The Third World War

 

 

Who are better qualified than the Germans to make a documentary about a fictional Third World War? This is a fake historical documentary which imagines a worst-case scenario of how the Cold War might have ended had history taken a different course.

Employing a massive amount of archival imagery from military training films from both East and West, fake news reports, fake interviews, public statements by real historical figures (Bush, Thatcher, Kohl, etc.) and a wide variety of other original and archival material, it is a film unlike any other, both in its making and in its use of true pictures to illustrate an alternative vision of the past. Presented as if it where actually true and involving the actual political leaders of the time, World War Three makes real the ultimate horror of the Cold War, blurring the lines between fact and fiction.

Two-and-a-half years in the making, this international co-production was developed in consultation with military advisors from both NATO and the former Soviet Union. It is a realistic exploration of what might have been as it was imagined by those who were trained to fight World War Three.

 

 

This 1998 TV documentary, with the endless war in Ukraine and the threat of a nuclear confrontation between Israel and Iran hanging over the Middle East, has suddenly become very real. I give Albert Einstein the last words: "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

 

Googlemap Riverbend

 

 

Broken Bangers

 

 

Ian (aka "Baldy") has been our trusted car mechanic for well over two decades, during which time both he and his wife Wendy also became our friends. "Baldy" has not only grown bald but also old and has now decided to go into his well-deserved retirement.

Before he retired, he passed us and our two cars on to another car mechanic who works under the not too inspiring name of "Broken Bangers". We booked in for a full service on the 1st of July, and very much hope our cars will not come back to us as "Broken Bangers".

 

Googlemap Riverbend

 

Noch 'mal was von den Fahrenden Gesellen

 

 

Die 'Fahrenden Gesellen', obwohl schon so lange her, sind für mich ein wichtiger Teil meines Lebens gewesen und geblieben denn ich bin noch heute ein Altgeselle dieses Bundes für deutsches Leben und Wandern.

 

 

Wie wichtig dieser Teil meines Lebens war ist schwer zu beschreiben und somit zitiere ich gleich von einem Bundesheft aus dem Jahre 2015:

"Die Altgesellen der Fahrenden Gesellen sind heute im Durchschnitt ungefähr 75 Jahre alt, mit 30 bis 40 Mitgliedern im Prinzip über das ganze Gebiet der Bundesrepublik Deutschland verteilt, mit Schwerpunkten im Hamburger Raum und im Schwabenland.

Im Ganzen gesehen sind wir Menschen einer glücklichen Generation: Zu jung, um am Kriegsende noch ein Gewehr oder eine Panzerfaust in die Hand gedrückt zu bekommen; stets hungrig, doch unbekümmert genug, um nach dem Krieg - sofern die Familie wieder beieinander sein konnte - im allgegenwärtigen Mangel, im Mithelfen müssen bei Nahrungsbeschaf-fung und Aufbau einer beruflichen Existenz, in der Selbstbescheidung, im gegenseitigen Helfen, kurz: im Streben zum Wiederaufbau, letztlich doch so etwas wie eine schöne Jugend zu haben. Das Spielen in den Trümmer-landschaften der Städte kam immerhin auch unserer Abenteuerlust zugute.

 

 

1948 wurde der Bund der Fahrenden Gesellen in Hamburg - nunmehr losgelöst vom DHV, der ehemals großen Gewerkschaft der Kaufleute - neu gegründet, um im Geist der Bündischen Jugend nach den Werten zu leben, die man abseits von Ideologien als zeitlos gut und erhaltenswert befunden hatte. Die Beschränkung des Kreises der Bundesbrüder auf lediglich kauf-männische Zugehörige entfiel. Da waren die Ältesten der heutigen Altge-sellen der Nachwuchs, der nun wieder auf Fahrt ging wie knapp 40 Jahre zuvor die ersten FG.

 

 

Schätzungsweise ist knapp ein Fünftel jenes Nachwuches mittlerweise seit ungefähr 60 Jahren miteinander in Verbindung geblieben, hat sich beruf-lich entwickelt, Familien gegründet, Eigenheime errichtet, Freundschaften und Marotten gepflegt. Dieser Kreis hat Treffen und Fahrten organisiert, durchgeführt und sich persönlich im Lauf der Jahrzehnte jeweils mehr oder minder verändert.

