Memoirs of Kurt Moser

Foreword

Many years have passed since Jürgen and I received my father's memoirs. Although several relatives and friends in Germany have read them, the memoirs unfortunately were inaccessible to those who do not read German. I made several attempts to have them translated, but fell short. Last year, I finally found a translator, Johanna Hagenscheid, and with the additional help of my three children, I was able to finish this longstanding project.

Of my parents, it was my mother who was first compelled to record the experience of our evacuation from East Prussia to the German mainland. She wanted to preserve the memory for posterity. My father came to write his memoirs only after my mother encouraged him to do so. While his way of writing was rather formal, hers reminded me of her letter-writing style, plainspoken while captivating. Most valuable of all is that these memoirs were written at all, giving us facts and viewpoints directly from the source, not from a third party.

Unfortunately, both my parents—at least in their writings—do not step outside the realm of the family and local goings-on to provide a broader view of what took place. They also do not engage in what in German is called "Vergangenheitsbewaeltigung," or dealing with the past. One might argue that they were writing their family memoirs, not a political history. That is true. But if one lived in Germany, especially during Nazism and Communism, it was impossible to avoid taking a stand. And my parents always did that, even if they did not write about it in their memoirs.

There are several reasons for this, in my opinion. My parents lived under regimes that didn't allow dissenting views; one could be arrested just for owning the "wrong kind of book," for example. My father's career suffered during both regimes because he refused to join the ruling political parties of the time. That was the origin of his lifelong hatred of politics.

Because of this political climate, my parents harbored a never-ending fear of authority. It made no difference that my parents were retired and of no interest to the Stasi by the time they wrote their memoirs, so engrained was their fear for their physical survival. They even went so far as to abbreviate certain people's last names to protect their identity. (That doesn't include the names of patients, which also were disguised, though for confidentiality reasons.) I have, as much as possible, written most names in full.

Finally, many Germans, especially those who lost their homes and homeland during the war, had a tendency to focus on their own problems and not see the bigger picture. This was especially true of my parents, who lost not only their homes but lost a child in the war. Contributing to this tendency was the fact that Germans as a rule did not travel extensively to other countries and spend time among other cultures.

Klaus T. Moser-Maync

August, 2001

Introduction

Our memories are the only paradise

from which we cannot be expelled.

—Jean Paul

Only after long hesitation have I been persuaded to write about my life. I was doubtful at first, because I am well aware that I lack the necessary narrative skills. The dry factual style of scientific publications is more in my line, though even there I used to spend much time polishing and paring it down until the desired clarity and transparency was achieved.

I received some encouragement [Es stellt Verstand und rechter Sinn mit Wenig Kunst sich selber Vor] from Goethe’s words that “Reason and good sense speak for themselves.”

I also feared that in the hectic speed of the beginning atomic age nobody would have the time and leisure to read such recollections. Above all, the young generation estranged from tradition and more future-oriented might show little interest for a past leading back into the age of petroleum lamps and therefore into a world long vanished, even though only a few decades have passed.

But then I remembered how—many years ago—we had been fascinated to read old letters of Ilse’s ancestors, particularly, because they created a lively picture of their times and the circumstances of their lives. And I hoped that my recollections might have a similar fascination for later generations and might even contribute to bridging a gap between the generations, which has rarely been so wide.

Above all—and this was decisive—I was sadly aware of how little my children know about my former life and work. At the time they had reached the age where families talk about such matters, our family had been torn apart due to the war and the situation afterwards. Today we live on two different continents, worse, in two different worlds, which makes any oral transmission of tradition impossible.

We have no choice but to live with the heritage of our ancestors, even though each young generation strives for independence. Today, certain ideologies even attempt to eradicate the past and present of the older generations as sad specimens of a backward age. For them history begins with themselves, the inventors of the atomic age. This is, of course, biological nonsense and, above all, a presumptuousness, which might well carry its own punishment. The recent past shows most impressively, how megalomania leads to ruin and destruction.

