The P. and G. Klopp Story

Chapter XII of the P. and G. Klopp Story – Part II

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Baltic Sea 1957

This year marked the very first time that Mother and Aunt Mieze went on a longer vacation since the end of the war. Finances were tight and did not allow anything fancy for food and accommodation. It was decided to go to Möltenort, a small fishing village near Kiel at the Baltic Sea.

Our Hostess, Peter and Mother at the Baltic Sea

Our Hostess, Peter and Mother at the Baltic Sea

There we enjoyed a pleasant 3-week stay at a humble cottage at the north end of the village. We were blessed with mostly sunny weather that allowed us to spend the daytime hours at the sandy beach. When young and old had been frolicking enough in the shallow waters of the sea, we would withdraw to our roofed wicker beach chair (Strandkorb in German) that Aunt Mieze had rented for a small weekly fee. Apart from offering protection from the cold breeze, they were comfortable and large enough for people to change into dry clothes, sunbathe, read a book, or simply relax. The Germans are very possessive when it comes to claiming a place in the sun. If the less well-to-do tourists couldn’t afford the expense of these mini-cabins, they simply spread a towel on any free spot on the beach. And that was for the rest of the day their very own place that no one else was allowed to touch. But a true German Strandkorb is not complete and does not lend that sense of privacy and security unless you surround it with a wall of sand. Then you truly have that ‘my-home-is-my-castle’ feeling. I soon became friends with a young girl from Berlin whose parents had their Strandkorb next to ours. After swimming and playing around in the gentle waves of the Baltic Sea, we helped each other build the castle walls for our parents. We even thought of making out of wet sand the city crest of Berlin, the emblem of the bear, at the entrance of her castle. Upon Mother’s suggestion we decorated ours with the mystical griffin, the official coat of arms for Pomerania.

U-Boat 995 and Marine Memorial Tower - Photo Credit: wikipedia.org

U-Boat 995 and Marine Memorial Tower – Photo Credit: wikipedia.org

At the south end of the beach stood in a stark silhouette against the sky the Laboe Naval Memorial. The 72-meter monument originally memorialized the WW1 dead of the Imperial Marine, but now stands for all sailors in the world who died for their services at sea. The monument today consists of an observation deck on top of the tower, a hall of remembrance and a veritable tourist attraction, the German submarine U-995, the only submarine of this class that had survived WW2. I remember how on gray days not suitable for spending time at the beach I approached the awe-inspiring tower pointing its tall front to the sea that had swallowed up many a sailor both in peace and war times. The area around the monument was nearly deserted. Attached to the inside wall was a giant open staircase zigzagging to the observation platform. Leaving Mother behind who suffered even more than I from acrophobia, I climbed up the stairs first very boldly. Then I slowed down and anxiously clung to the railing with its large gaps, which opened up an intimidating view down to the concrete floor below. Near the top I had to stop frequently and close my eyes to fight the oncoming vertigo. But I could not admit to Mother that I was afraid, so in small frightening installments I climbed to the top and was rewarded with the most memorable view of the sea and proudly waved to Mother below as if I had just conquered Mt. Everest.

Mother and Tante Ella

Mother and Tante Ella

On the way home, Mother and I stopped by at Auntie Ella’s place. She received me very kindly, as if I had never caused her any grief with those horrendous telephone bills the year before. After a brief visit to the Hamburg harbor and shipyards, we traveled back to Wesel having enjoyed a most relaxing and very happy vacation.

 

Chapter XII of the P. and G. Klopp – Part I

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Summer Vacations

Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend. Albert Camus

Hamburg 1956

Among our family acquaintances and friends I had a few aunts to whom I was not related. Out of convenience and lack of a better word I called them so. One was Auntie Pippi, who had known me from the time in Gutfelde (Zlotniki). She had lost her first husband in January 1945 and had married Ernst Grohmann, a well-to-do master of the chimney sweeper guild in Hamburg. From her first marriage she had a son whose name was Thomas about my age. Since Mother and Auntie Pippi were very good friends, they decided that I should travel to Hamburg and spend my summer holidays with Thomas. Auntie Ella, another of Mother’s close friends, agreed to provide bed and breakfast for me in a nearby district of the city.

