reichstag

1929 (Dec)

Nazi Party membership of 178,000

1930/age 25 (Jan)

William Frick first Nazi minister in State government

(Sept)

Nazi Party wins 107 seats in the Reichstag

(Dec)

Unemployment in Germany reaches nearly 4 million

1932 (March)

Paul von Hindenburg defeats Hitler in presidential elections

(April)

Sturmabteilung (SA) is banned

In Prussia the Nazi Party becomes largest single party in the State parliament

(June)

von Papen (Chancellor under Hindenburg) lifts the ban on the Sturmabteilung

(July)

Nazi Party wins 230 seats in the Reichstag

(Aug)

Hitler refuses to serve under von Papen as vice-chancellor of Germany

(Nov)

von Papen resigns as Chancellor of Germany

END OF THE STILL GOOD TIMES …

1933/age 28 (Jan)

Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany

(March)

Nazi Party fails to win an overall majority in the Reichstag

First Nazi concentration camp formed at Dachau

Reichstag passes Enabling Bill (henceforth, Hitler and his Cabinet could enact laws without the participation of the Reichstag)

(June)

Hitler increases the number of Nazis in his government

(Oct)

marriage to Hildegard Kehlhofer

1934 (March)

Hitler increases size of German Army

(Aug)

Paul von Hindenburg dies and Hitler becomes president as well as chancellor

1935

Nuremburg Laws deprive Jews of German citizenship

1936 (March)

Germany enters the Rhineland

(Aug)

Hitler introduces a compulsory 2-year period of military conscription

(Nov)

Hitler and Mussolini form military alliance

Germany and Japan sign an anti-Comintern pact

1937/age 32 (Feb)

France extends Maginot Line along border with Germany

(April)

Guernica is bombed by the Luftwaffe

(Aug)

Emigrates to the USA (thanks to sponsorship set up by Gustav)

1936/37

Family business expropriated

1938 (Nov 9)

Crystal Night

1940 (Feb 2)

Death of his mother, Dora (Salomon) Meyer

1941 (Dec 15)

Death of his father, Gustav Meyer

1968 (Feb 14)

Date of his own death

2001

Family bank in Hannover notifies me that no trace exists of the family account1!

Prologue

The title of this book—if I ever finish it—will probably be “GUSTAV SAID.”2 Not that Gustav, my father, succeeded in making me live in his image or by all of his rules. Nor that he managed to make me benefit from all of his experiences, or kept me from making my own mistakes. No—but he is the most outstanding figure in my life. He is what shows through more strongly than anything else in how I look at life and how I live it.

Gustav in Venice

Gustav was the most extraordinary man I ever knew and, to me, the greatest father any boy ever had. I love him dearly even now (early 1960s), so many years after his death and at an age he himself had (in his sixties) when I knew him best.

Some men are prone to quoting the Bible. Not that they necessarily live their lives in the image of this great book of ethics, but they seem to derive strength and life wisdom from it. Somehow, it seems to allow them to cope with life that much more easily, simply by quoting passages that serve to highlight a situation, make a point, or express their feelings far better than could any words of their own.

“A curve in the road, marked clearly by a sign warning BEWARE OF THE DANGEROUS CURVE AHEAD! is no longer dangerous,” is what Gustav so often said. “It's the curve in the road that has no such sign that is truly dangerous.” This quote, rather than the Bible, well exemplifies what I mean when I say that what GUSTAV SAID is the source of my own life wisdom, the “book” that I go by.

Chapter 1: The Family Milieu

Born in 1876 as one of nine children—four boys and five girls—in Salzgitter am Harz, a small town in the foothills of the Harz mountains (northwest Germany), Gustav attended formal school for but a few years.

A burning quest for learning faster, a longing for adventure, inspired him to shed the shackles of a normal, small-town school education that was far too slow for him. At age fourteen, he ran away.

To go to SEA was his goal, to see the WORLD his desire.

