Discovering that our childhood idols are now dead and forgotten is a disturbing reminder of our own mortality. Heinz Helfgen was known to every German schoolboy of my generation after he had cycled around the world. He is dead and all but forgotten now.
Conscripted into the German "Wehrmacht" in 1940, he was taken prisoner in 1943 and didn't return home until 1946. With his job as sports journalist gone, he struggled to feed his wife and three children. So he borrowed a pushbike, and with just DM 3.80 in his pocket, set off in September 1951, already 41 years old, to cycle around the world.
He had arranged with the German paper "Die Abendpost" to file regular reports. The fees earned from their publication would be paid to his family. In all he filed 157 reports which were eagerly awaited by an ever-growing readership to become the country's longest-running serial.
After his return in November 1953, he published his "Ich radle um die World" in two volumes: "Von Düsseldorf bis Burma" covers his journey through Austria, Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, India, East Pakistan (today's Bangladesh), and Burma (today's Myanmar), while the next volume continues through Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Japan, USA, Cuba, Jamaica, Aruba, and Venezuela, to Brazil. I couldn't afford to buy his books then, so I followed his exploits in the cheaply produced "Spannende Geschichten" which cost just 25 Pfennig each.
Heinz Helfgen died in 1990, aged 80, having been saved from poverty by a later reprint of his book which in its days sold 600,000 copies. I bought a copy on ebay a few years ago to remind me of my youth and the fact that, however hard we paddle, we'll all finish up in the same place.