City of Hamburg - Photo Credit: hamburgbuch.de

City of Hamburg – Photo Credit: hamburgbuch.de

Thomas and I had a great time together. We played outdoor games in the yard, climbed trees, or played chess when it was raining. But what I regretfully remember most are the utterly foolish and thoughtless things we did in the name of having fun. Relatively mild in retrospect were our chess games we conducted over the phone. Using the European method, we identified each move by a combination of letters and numbers. Moving the king pawn two squares from its original position would be e2 – e4. What we did not realize in our enthusiasm for the royal game was that a local call at that time was charged by the minute. As all chess players know a good game lasts at least one hour. After a dozen games that we played during my stay in Hamburg the telephone bills must have been quite a shock for poor Auntie Ella.

4

Playing Chess with a Friend a Few Years Later

Getting bored with spending the afternoon hours on trees and itching to do something more exciting, we decided to build traps for imaginary wild animals in the neighborhood. We dug 30 cm deep holes, covered them carefully with twigs and dead branches and camouflaged them with clumps of grass to blend in nicely with the lawn. Just as we were digging another hole at the far end of the yard, Auntie Pippi stepped out from the backdoor and walked across the lawn to bring us some refreshment. She was a heavy lady weighing at least three hundred pounds. Not that she was overindulging in calorie rich food; on the contrary she was literally starving herself to keep herself from gaining more weight. She was suffering from a severe case of malfunctioning thyroid glands. In horror we saw her walking straight to the first trap. Why we did not call to warn her is hard to understand. Perhaps we were stunned, perhaps we hoped that she would miss the trap and we would not be scolded for digging unsightly holes. But she stepped right onto the camouflaged twigs and plunged her right foot deep into the hole. With a loud terrifying shriek she dropped the tray and managed to land on both hands cushioning the impact of her massive body on the ground. She could have easily broken her ankle. Great was her anger over our stupidity and thoughtlessness. For punishment we had to restore the lawn to its original state of perfection, which we gladly did.

Typical Autobahn Bridge - Photo Credit cdu-nauheim.de-

Typical Autobahn Bridge – Photo Credit: cdu-nauheim.de-

One day we went to a pedestrian overpass to watch cars and trucks traveling north and south on one of Germany’s busiest freeways. It is one thing to throw flat stones onto the surface of a lake to make them skip, but it is unquestionably a most reckless prank to lob small pebbles onto the cargo areas of passing trucks from an overpass. In our adolescent fervor to seek excitement at all cost we were blind to the grave danger of causing damage, injury or even death to the drivers below. We had not dropped too many pebbles, most of which had luckily fallen onto the pavement, when one landed with a loud clang onto the top of a truck’s cabin. Before we had time to rejoice over the successful throw, the truck pulled over to the emergency lane and came to a complete stop. The driver emerged from his vehicle and seeing us young punks at the railing immediately started racing up the hill that separated the overpass from the highway. In our attempt to escape the angry truck driver, we broke all athletic school records in the one-kilometer run for our age group. Even though we managed to escape, I often felt guilty and even more so considering what could have happened if the truck driver had not taken any action and had not stopped our dangerous game. To this day I am being reminded of this event and cringe when I hear reports in the news of similar mindless behavior on our city bridges and overpasses.

Chapter XI of the P. and G. Klopp Story – Part VII

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Trouble at School and Sex Education from the Gutter

 

When English had been added to the curriculum in the fourth high school grade and French in the fifth, school was getting a lot tougher for me. The process of eliminating students and the scholarly race towards graduation in the nine-year program had begun. I still lived in the world of the immediate present, where the past and the future carried very little meaning. When I came from school, I worked on my favorite electronic projects, read science-fiction novels from the public library, went to the movies, or received friends in my room. I always put homework, now an essential part of learning, on the back-burner. Not that I deliberately ignored my responsibilities as a high school student or that I did not fear my strict teachers. On the contrary I dreaded the severe consequences, the corporal punishments, the twisting of the ears or slapping on the cheeks, or the mental anguish I suffered under the barrage of verbal abuse. “Forgotten! He has forgotten to do his homework!” I can still hear the sarcastic and mocking tone of my teacher’s voice.