He first made his way to Hamburg, the great German port that, in his eyes, represented the door to the world, to Life on a big, big scale. Having hired on as an apprentice seaman, he was to sail the seven seas for thirteen years …

He learned much from his years at sea, deciding to use his self-chosen freedom to avoid any further official schooling. He never stopped learning … He spoke perfect English, his French was superb, and he was fully at home in both Spanish and Portuguese. Nor did he neglect his mother tongue. With literature as his strong point, he was unbeatable when it came to who said what. He loved his poets, his Schiller and Goethe and Heinrich Heine. He devoured Shakespeare in English, Voltaire in French. His special favorites were nature writers Bonsels and Bolsche, but he also waxed enthusiastic over Wilhelm Busch, the Will Rogers of his generation. Then, too, he acquired a wealth of knowledge in the arts of many lands and, above all, became an avid music lover.

A physically strong man with muscles hard as steel, he was past master in boxing and jiu-jitsu.

Gustav, the sailor (vocation to go to sea)

After apprenticing on board various sailing vessels, he soon became a full-fledged crew member, rounding Cape Horn a number of times, both as a merchant marine on German and English ships and, later, as a gunner on German battleships. He knew the world, and had become a “man's MAN.”

Finally, at the turn of the century, he came back to settle on German land, near his birthplace.

Friends of his father gave Gustav his first job as a civilian: he worked in Einbeck (a small town between Hannover and his birthplace, Bad Salzgitter), selling waterproof blankets and tarpaulins for NEUFELD & SÖHNE to the farmers in the vicinity. Welcomed warmly whenever the putt-putt-putt of his motorbike came into hearing distance, he did well for himself at the job.

A few years later he moved into the big city, Hannover, and ventured into a business of his own. He would never again work in someone's employ. His love of nature, an inborn feeling for anything connected with Life, and his vast know-how in the realms of agriculture, horticulture and animal husbandry made him a most successful sales agent for Germany's leading producer of farm machinery at the time: HEINRICH LANZ AG (Mannheim am Rhein). From wherever his manifold wisdom in the matter stemmed, he was, too, a “business-man's business man.”

* * *

Gustav cut a fine figure among the eligible young men of Hannover, and was thus much in demand on the city's marriageable-daughters-scene. That is where “Dudie,” my beloved mother, came in …

DORA SALOMON was one of two daughters of wine merchant Michaelis Salomon and his charming wife Natalie, née Linde. “Dudie” was a beautiful girl, full of life and easily the “belle of the ball.”

My grandparents, the Salomons, were not rich. In fact, quite to the contrary, my grandfather made but a fair living. He had married his childhood sweetheart; together they had migrated to Hannover many years ago, from West Prussia (Lobsens, province of Posen). Somehow—no doubt in large part due to the wit, beauty and worldly charm of my grandmother—they had easily slipped into the circle of society which, at that time, was liberally mixed with a good number of Jewish citizens. The latter's “Vaterlandsliebe” (patriotism), loyalty to the Kaiser (emperor) and general posture as good, substantial and civic-minded burghers were second to none—in any case, equal to their Christian landsmen, with whom they easily mingled in mutual respect and pride.

Dora “Dudie” Salomon (sister to “Röschen”)

My mother's sister, Röschen, was a couple of years older than she was. Lacking Dudie's good looks, she compensated by her great intelligence, although this never brought the right man into her life. Whenever people referred to the sisters, they tended to do so in terms of “the beautiful one” and “the one with the brains,” but whoever inferred that my mother's beauty excluded all else had a second thought coming. And while Tante Röschen may have read a book or two more than her sister, when it came to worldliness, my mother's instinct was second to none. As to the size of their hearts, both sisters simply outshone everybody else.

In any case, Gustav and Dudie fitted well together. Soon after they had met, they became man and wife.

* * *

Although I have no personal recollection of anything that happened at Schlägerstraße, my parents' first abode in the south of the city, I vividly recall many of the little tales they used to tell me about their first years together. The most important one to me, of course, was the fact that I was born there. The year was 1905.