Das heutige Deutschland - ja, wir sind anders geworden. Das wunderbare frühere Erleben des Bündischen ist vielfach vom offensichtlich reizvolleren Erleben des Konsums überlagert worden. Ohne Krampf können wir Alten uns dem kaum entziehen. Wir lernen, und wir gebrauchen das, was nütz-lich ist. Aber wir wissen auch um die Werte unseres Bündischen Lebens. Wir sind moderne Menschen. Und auch ein bisschen von gestern."

 

Einweihungsfeier unseres kleinen Landheimes in der Lüneburger Heide

 

Googlemap Riverbend

 

There is no Plan B

 

 

After all those Australian politicians who were involved in stitching us up for the dud AUKUS submarine deal got themselves lucrative jobs in the defence industry, we suddenly realise that the Americans won't give us any submarines anyway - not in 2030, not in 2045, not ever - and that there was never a Plan B.

Well, how is this for a Plan B? Instead of paying the Americans $368 billion for the promise of three submarines we will never receive, why not pay the Chinese $300 billion for the promise of never invading us?

That's about $300 for every man, woman and child in China, which buys them a lot of dumplings, and we save $68 billion, which we can use to build half a new footy stadium. A few submarines wouldn't have stopped them anyway, and by giving them the cash and banking the difference, we're both better off. And, best of all, we won't have to wait until 2045.

Richard Marles, no more squirming on the ABC's 7.30 Report. You're off the hook with the ABC and we're no longer in hock to the Americans!

Googlemap Riverbend

 

Another cold night in Nelligen

 

 

I could do with a bit of global warming right now! Is it just me and my old age or are the winters getting colder? It's too late to relocate, so I'd better rug up and put another log on the fire.

Long evenings like these by the fire lend themselves to introspection which tells me that I've been pretty lucky all my life. Not only do I now live in a comfortable home far away from city pressures and financial worries, but I'm also still in relatively good health to enjoy it all.

Not that I've ever been very fit, or for that matter, a fan of fitness. I've always treated my body like the engine in a car: the less wear, the less tear! By all means, give it the occasional oil change but other than that, use it as little as possible and, if you do take it for a spin, make it no more than a gentle drive in the country, and it'll last you a lifetime.

The stops and starts of hectic city traffic were definitely out. I still remember seeing all those headlights coming towards me on Parramatta Road as I was leaving Sydney on that early December morning in 1985. "You can keep it, you suckers", I thought to myself, "I'm out of here!" For most of my life I was lucky to have lived within walking distance of my place of work. Just imagine the wear and tear I was able to avoid!

My head was the only part of my body that got any decent work-out. Whatever was in there could never settle down to a gentle drive in the country, but instead preferred the rollercoaster ride from one new job to another every six or, at most, twelve months. My greatest fear was to grow stale in one job, and so I collected professional experiences and professional references the way a stamp-collector chases rare stamps.

All I'm collecting now is firewood for another cold night in Nelligen.

 

Googlemap Riverbend

 

A difference of approx. 20,000 well-chosen words

 

Click on the image for a BEFORE picture

 

Mt Perry, a hundred kilometres west of Bundaberg, is the proverbial one-horse town. I first heard of it when my long-time friend Noel Butler moved there sometime in 1983 or 1984. He had bought a 5-acre piece of dirt across the track from what was then grandiously described as the Mt Perry Golfcourse - a collection of cowpads drying in the hot Queensland sun - at a price which would've been an absolute bargain anywhere else in Australia but was still outrageously expensive in this town which was slowly disintegrating: the local mechanic had moved away to Gin Gin, the local store sold little more than bread and milk and newspapers, and the local picture show had run its last reel in 1967.

I went up to Mt Perry in late 1985 when I was on my way from Townsville to Sydney, having, after many years overseas, totally failed to make a new beginning in the former and hoping that the latter would be kinder to me. I stopped over with Noel for a couple of days in his newly-built one-bedroom prefab, cranking up the generator at night to watch the black-and-white television and lighting the PRIMUS-stove in the morning to cook our cowboy-breakfast of baked-beans-on-toast. It was all very forgettable and I was soon back on the highway heading towards Sydney (which didn't work out too well either, at which point Noel invited me back to Mt Perry because my company would give him, as he put it, "a new lease on life" - but that's a story for another time - click here).

 

Noel's prefab on his five-acre plot. As he wrote, "It's as isolated as it looks, but plenty of crows and wallabies for company"

 

Owing to failing health and eyesight, Noel sold his Mt Perry hide-away the following year and settled in Childers where he passed away in 1995. For old times' sake, I kept an eye on Mt Perry and even revisited it in 2003 and in 2005 was surprised to read of the reopening of the old Mt Perry picture show (originally known as the Federal Theatre) as the refurbished Federal Inn. Who were those people that would be coming to Mt Perry to fill the $130-a-night rooms and eat those à-la-carte dinners? The History page describes how "Bob & Helen Gilbert purchased the delightful building in 2003" but the front page mentions only Bob as running the place and it was for sale again.