Candy Gun - Photo Credit: teachers.d11.org

Candy Gun – Photo Credit: teachers.d11.org

On top of all this hassle about my work habits came an incident that almost resulted in my expulsion from school. I had brought a gun to school, not an ordinary gun, but a candy gun, which was sold at the local vending machines. It was quite harmless as long as one was using the ammunition that came with package, a plastic bottle filled with candy bullets. In a streak of total stupidity I replaced the innocuous bullets that you could shoot into your mouth by colorful ball headpins. When I shot one pin into a classmate’s woolen sweater, he reported the attack to his teacher, the teacher to the principal, and the principal to Mother, who had to meet the staff. They had the weapons on prominent display on the staff room table. Obviously she was not very pleased with the prospect of having me kicked out of school.

The more the anxiety grew, the more in a strange psychological twist I developed the art of selective amnesia. I truly forgot to do my assignments in the afternoon, only to remember them the next morning on the way to school. It so happened that on a particularly dreary and foggy morning I turned left instead of right at the intersection on the way to the school and headed to the River Rhine instead. Skipping school, a far more serious offense than neglecting homework assignments, became a new source of anxiety. Fortunately my absenteeism had fallen through the cracks of the school’s cumbersome system that required a letter of explanation from my mother upon my return. So in the winter when it rained a lot and the sun rarely showed its face in Wesel I spent altogether three or four mornings at the river bank watching the cargo ships as they were going north-west to the Netherlands delivering the black gold from the Ruhr coal-producing area and Dutch goods destined to places as far south as Basel, Switzerland. Since the captain and family man would be away from home for weeks at a time, his wife and preschool children were also on board. One could tell by the cotton diapers fluttering on makeshift clothes lines in the breeze.

Bridge over the River Rhine - Photo Credit: bicyclegermany.com

Bridge over the River Rhine – Photo Credit: bicyclegermany.com

When I was getting bored, I would climb to the main highway leading up to the Rhine bridge and observe the vessels below, as they would emerge ghost-like out of the distant mist. Looking down into the grayness of the rushing waters around the pilings, I experienced the same dizziness as on the roof of the seniors’ home in Rudersberg. I wonder what the car and truck drivers thought of the young man leaning over the bridge railing as they were passing by. I definitely felt the tug of a dark irrational force coaxing me to jump and end my troubles at school. Shocked and frightened I dashed from the sinister bridge and arrived home to greet Mother in the kitchen. It looked like I had returned from my morning classes. From this moment on my homework was done on time, although not always neatly and diligently as required, and my marks were gradually improving.

Mother, Aunt Mieze and I in Typical Garb (flat cap, corduroy jacket and leather gloves)

Mother, Aunt Mieze and I in Typical Teenage Garb (flat cap, corduroy jacket and leather gloves)

One floor down from our apartment lived Franz-Dieter, who lived with his aunt Sister Elisabeth, a devout catholic nurse. He had lost both parents in a bombing raid. He was lonely and forced his companionship on me. We had very little in common. When he came home from his apprenticeship work, he invited me in his congenial, but very assertive way down to his place. We played some checkers and other board games, while his aunt served us some tea and delicious Danish biscuits. Her warmth and kindness, perhaps the reason why I was willing to befriend Franz-Dieter, was in stark contrast to his rebellious and provocative conduct towards her and her religious views. She was extremely sensitive toward anything related to her faith, including all major personalities of the Christian Democratic Union, the governing party of Germany at the time. Her nephew, influenced by the leftist and partisan views of his working class peers, would harass her with sarcastic remarks about her ‘political friends’, such as the minister of defense, Franz-Josef Strauss. In his opinion they were all criminals and should be impeached and executed. Poor Sister Elisabeth tried in vain to soften his outrageous views in her tender tone of voice. But to no avail! In his arrogant self-righteousness he insisted, “They are all parasites of the state and should be shot!” Having not yet displayed any interest in politics and being politically ignorant, I was embarrassed and remained silent taking another cookie instead.

