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A former colleague sent me this group photo of the staff of the Braunschweig branch of the Hamburg-Bremer Feuer-Versicherungs-Gesellschaft where I served my articled years. The photo was taken in 1963. I was a non-conformist even then as evidenced by my crossed legs. Or was it a full bladder?
I had just finished my articles but at 17 was still younger by at least a year than anyone else who was just starting theirs. That's what happens when your parents are poor and don't waste time with higher education.
I'll never forget a fellow-articled clerk, Lothar, whose parents were rich which had allowed him to obtain his "Abitur". He hated me since he finished his articles the same year as me but five years older than me, a mere Volksschüler. Call me the Mozart of the Insurance Industry!
(Another fellow-articled clerk who also graduated with me and had also been a five-year-older "Abiturient", Detlef Trute, didn't hate me but only himself because all that extra education hadn't stopped him from having an affair with an already qualified lady-insurance assessor whom he got pregnant, saddling him with wife and kid before he had even started his career. Strange how all those memories come back after sixty years.)
Of course, you recognise me in the photo above, don't you? I'm the one with the undernourished, unmarried, and "uneducated" look about him (a tip: I am NOT the one with the handbag!)