(Bob Gilbert eventually sold it in 2022 for $455,000, and the new owner flicked it just two years later for a nice profit at $575,000. And the current owner is trying to flick it again for $890,000 - click here.)

What had gone wrong with Bob and Helen's dream? That's what had gone wrong - click here. There's a story in there somewhere and old Somerset W. Maugham would have turned it into a good one. The difference between his and mine is approximately 20,000 well-chosen words!

 

Googlemap Riverbend

 

Notes from a small island

 

 

Bill Bryson is one of my favourite living writers, and I don't think there's a book of his I haven't read yet. His charming book "Notes from a small island" became a huge number-one bestseller when it was first published, and has become the nation's most loved book about Britain, going on to sell over two million copies.

In 1995, before leaving his much-loved home in North Yorkshire to move back to the States for a few years with his family, Bill Bryson insisted on taking one last trip around Britain, a sort of valedictory tour of the green and kindly island that had so long been his home.

His aim was to take stock of the nation's public face and private parts (as it were), and to analyse what precisely it was he loved so much about a country that had produced Marmite; a military hero whose dying wish was to be kissed by a fellow named Hardy; place names like Farleigh Wallop, Titsey and Shellow Bowells; people who said 'Mustn't grumble', and ‘Ooh lovely’ at the sight of a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits; and Gardeners' Question Time.

 

Read the book online at archive.org

 

Re-reading his book laid up in bed is my way of spending a lazy Sunday. Now, thanks to YouTube, you can also watch the BBC television series:

 

 

This is not the full television series; for that you have to do what I did and go out and buy the DVDs, but it's a pretty good start, isn't it?

 

Read the book at www.archive.org

 

In 2013, travel writer Ben Aitken decided to follow in Bill Bryson's footsteps - literally - by tracing the trip taken by Bill Bryon in his classic tribute to the British Isles, "Notes from a Small Island". Staying at the same hotels, ordering the same food, and even spending the same amount of time in the bath, Aitken's irreverent homage to Bill Bryson's 1995 travel classic is filled with wit, insight and humour.

 

Googlemap Riverbend

 

Autres temps, autres moeurs

 

 

Hinter diesen Fenstern im Obergeschoss der Münzstraße 2 saßen in den 60er Jahren zwanzig Angestellte, Lehrlinge und Typisten in drei Zimmern mit nur einem fensterlosen Klo!

 

 

Ludwig Erhard hatte gerade sein Buch "Wohlstand für Alle" geschrieben, aber weder sein Buch noch sein Wohlstand hatte uns bisher erreicht. Das sogenannte "Wirtschaftswunder" war kein Wunder das über Nacht kam sondern mit harter Arbeit und dem Verzichten auf persönlichen Komfort.

Zwanzig Angestellte, Lehrlinge und Typisten - ich war einer der acht Lehrlinge; wir waren eine richtige Lehrlingsfabrik - teilten sich drei Zimmer so groß wie normale Wohnzimmer, mit Schreibtischen - und ich meine "Tische" mit nur zwei Schubladen - die ohne Zwischenraum Brust an Brust und Seite an Seite quer durchs Zimmer aufgestellt waren.

Der Büroleiter und Abteilungsleiter der jeweiligen Abteilung hatten den Luxus eines 'richtigen' Schreibtisches direkt am Fenster, atmeten aber sonst auch die selbe dicke Luft und aßen den selben Mittagstisch der kurz vor Zwölf von einer Großküche abgeliefert wurde. Zwei Lehrlinge mußten dann ihre Tische opfern; die wurden zusammengestellt und eine Plastiktischdecke wurde darüber gelegt, und die Buchhalterin spielte "Mutti" und servierte den Grünkohl mit Würstchen oder die Kohlroladen oder Königsberger Klöpse oder Erbsensuppe oder Falschen Hasen. Nachspeise gab es nie aber wir durften mit dem Abwaschen helfen.