There was, however, another aspect to his character that I found far more disturbing. Having reached pubescence, he was driven by his urges that expressed themselves in a rather crude way in thought, word and deed. His notions of sex and love were clearly those of the gutter. Up to this point in my life I have been living in a complete vacuum as to the enlightenment about ‘the birds and the bees’. Clearly, his barnyard talk did not contribute in providing a factual and clean sex education. His views on girls as targets and the need to ‘score’ troubled me. I began to avoid seeing him by visiting my friends in the late afternoons. But I did not always succeed. One day, when his aunt was at work, he asked me, if I could do him a favor. I sensed evil. Being immediately put on red alert by this strange request, I replied that I needed to know first what that favor would be. Unwavering, I gave my response in a kind, but firm voice. It was clear to him that I would not budge on this point. Not long after this incident our family moved to the north end of town into an apartment away from the heavy traffic of downtown into the so-called green belt around Wesel. Thus, the foreboding association with Franz-Dieter had fortunately ended.

Chapter XI of the P. and G. Klopp Story – Part VI

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Breeding Gold Hamsters

Taking care of a pet is not the same as looking after a car, a yard or a household. The main difference is that people have an opportunity to interact with a living organism. So it was with me and the fish in the aquarium. To make them thrive, I had to feed them, replace the water every month or so, scrape off algae that grew on the walls and make sure the sand at the bottom was free of gunky waste material. I committed myself to do this chore, because I liked the little acrobat. By responding and interacting with me, it had won my heart.

Golden Hamster - Photo Credit: petsplanetinfo.blogspot.com

Golden Hamster – Photo Credit: petsplanetinfo.blogspot.com

It was not too long before I could afford to buy a different kind of pet, a sweet little golden hamster in a large cage. The pet store sold only females to prevent customers from breeding and competing with their line of business. The average life expectancy is between two and three years, so customers sooner or later would have to come back and buy a replacement. My hamster was a cute, lively and healthy creature making me quickly forget my tiny pike. My friends were delighted as well taking turns holding her and letting her tickle them with her whiskers.

Deutschland, DEU, Cuxhaven: Weiblicher Goldhamster (Mesocricetus auratus) links bei der Abwehr eines Männchens. | Germany, DEU, Cuxhaven: Golden Hamster (Mesocricetus auratus), female on the left discouraging male on the right. |

Getting Acquainted – Photo Credit: animal-affairs.photoshelter.com

During the twilight hours she became most active. Often she would climb into the exercise wheel and turn it at an incredible speed for more than half an hour at a time. During the day she would snuggle up in her cozy nest made out of wood shavings. One day I brought her a male companion from a pet vendor at the Wesel kermesse. After a friendly greeting ceremony and a get-acquainted ritual of touching and sniffing, they discovered that they were of opposite sex. Without further ado they mated in front of my surprised eyes. They obviously thoroughly enjoyed what they were doing and took their time to prolong their pleasure of communing together. After the two were done celebrating their union, each withdrew to its own nest at opposite corners of their cage.

Golden Hamster Babies - pixfocus.com

Golden Hamster Babies – pixfocus.com

Now golden hamsters have the shortest gestation period of all mammals, a mere sixteen days to produce a litter. Word spread quickly among my friends and in turn to their acquaintances that I was breeding the cutest pets they had ever held in their palms. Before the pups were even born, they were sold to six prospective buyers at two marks a piece. Great was the disappointment, when the first litter contained only two. I learned first-hand what the economic law of supply and demand really meant. There were four pups in the second litter, and they sold well with a 50% increase in the price. In the following litter there were eight, and when on the fourth cycle sixteen pups were born, my mathematical mind saw the pattern of a geometric progression and predicted thirty-two the next time around. Well, there was no next time. Mother hamster had enough. She figured the best birth control would be to kill her partner on his next amorous approach, with which by now she was completely familiar. And that’s what she did. My poor golden male hamster died shortly afterwards succumbing to the lethal wounds and lacerations from her razor-sharp teeth. The population explosion had come to a sudden end.

In the evenings Mother and Aunt Mieze had often company. My brother Karl and sister Eka (Lavana) now and then came for a visit. I felt quite frustrated that my bedtime was still nine o’clock. I was excluded from the after-supper conversations that would have granted me interesting insights into the world beyond my little town. So during the day equipped with a sharp and wide-blade screwdriver I attempted to drill a hole through the wall to participate at least passively in what was being discussed. Two years later I would have had enough know-how to install a hidden microphone in the living room. But drilling a hole through a concrete wall proved to be too much of a challenge. I had barely penetrated the plaster. No matter how hard I pressed my ear against the hole in the wall, I could not pick up a single word. But for now, I had to wait for a bedtime extension a few years down the road.