Many dates in Germany family life took on extra special importance by coinciding with birthdays of one or the other member of the royal household. For instance, my own birthday—January 24th—had also been the birthday of the revered soldier-king Frederick the Great. I therefore felt altogether entitled to consider him as my namesake, all the more so since that Frederick was one of the historical figures my father held in highest esteem. I was in fact named Fred-Harry—not Fritz, not Frederick—just Fred Harry. Giving children English first names was not unusual in the old Welfen-family city of Hannover: many ties still existed to the old connection with England.

Thus, Hannover's main street was named Georgstraße, in honor of King George, while the statue of Ernst-August (1771–1851, son of the United Kingdom's King George III and king of Hannover) on horseback greeted all visitors to the city from the flower-bedecked square in front of the train station.

I guess I can consider myself lucky not to have been born on the birthday of my father's other favorite hero: Napoleon Bonaparte.

In any case, the story goes that I was almost born in the new sidecar my father had added to his motorbike. Dudie, who had just been on an outing in the new contraption, made it upstairs and into the arms of the waiting midwife just in the nick of time!

One of the earliest stories told to me about Dudie's first experiences with household chores shows how fast on the trigger she was. At the time, families took pride not only in what they called their “wine cellar”, but also in their basement potato bins and their “Bodenhaus” (upstairs storage room) apples. Once the sacks of apples had been delivered upstairs, the housewife—having donned a big apron—would take pride in tenderly wiping each luscious apple, careful to avoid bruising it before lovingly placing it on to the straw provided for their storage. Wooden slats permitted the outside air to enter freely when the windows were left open, and so they would last all through the winter. Coming home one day, Gustav noticed the farmer delivering apples. He ran all the way upstairs, took his Dudie into his arms, and exclaimed how mighty fine those Grafensteiner apples looked. Their appetizing aroma was all over the house. My mother, ever ready to serve her Lord and Master, picked up one of the shiniest, wiped it again on her apron and said. “Here, Schatzli, have one.” My father, an absolute fiend for cleanliness, took one look at my mother's apron, dirty as it was from having wiped all those apples, and said: “But Liebling, not on THAT apron!” Whereupon my mother replied: “Oh, Schatzli, that doesn't make any difference. The apron has to go into the wash anyway!”

This little episode remained a fond memory for many, many years, and “It has to go into the wash anyway” became a household slogan.

* * *

Salzgitter, Gustav's hometown, remained the Meyer family headquarters. Here lived my beloved grandmother on my father's side, ZERLINE. Way up in years already then, she was heavy and unable to walk. I only knew her sitting up in her big “Ohrenbackensessel” (winged armchair), whose head- and arm-rests always boasted doilies of finest filigree, white as snow and thus blending in with her own now white hair. She had a fine, kindly face. Sparkling eyes.

She never appeared bored or less than wide wake. Exercising her mind in lieu of her body, she had developed into an authority on solving riddles and puzzles in magazines and newspapers and even those sent to her by strangers. Gradually her reputation had grown until she was receiving mail from all over Germany. As kids, we—there were usually some cousins around—used to love to sit at her feet and watch her solve a riddle.

For some reason I would, quite often, be the one whose hand she would raise to her lap and place between her own warm and soft hands. Quietly, in some pleasing singsong voice, she would say “My caballier, my caballier.” Not “cavalier,” but distinctly “caballier,” and it used to make me feel really good.

Her place was altogether grandmotherly, with crochet and lace thingies all over it, some sweets stashed into easy-to-find niches, and her steady companion, Agnes, an old maid from somewhere, who had been with her for as long as I remember. There were two unmarried daughters: my Tante Adele (who once went all the way to Australia but never managed to latch on to a man), and Tante Hedwig—the lovely sort of auntie everybody should have. Theoretically, both lived with my grandmother, but unable to make up their minds as to who was boss when both were present at a time, one or the other was usually on visit to another brother or sister in other cities.