Natürlich mußte das alles auch einmal wieder weg und der Wettlauf der zwanzig Leute zum Klo began, ein Klo gerade groß genug für den Klositz und ein Handwaschbecken welches seinen Namen verdient hatte denn nur eine passte da rein. Und natürlich passte nur ein Mensch ins Klo und wenn dieser Mensch dann auch noch seine BILD-Zeitung mit zum Klo genommen hatte - oder im Falle des Fußball-verrückten Abteilungsleiter der Kraftfahrzeugversicherungs-Abteilung das KICKER Sports-Magazin - da Zeitungslesen bei der Arbeit verboten war, dann mußte man seinen Atem halten und warten was vielleicht auch das Beste war denn diese kleine Kammer hatte weder ein Fenster noch sonst irgendeine andere Ablüftung. Der einzige Luxus war richtiges Klopapier auf einer Rolle und nicht wie zuhause geviertelte Seiten der Braunschweiger Zeitung, was zeitlich auch besser war denn sonst hätten die Leute auch noch diese Viertelseiten gelesen.

Und hier ist ein Bild von diesen zwanzig Leuten die sich damals ein winziges Klo teilten denn zu der Zeit waren wir mehr daran interessiert satt essen zu können und eine Wohnung zu haben und eine Anstellung. (Das Bild selbst wurde zum Anlass eines Betriebsausfluges gemacht zum Hauptsitz der Hamburg-Bremer Feuer-Versicherung in Hamburg welches einen mehr imponierenden Eingang mit mehr als einem Klo hatte.)

 

Von links nach rechts:

Erste Reihe: Ruth Zausra aus der Buchhaltung; unser Chef und Bezirksdirektor Herr (Manfred) Weber; der Büroleiter Herr Balke; der Lange daneben ist Günther Kohoff aus der Kfz-Abteilung.

Zweite Reihe: Fräulein Träger, eine Dame aus dem Schreibzimmer; Frau Seidel aus dem Empfang; die zwei jungen Damen neben ihr waren die Lehrlinge Ingrid Weinkauf und Marlies Spannuth; der Lehrling Bernd Burghof (oder Burgdorf?); Herr Weihe aus der Kfz-Abteilung; der Lehrling Bernd Hohm; ich selbst mit Brille und neuem Anzug.

Dritte Reihe: meine (allererste) Freundin (obwohl wir das beide damals noch nicht wussten); Alice, ein Lehrling in der Feuer-Abteilung; Fräulein Jilek, eine Schreibdame die viel für mich tippte; der Mann mit der Brille ist mir unbekannt; Karin Mohrmann war auch Lehrling; ich hatte ihren Namen fast vergessen; von den drei Köpfen rechts hinten erkenne ich nur den Lehrling Manfred Wichmann auf der linken Seite.

Ich erinnere mich auch noch an einen Herrn Offschorz (ist das die richtige Buchstabierung?) der nicht auf dem Bild ist. Und wo ist der Herr Schiller? Und wo sind die Lehrlinge Christine und Trute und der Lehrling Lothar der eine Vespa hatte? Hatten die die Hamburg-Bremer schon verlassen? Hatten sie wohl denn die HB war eine richtige "Lehrlingsfabrik".

 

 

Obwohl mir nach drei Lehrjahren das Warten gewöhnt war, hatte ich keine Lust noch für viel länger auf das noch ausstehende "Wirtschaftswunder" zu warten und wanderte gleich ins sonnerige Australien aus - aber das ist eine ganz andere Geschichte für einen ganz anderen Tag --- siehe hier.

 

Googlemap Riverbend

 

"Don't sell Riverbend; that would be the ultimate sin."

 

Noel's framed message, a postcard, is standing on the far left in front of the Burmese harp

 

Thus wrote my old mate Noel Butler back in April 1995. Eighteen months earlier, in a sudden rush of blood to the head, I had bought Riverbend even though I had never lived on an acreage and barely knew the business end of a shovel, let alone what to do with it on an acreage.

Of course, we all have such dreams. Many years before, I had already bought DIY-books on how to build a cabin in the woods, on how to milk a cow, and how to build a chicken coop. They never made it to the top of my bookshelf which was occupied by 'The Practice of Modern Internal Auditing', 'Petroleum Accounting: Principles, Procedures & Issues', 'Ship Operations and Management', and 'Pick Basic: A Programmer's Guide', and other esoteric works on accountancy standards, IATA rules, laytime calculations, charter parties, and case studies in forensic auditing.

Noel, too, on coming back to Australia after a lifetime spent in New Guinea, had tried to follow his dream of a bucolic life in the country, first at Caboolture, then at Mt Perry, and finally in Childers. He knew as much - or rather, as little - about it as I did, since he'd conveniently forgotten that in New Guinea he'd never held more than a cold beer in his hand as he oversaw a small army of kanakas doing the hard work.

