Biene’s Engagement to a Young Dutchman

The episode with Biene’s Moroccan pen pal was barely over, when a far greater danger was looming over my horizon. There was a young Dutchman by the name of Henk. They met, fell in love and decided to get married. Henk visited Biene and her parents numerous times. Soon all four parents came together to get to know each other.

Papa Panknin had the following to say about Biene and his prospective son-in-law. “My daughter’s admirer comes to visit here often, there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s better to know your daughter’s admirer – especially my wife has this opinion – than to know nothing. Bienchen is always meticulous about her appearance, always in tip-top condition and wearing subtle war paint. There’s nothing you can do about it, the only thing you can do is fight the excesses. These are natural laws that you cannot go against. This has been the case for thousands of years. She also spends a significant part of her life in front of the mirror. It has always been that way, and the mirror was probably invented very early on, precisely because of this need. People complain about me because I walk around too poorly dressed and, among other things, wear shoes that are 30 years old and have therefore developed folds and wrinkles. Now this young man, who is staying overnight nearby, comes to us for morning coffee and other meals. Everyone made themselves beautiful. Even I put on a suit to celebrate the Reformation Day and because of the visit. Mom serves and Biene is beaming with happiness. And what is the young man wearing? Jeans and a sweater in a tasteless poison green colour. Of course, he doesn’t have proper behaviour either, but students at higher educational institutions don’t have that either. Yes, it’s not that simple. You can’t intervene in a rude way. The parents have also honoured us with their visit. Who invited them and why they came remains a mystery to me until now. The parents seem likeable and sensible. For the rest, they drank coffee and cognac and smoked cigarettes almost constantly, i.e. father and son.”

Almost eight years ago, I published a post that marked the point where the Peter and Gertrud Klopp and the Walter Panknin and His Family stories merged into one and, despite many obstacles, miraculously came to a romantic conclusion. Those of you, who have been with me for a very long time, will know the details. So with a glimpse into one of my saddest life experiences, of sixty years ago, I will repeat the old saying “All’s well that ends well”.

One Misfortune Never Comes Alone

I was still reeling under the blow of the unexpected military transfer to Maxhof, Bavaria, when another one hit me like a bolt out of the blue. Biene wrote that she had met a young Dutchman by the name of Henk, to whom she was now engaged. They were dreaming about their own home at the edge of a forest near the city of Arnhem and were planning to get married. The news nearly tore me apart, all the more as Biene described our relationship as merely a nice correspondence between friends. Although my emotions were running high, I immediately responded to her letter and thanked her for being honest. It was some sort of a miracle that I agreed to keep writing to her. That promise was so terribly out of character, so contrary to what my pride and sense of honour would have allowed me to do, that there was only one explanation. I was still in love with her.

Sleepless nights followed. I held endless conversations with myself. At times, I would place the entire blame on my shoulders. A friend of mine was perhaps right, when he said that a kiss is more powerful than words, passion stronger than tender sentiments expressed merely in letters. Then the American folk song ‘On Top of Old Smokey’ was going through my mind during those agonizing hours of wakefulness. The apparent truth of the line ‘I lost my true lover for courting too slow’ hit me especially hard. Suddenly, the pendulum swung into the opposite direction. For a short while, I found relief by putting the blame on Biene. ‘Surely, one does not get engaged overnight’, I argued. ‘Why didn’t she write me sooner? Why did she allow the correspondence to drag on so long? What about her other pen pals, the young man from Morocco, for example? Does she want to keep all her options open? Is she like a bee, as her name implies, flying in a kind of romantic dance from one flower to another to see where she would find the sweetest nectar?’ Having experienced both ends of the emotional spectrum, I finally settled for a more balanced view. The wildly swinging pendulum was coming to rest in the middle. Concern for Biene pushed anger and jealousy aside; she might have responded to the lure of marital bliss too quickly. These internal monologues went on and on through several nights, at the end of which I was completely exhausted. But I had calmed down enough to finish my letter to Biene with the words, “Just one thing you must promise me. If you perceive a danger to your happiness in that you cannot distinguish between true friendship and love between a man and a woman or if your future husband does not like our correspondence, then have the courage to say goodbye. For I do not want to destroy your happiness.”