I remember the two-seater outhouse in the backyard, and wash water that was forever frozen. All of which was amply compensated by the high feather-bed covers and, above all, my grandmother's cooking.

Her apartment was filled with family pictures, though none were as big as her portraits of the Kaiser and some of her favorite princes. “My Kaiser,” she would call him, reminding me for the umpteenth time that my great-grandfathers on both sides had been respected teachers of German in Salzgitter and, most importantly, had seen action in whatever war it was … For this reason, she would go on to explain, the Meyer family—one of a mere four or five other Jewish families in this little town—had the right (in writing) to have the Christian church bells ring out whenever a family member was carried to his grave. I heard them only once, and that was when Grandma herself passed away. The tiny Jewish cemetery that was on top of a hill was lovingly kept in shape by all the burghers of Salzgitter.

* * *

Moving to the Bödeckerstraße apartment was an exciting event for me. I was expecting a little brother at the time, so I was told. And then, all of a sudden, “it” was there. That was in 1911, and Gustav was doing well. He had acquired a new nickname—“Auto-Meyer”—as one of Hannover's very first automobile owners. That was now his favorite sport, although in actual fact it proved useful as well in helping him make a better living by increasing his farm-machinery sales.

Up at dawn, and working until late almost every day, Gustav brought home the bacon all right! He loved his automobiles, and they kept growing bigger and bigger every year—all of them open “Phaetons.” I do still see him cranking them. What a blessing it was, when the first windshield was affixed to the front. Sitting next to him in the front of the car and watching the world go by: nothing made me feel better!

* * *

Nothing, that is, except for my father's Sunday morning bed stories. Open-mouthed, my little brother and I would listen a hundred times over to the same “Erlebnisse” (experiences)—they always sounded as if they had just happened.

There was the time when, fed up with life aboard some commercial frigate, he simply swam ashore. After spending a few weeks of a Robinson Crusoe-style existence on some island, he finally hired on again with the next ship to come along.

Or a time on Samoa when, riding through the jungle on a horse, his steed “Pasholl” stopped dead in his tracks and refused to budge. Finally, Gustav was obliged to step down to find out the cause of it all. It was a little piece of paper that had made the horse stall—of all things, a label from a beer bottle hailing from the brewery in … Salzgitter!

Or, again, the time when, serving in His Majesty's navy, it was his turn to cook. He was alone on shore, with a number of pots of water and the rice to be cooked. He told us how he poured whole sacks of rice into the pots, and how the rice began boiling, and then boiling over, and so forth, until he was standing in sea of rice. And was never allowed to cook again!

We never knew, nor do I know now, exactly what was truth and what was fiction. It was the story that mattered.

He would tell us about India, about rounding the Cape, and all sorts of things he did in deepest Africa. He would evoke the Eiffel Tower, London Bridge, Hong Kong's teeming masses. He spoke of Gibraltar, the Zuiderzee, orchids on Brazilian trees, wine in Spain, fakirs, Zulus, Hindustans. Of desert foxes; of tigers, lions, elephants, and rattlesnakes. Of God. He shared his true love of Nature with us and taught us innumerable things, not least of which was the gift of prayer. He brought us close as can be to the Maker's doors.

* * *

GUSTAV was a fanatic when it came to the TRUTH, to being TRUTHFUL, and nothing aroused his raging disapproval as much as an untruth. Only twice in my life did he lay a hand on me: once for lying, and once for stealing.

As to the lie, it had to do with being forced to eat what my mother served us. If something would not be to our taste, it would be dished out to us over again at the next meal, and so forth, until we ended up eating it. So when my mother once proudly reported to my father that I had eaten a sandwich set down before me after I had refused it the day before, my father asked me to confirm, which I did. Little did I know that my father had found the sandwich which, having been thrown in all haste under a wardrobe in the hallway, had emerged in clear view on the other side of the wardrobe. Not that my father agreed 100% with my mother's “food policy,” but no excuse could be found for a son of his to lie.