I, too, had conveniently forgotten that life in the country does not mix easily with computer code, spreadsheets, internal rates of return, and public rulings by the tax office, and had toyed with the idea of selling up again almost as soon as the ink had dried on the settlement cheque.

 

Riverbend's original auction advertisement in 1992

 

Noel had known of this, and as his life slipped slowly from autumn into winter and, just a few months later, into permanent hibernation, his last message admonished me not to give up on the dream because, as he so clearly foresaw, "... that would be the ultimate sin."

Noel Butler never had enough time left to visit "Riverbend" but to this day his message sits on my mantelpiece to remind me of a wonderful friend, a wonderful friendship, and a wonderful piece of advice.

 

Googlemap Riverbend

 

Why not move to Liechtenstein?

 

 

You know what the greatest wonder in the world is? The greatest wonder is that every day, all around us, people die, but we act as if it couldn’t happen to us. In China, roughly 27,573 people die each day. In India, it's around 26,520. In the United States, 7,700, give or take. In Switzerland, it's about 179. In Micronesia, it's just 2. In Liechtenstein, 1.

I know Liechtenstein well from the days when my Saudi boss would routinely re-invoice his shipments to Saudi Arabia at hugely inflated prices via a "Treuhandgesellschaft" in Vaduz to collect higher import subsidies from the Saudi government, so why not move to Liechtenstein?

It's far too cold! Even though I don't know Bali's daily death quota, I much prefer to spend my last few years there, or, better still, in my old stamping-ground Borneo - or, as the locals call it now, Kalimantan - which is like Bali but with more rain forests and orangutans (which means "men of the forest", but you knew that, didn't you, Des?)

Of course, leaving Nelligen - or whythehelldoyouliveinNelligen, as my friends call it - after more than thirty years would take me right back to the time when I was dragging myself all over the world in the naïve hope that this would give me some clarity about what life was all about, and perhaps also give me a fresh perspective or a change in personality, and ultimately an answer to the question of what to do with my life.

Somehow I seem to have lost track of whether I wanted to tell you about Liechtenstein or my wish to relocate to Bali or that I'm beginning to face my own mortality. Perhaps I should go back to my YouTube channel on which I interview garden gnomes. I don't want to brag but, unlike this blog, it is enjoyed by well over three people worldwide.

 

Googlemap Riverbend

 

P.S. "Warum Deutsche Liechtenstein lieben sollten".

 

 

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned

 

 

Apocryphal (that means being of doubtful authenticity, Des) or not, it is said that one day an excited young man came to Alexander Dumas ('The Three Musketeers', remember?) with the most superb idea for a novel.

"You have a good plot?" Dumas asked. "A plot that is full of excitement; characters that breathe; settings that bedazzle the eye; and a suspense that is truly unbearable", the young man said. Dumas grabbed him by the shoulders and cried, "Good! Now all you need to make it a novel is 200,000 words."

Well, I've put the following story through an online word counter and it comes to barely six hundred, so you may want to embroider it a bit in your own mind to turn it into anything 'novel'. Anyway, here it goes:

My old mate Noel Butler was a bit of an Errol Flynn-type, helped along by the fact that he'd spent most of his adult life in New Guinea. In 1967, when I first met him aboard the PATRIS as I returned to Europe after a ho-hum first two years in Australia, I'd just turned 22 while he was al-ready of an age that made him popular with a certain type of dowager who was on her way to Europe to spend her late husband's fortune.

Lack of social, but primarily dancing, skills, and an even greater lack of money prevented me from partaking in the nightly shipboard delights, but Noel and I spent almost every daylight hour of every day hunched over a chessboard, and our mutual love of chess and my fascination with his adopted home, the mythical island of New Guinea, spawned a friendship that was to last almost thirty years until his death in 1995.

Born in 1920 in Bundaberg, Noel enlisted in the Army and was sent to New Guinea (where he took part in the Bougainville Campaign) and after his discharge in late 1945 went back there. He never chose the orthodox road, behaved like a good little squirrel, and turned domestic, but instead freewheeled through life with his hands off the handlebars.

If New Guinea was a backwater, then Wewak in the far-flung Sepik District was a backwater of a backwater, and it was there that Noel had found his niche, venturing out every couple of years to go on an African safari or take a bumboat ride through the Indonesian archipelago.