When Aunt Gertrud, who had been head nurse in an East German hospital, managed to escape the communist state and slip across the German-German border, she found immediate employment in the Wesel Senior Citizen Home. She often dropped in at our apartment and bitterly complained about the chaotic conditions at the home for the elderly and grieved about the lack of respect for her as a person and leader. The staff envied her position that in their opinion should have been filled by a local administrator and not by a ‘foreigner’ from the German Democratic Republic. All alone against the backdrop of daily insubordination and insidious backstabbing, she became quickly depressed and despondent. Cases of severe depression were well-known among the members of the Kegler branch of our family. Less than a year after she had entered the ‘Golden West’ with high hopes to find freedom and prosperity she couldn’t take it any more and committed suicide. Not being particularly close to my aunt with the bushy eyebrows and not quite realizing that death meant final separation from our earthly existence, I went about my daily life as if nothing had happened (See also post on Gertrud Kegler of May 5).

Chapter XI of the P. and G. Klopp Story – Part V

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Encounter with Bullies and the Little Pike that Could

Wesel being a town much larger than Messkirch and Rudersberg, its annual kermesse was also bigger, had more variety of entertainment and exerted a greater attraction on me than in previous years. Also with money in my pocket I became keenly aware of the lure from the glittering amusement tents, magic theaters and the ubiquitous booths of the vendors. One afternoon I spent a lot of time at a particular roller coaster. Only one man operated it, functioning as an announcer enticing people to come on board and as a competent disk jockey. There, without taking any rides, like in a dream, I relished the Rock ‘n’ Roll tunes, my favorite music at that time. Suddenly and without any forewarning four husky teenagers from the working class surrounded me. Apparently they had singled me out as an easy target to show their aggressive contempt toward high school students. Their aim was to provoke me to a fight. I would have certainly lost, even if I had to deal with just one of these muscular giants. When their verbal abuse did not produce the desired effect, the leading bully began to punch me in the stomach. Remaining passive I suffered through one blow after another and wondered how much longer I would be able to endure the pain. Fortunately, there was one in the group with a heart and said, “Let him go. He is just a nerdy high school student.” At last the bullies left me alone. After I had recuperated from the shock, I made myself invisible to any new potential attacker by submerging myself into the crowd.

Willibrordi Cathedral at Wesel 1956

Willibrordi Cathedral at Wesel 1956

On another day I had just arrived at the fairgrounds, when a large crowd caught my attention. In front of a makeshift stage a man with a microphone in his hand revved up the onlookers to buy tickets for the most spectacular show on mind control. At least this is what he wanted us to believe. He also encouraged people to come up as volunteers, so he could demonstrate his hypnotic powers. What I did not know was that the volunteers were phony and belonged to the troupe. I caused quite a stir, when I quickly followed the invitation and climbed up to the platform ready to be hypnotized. However the crew had been prepared for this eventuality. A member of the team approached me from behind and in a whispering tone offered me ten marks, if I was willing to pretend to be in a trance and dance to rock n’ roll music. The amount of two monthly allowances! How could I refuse such an offer? The hypnotist came across the stage to the corner where I was standing. He touched my forehead, made a few mysterious circular movements with his hands above my head and nodded to the attendant to start the music. As if I was really hypnotized – perhaps I was by the promise of easy money -, I danced before the crowd like I had never danced before. Right after my ridiculous performance the crowd was convinced that the act was authentic and rushed to the booth to buy tickets. However, to my great disappointment,  the crooks did not honor their part of the bargain and I was never able to collect my prize.

