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.