I visited him on his little 'hacienda' just outside Wewak several times, and he visited me on Bougainville and in Lae and elsewhere, but mostly we stayed in contact through correspondence which sometime in the early 70s took a colourful turn when he began using writing-paper em-bellished with pretty butterflies in the corners and along the edges.

I picked him up on this, and he told me that a lady-friend in Brisbane had sent him several pads of this writing-paper. By the time I visited him again, I had become quite a lepidopterist (that's someone who collects and studies butterflies, Des) but thought no more of it until one night at the Sepik Club he introduced me to a matronly barmaid. Sitting down at our table, he said, pointing back at her, "She's the one who sent me those writing-pads", and over a few beers the story began to unravel.

Apparently, she'd taken a shine to Noel and come up to Wewak to stay with him. There's little entertainment in the islands and visitors are always welcome but Noel also liked his privacy, so after a few weeks he asked her when she was going back to Brisbane. "Oh, I'm not!" she cried, "I've packed up everything in Brisbane and I'm staying here with you."

I don't know when Noel had decided that domestic life was not for him, but it was long before this particular lady-friend tried to get her man. As he confided in me, "If I'd wanted to get hitched, I would've done so while I could still have commanded a premium", or words to that effect.

Anyway, in the most tactful way possible in such a delicate situation, he showed her the flyscreened door. "So how come she's still here?" I asked. She'd found herself a new lover - the local plumber; shit happens! - and, to cover her tracks, had spread the rumour that Noel was a homosexual.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned (which, by the way, sounds very Shakespearean but you can thank William Congreve for this paraphrase).

 

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The Little House in the Prairie Country

 

 

This old black-and-white picture - taken in the late 50s - of the "Landheim" (country cottage) belonging to the "Fahrenden Gesellen", a "Wandervogel" group I belonged to as a youngster in Germany, brings back many memories.

It was just 28 kilometres outside my hometown Braunschweig and I walked, hitchhiked, and cycled to it a hundred times (and a couple of times by train to a small "Dorfbahnhof" - Rietze? - from where I hiked along the "Alte Heerstraße" to reach the "Celler Landstraße" and "Kilometerstein 28,6" where I left the road to walk across "Spargelfelder" to arrive at the "Landheim"), alone or with "Kameraden", and the weeks and weekends spent there are forever part of my memories.

 

 

They, the "Fahrenden Gesellen", recently celebrated their 100th anniversary in 2009 which they commemorated with the publication of a "Festschrift" of old photos, stories, and documents which I promptly ordered.

"Es lebe der Bund!"

 

Das Landheim

 

From the book "100 Jahre Fahrende Gesellen - 1909-2009", page 49:

"In den 1950er Jahren entdeckte Heinz Radtke 30 km nördlich von Braunschweig eine alte Spargelbude, umgeben von kleinen Wäldchen, Heidefeldern und Äckern, die nun leer stand und verfiel. Für 40 DM im Jahr wurde sie gepachtet und von den Jungen über zwei Jahre lang an jedem Wochenende ausgebaut, denn aus den Wänden des Fachwerkbaus war viel herausgefallen, ebenso schaute durch das Dach der Mond. Es wurde gesägt, gemauert, gehämmert, gebastelt, neu verputzt und das Dach gedeckt."

 

Einweihungsfeier

 

"Endlich konnte die Einweihung gefeiert werden. Neben Gaugrafen und Bundesleiter hatte sogar die Stadt ein Ratsmitglied geschickt. Es wurde ein schönes Fest, ohne Alkohol! Man trank Kaffee, lachte, sang Lieder und kratzte sich, denn die Mücken eines nahen Sumpfes waren uneingeladen auch gekommen. Den Gästen konnte ein Raum mit drei Fenstern gezeigt werden, 5 x 3 m groß, mit Tisch, Stühlen, Schrank, alles umgebaut nach unserem Geschmack. Ein Kochherd und sogar eine Pumpe waren da. Über dem Tagesraum war der Dachboden mit Matratzen zum Schlafen eingerichtet."

 

The last "Fahrende Geselle" I am still in contact with in Braunschweig, Armin Stiller, marked the probable location at the top of the map with "Lan"

 

"Viele Jahre diente dieses Landheim den Jungen und auch manchem Altgesellen zur Erholung vom Großstadtlärm. Hier wurden auch Gau-, Mannschaftstreffen und Osterlager veranstaltet. Nach zehn Jahren lief der Pachtvertrag ab, und ab Anfang der 1970er Jahre gab es auch keine Jungengruppe mehr in Braunschweig."

 

Googlemap Riverbend

 

 

P.S. More links here and here and here.