Willibrordi Cathedral at Wesel 2012 - Photo Credit: hanse.org

Willibrordi Cathedral at Wesel 2012 – Photo Credit: hanse.org

On top of a bookcase in my room was a midsized aquarium well stocked with cold water fish. Among them were two bottom feeders not particularly pretty with long feelers protruding from their mouth. They belonged to the miniature subspecies of the enormous wells catfish that weigh over 300 pounds. My prize possession was a tiny relative of the pike, smaller than my two catfish, but swifter and according to my opinion more intelligent. I was able to teach it many tricks. Naturally I was very proud of my mini pike with its circus like performances that I had never seen before or since. It would only accept for food water fleas preferably live, but it was also content with dried food. Apparently my little acrobat could see my face above the water and upon seeing it immediately started skimming the surface in expectation of its favorite food. First it learned to pick the fleas from my fingertip not more than 1 cm above its mouth. Then I gradually increased the distance so that it was no longer able to reach my finger. Then it learned to jump and break completely free of the water. After several days of intensive training, I held my finger 5 cm over the plastic ring. Sure enough it jumped through it, picked up the water fleas and dove back into the water, very much like a lion jumping through a hoop in a circus. As reward I would give my little friend a dozen or so live water fleas that were bouncing around with their jerky movements until they were all gobbled up. Unfortunately, its newly acquired skills proved to be its nemesis. Driven by its curiosity in search of new frontiers, it had leaped during the night over the aquarium wall and had landed on the floor. There I found it all shriveled up when I got up the next morning. This made me so sad that I did not want to have anything to do with fish anymore. I gave away the aquarium and its remaining content to a friend at a bargain price.

planted_tank1

Fresh Water Aquarium – Photo Credit: pixshark.com

Chapter XI of the P. and G. Klopp Story – Part IV

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Hit Parades and Overcoming a Gambling Problem

As time went by, my projects advanced from simple radio and amplifier circuits to a transmitter, which I successfully wired to my record player. Soon rock n’ roll music of the late fifties was broadcast on the AM band. The radio waves easily penetrated the walls of our apartment building. Fortunately, the transmitter signal provided radio reception only up to a hundred meters or so. Otherwise, sooner or later, I would have been caught for operating a radio station without a license. The fun lasted until my friends were getting tired of listening to the same old records. Most of the used records were coming in as presents, but occasionally I bought one myself from my pocket-money. For my 16th birthday, my friends Hans, Rainer and others gave me the latest single hits in the very popular 45-rpm format of those days. Throwing the records including the old ones onto one pile, we selected randomly one and played it. Each of us was to give a score on a scale from one to ten according to our likes and dislikes. When all the records were played and evaluated, we averaged out the scores and thus determined the five top songs. To finish off the party, we listened one more time to the five winning hits. I must not forget that by now we boys were considered ‘semi-adults’ (Halbstarke – meaning literally half strong). To ease us gently into the domain of responsible drinking, Mother in her wisdom served us each one glass of white wine and thus enhanced the merry atmosphere we created with our pop music.

Black Jack

The Allure of Gambling – Photo Credit: basicblackjack.org

Just as there are many good qualities in the human character that wait to be fostered and developed, there are just as many vices lurking deep inside us. They may never surface and may go unnoticed for an entire lifetime. But when the right occasion arises, they pounce on you with sudden force and threaten to enslave you. One of these vices that I had to deal with was gambling. Some of my classmates – not my friends who generally had little money to spare – invited me to join them in one of their favorite restaurants to play ‘Seventeen plus Four’, a variation of the American casino card game ‘Black Jack’. Whether it was good luck that enticed me to keep playing or the crafty design on the part of my classmates, I cannot ascertain. But the fact was that I won most of my early games with relatively low bets on the table. Suddenly the intoxicating feeling that all compulsive gamblers know so well rushed through my veins prompting me to put my entire monthly allowance on the table. I felt quite smug about the two tens on my hand and enjoyed for a brief moment the admiring glances and remarks of the other players who had wisely dropped out of the game. The dealer’s hand was a ten and a seven. He pulled another card from the stack. It was a four and I lost. I tried to keep a straight face; yet I smarted from the painful loss of five marks. One classmate offered me a lit cigarette, which I accepted in the hope that it would calm me down. I took one puff. That was enough to make me instantly sick. Body and soul were violently rebelling against the noxious fumes. My face turned pallid green. I got up and on wobbly legs walked out of the restaurant in search of fresh air and recovery from the double whammy on my health and wallet. In hindsight this was a good experience for me, because I never smoked nor did I gamble for money again.