Wednesday’s Photos

Strange Creatures Around Our House

Over the last couple of years, we have been collecting driftwood from the lakeshore and decorating the skirting of our modular home. Recently, I started to see bizarre animals and strange-looking faces in these wood sculptures. To enhance the effect, I applied with my photo editor Gaussian blur to the background. This adjustment made the fantasy creatures stand out with no distracting elements. For your viewing pleasure, I selected the following five images below. Enjoy!

Biene’s Search for Romantic Connections

Papa Panknin’s Efforts to Thwart Biene’s Visit to a Morrocan Pen-Pal

In Biene’s final high school years, her school started an international penpal exchange program, whose main purpose was to promote peace and mutual understanding among teenagers in the world. Since English was developing more and more as the lingua franca, a secondary aim of the program was to give students the opportunity to improve their English skills 

Being romantically inclined, Biene pursued this new form of connecting with other mostly male penpals with vim and vigour. Papa Panknin must have wondered about the disappearance of his postage stamps. She entertained her friends with her endearing letters as far away as Brazil. One fellow came paddling down all the way down from Hamburg to visit her. She described him in her correspondence as her future fiancé. There was also a young man from Morocco, who enticed her with glowing descriptions of his country to come and visit, meet his parental home and explore Morocco beautiful landscape. 

Then there was also me with whom she also kept up a passionate correspondence and shared so boldly all the details of her latest virtual relationship, and which she was hoping to soon become a reality. Her dad’s letter to the German embassy in Morocco, and the ambassador’s reply will provide some insight into this particular event in Biene’s life.

To the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Rabat Morocco

“My 18-year-old daughter, a high school student, maintains a correspondence with Mr Mohammed Nouari, which is generally supported by schools. To my dismay, this correspondence has degenerated into a so-called pen-pal relationship. Now Mr. Nouari, who is apparently unable to come to beautiful Germany for work reasons, has invited my daughter to visit his parents’ house and to tour his country. I now have doubts about the sense of responsibility of the schools and also of the international organization mentioned: the schools and organizations promote and arrange such youth acquaintances and do not care about the effect that the romantic and idealistic ideas that grow in young and inexperienced girls can have. The schools touch on such things, but they leave it to the parents to deal with them and to clean up the mess. 

I, therefore, consider myself entitled to ask the embassy for information and a statement before I even consider my daughter’s request to accept the invitation. Personally, I think all this is nonsense. But my views are not decisive; the prevailing zeitgeist is. People say, schools too, that my views are no longer up to date, that they are backwards, that everything is different now than it was in my time.

Given the delicacy of the matter, allow me to comment briefly on this. I am very tolerant and was not a racial fanatic during Hitler’s time. That is why, as a police officer, I did not join the SS at the time, which meant that I was not promoted to any higher ranks and I am still suffering from it now. However, I consider the mixing of the white and coloured races, if not exactly an offence against the divine order, to be improper for all parties and only justified in exceptional cases.

I cannot judge the mentality and the plans of a Moroccan of an unknown race and religion. Therefore, I cannot know the reasons for this invitation to my daughter and whether it is of an unselfish and honest nature. Ultimately, the question arises as to whether parents can take responsibility for sending a young and completely inexperienced girl on such a journey.”

The embassy’s reply:

Dear Mr. Panknin,

In response to your letter of April 30, 1963, the Embassy would like to urgently advise you against allowing your daughter to travel to Morocco. Even if Mr. Mohammed Nouari – who can only be a Muslim by name – had no bad intentions, such a visit to conservative Morocco, where women almost without exception still wear veils, would inevitably lead to clear conclusions.

As the unfortunately very numerous examples known to the Embassy show, a marriage between a European woman and a Moroccan man should be strongly discouraged, not for racial reasons, but because they are two fundamentally different cultures. In terms of the way of life and marriage, there are simply no bridges between the European and the Arab-Islamic cultures, so marriages between European women and Muslims are almost always doomed to failure.

With best regards, on behalf of the Embassy.