The stealing incident was shared with my bosom friend Herman, and took place on the premises of one of the finest bakery shops in the neighborhood, providentially located on the ground floor of our apartment building. “Konditorei Imhoff” specialized not only in breads and pastries, but also in holiday chocolate figures—bunnies and chicks for Easter, angels and Santa Clauses for Christmas. In between seasons, they invented mouth-watering chocolate toys. As for Herman and myself, our downfall came in the shape of an enormous chocolate key. I forget how in the world we managed to smuggle it out of the store, but woe be to us, a friend of both our fathers caught a glimpse of us devouring our treasure. Once informed of our misdeed, both fathers gave us a whooping spanking. In addition, we were ordered to deliver rolls for Mr. Imhoff for the next few weeks, until we paid up the damage. The lesson stuck.

On the other hand, my mother had the fastest and loosest hands I have ever known when it came to boxing one's ears. Before you could say “ouch,” the back of her hand would catch your face. It happened practically all the time—and, admittedly, was always well-deserved! It was done out of love, and would be distributed just as readily to any visiting cousin or friend—so much so that she was affectionately nicknamed Tante Patsch (Auntie Smack). Her sister, Tante Röschen, would many times plead with her: “Not in the face, Dudie, not in the face.” But the slap would already have met its mark …

Grudges were never carried over. Once the punishment had been meted out by either parent, love took over as ever. One basic fact remained undisputed throughout my childhood: “Die Eltern sind gut!” (our parents are good).

* * *

One of my father's greatest pleasures in life was hunting—a pleasure satisfying his love of Nature, good sportsmanship and camaraderie. In his book, however, pleasure never took precedence over work. It was a rule that remained engraved on my mind. I remember a time he was invited by a faithful friend and customer, Christian Holtz, to the latter's legendary hunting grounds in Niedersachsen. Gustav had just returned from a long and arduous trip across icy and snow-covered routes. He changed his clothes and gathered his hunting gear, very much looking forward to this long awaited occasion, when the telephone rang. The call was from a large farm community many miles away. For some time, my father had been trying to convince them to buy some enormous agricultural machine. The call was to inform him that there would be a meeting of the village elders that evening to decide whether or not they would join resources to buy the machine. “I'll be there,” Gustav promised. My mother pleaded with him not to give up the hunting event that he had been looking forward to so much, but in no time at all he was back in his business suit and ready to set out on the icy roads once again.

He sent Beste to get the car from its parking place in the barn. A slight digression here to explain that in those days, having a chauffeur was no mere luxury, especially for someone who used it for business purposes. Filling stations were few and far between, and repair shops even rarer. So the chauffeur would be a car mechanic above all, and responsible for judging a trip's fuel needs.

Gustav and Dora Meyer

* * *

From Bödeckerstraße we moved to the largest, most luxurious apartment we would ever have. My father would have liked to build a house, but that was against my mother's wishes. Dudie's refusal had to do with an old superstition that people often died right after building themselves a new home. There was some truth to the matter inasmuch as in Germany, most people could only afford to buy property and build once they had attained an age where heart failure was not uncommon.

The new apartment (Waldstraße 45) was spacious enough; in fact, it consisted of two apartments made into one: the smaller of the two served as office to Gustav. On the private side of the door leading to the outer office, Gustav also enjoyed a “Herrenzimmer” serving as private office and gentleman's living room. The door itself was hidden by a movable construction resembling a book cabinet which, together with an identical second book cabinet, framed a huge leather sofa. Also framing this sofa were two, highly polished red mahogany columns—one housing an important collection of hunting guns and live ammunition (always under lock and key), the other a metal-enclosed water-controlled humidor for the luxury cigars he constantly smoked. The room—enormous, like the rest of the rooms in this giant apartment—featured as well a large “Diplomatenschreibtisch” (writing table) with an imposing desk chair, a huge round table (ingeniously constructed to turn into a game table at the switch of a button), and a battery of leather armchairs. The walls were graced by various original oil paintings. It was at once a showroom, and an “urgemütlich” (the height of cozy comfort) space.