From a biological point of view, we incorporate not only the heritage of our immediate ancestors, but the heritage of all humanity, of the whole living universe, and our tribal memory might reach back further than we think.

I have recently come across similar speculations in a penetrating short story by the Czech writer Capek. There we first read: “What has been has been and that’s it!” But then he continues: “But that is not true at all. Even what you believe to be long forgotten still exists. And I think that our memory continues after death.”

This has been of special interest to me, because I have always seen heredity as a kind of materialized memory, and recent scientific publications on genetics contain similar thoughts.

C.G. Jung must have had similar thoughts, though leading in the opposite direction, when he said: “We humans tend to completely forget that in the basement of the skyscraper, which is our soul, we carry the whole past and without this basement our spirit would hang in mid-air.” If we go one step further down into the cellar beneath the basement we encounter the source of all things, whom man calls God and, who, in reality, lives within us.

This does not belong here, though.

At any rate, I have, after all, decided to let my life pass again in front of me in a sort of mental rerun. In this context I find one of Goethe’s remarks most consoling. He declared the man who writes his biography to be the most polite of men, for it is enough to enter into communication with the reader; the reasons are of no importance.

However, I do not intend to meet the standard he set up for an autobiography, because it applies to an autobiography written for the general public and not to one written for a close family circle like this one. I do not want to go into too much detail and I am in no position to describe the great man of the age. All the same, my life has not been without its interests and complications and the age—being a period of transition—is fascinating and remarkable in itself. Many small episodes will charm or amuse, because of close family ties. In particular—as far as the human aspect is concerned—the children will recognize some of their own characteristics or recognize them in their children, in whom we also live on. And they will realize with a smile that, on the purely human side, not so much has changed after all, that there is not really anything new under the sun.

I

1. The Family

As a rule, autobiographies begin with the establishment of a family tree, a genealogy, laid out as extensively as possible, including detailed descriptions of the physical, intellectual and emotional characteristics of the ancestors in order to analyze the genotype of the “candidate” in question with a lot of imagination. At times, the description of such pedigrees takes up more space than it should, as for example in “Gestalten und Gedanken” [“Figures and Thoughts”] by Ernst Kretschmer, a colleague of mine, whose work on “Koerperbau und Character” [“Physical Structure and Character”] is widely known.

For reasons that will come up later, I do not have to go through so much trouble. I might return to this topic at a later point. Therefore, I can begin right away, and I hope that the fact that early experiences are more clearly and vividly remembered in old age will be of some help.

I grew up as the youngest and only male offspring of a family consisting of father [Robert] Moser, his wife [Maria Moser, née Moser] , whom he simply called “Mieze,” and their two daughters, Wera and Edith. They were, respectively, nine and six years older than me, and called their parent Vaeting—an affectionate diminutive commonly used in Pomerania, where they spent their childhood—and Muett. Edith was usually called Dittchen, which in East Prussia was synonymous with Groschen, a ten-Pfennig coin.

Naturally I adopted these nicknames and I will continue to use them here.

Vaeting was a real artist in the best sense of the word. His appearance was impressive, and he made a commanding figure as the conductor of his orchestra. His friends in Greifswald called him their Pomeranian Nikisch. With his black mustache, which was always very well groomed, and his restrained temperament, he reminded them of the famous conductor. He must have had a very eventful life, which I learned little about. From his own storytelling, I know only that he ran away from several apprenticeships as a youngster to become a musician and that he finally got his way. He learned everything from scratch in a town orchestra, which was called Die Stadtpfeifereien [The Town Pipers] at the time. His main instrument was the violin, but he played almost every instrument. I have witnessed myself how he took the instrument of one of his musicians—a string or wind instrument—to play him a part in question exactly the way he wanted it to be played. In the military he also served as a musician. As a violinist, he had played under the conductorship of Arthur Nikisch. He talked with much enthusiasm about him and may have inherited his special preference for Wagner and Tschaikovski. With a touch of irony, he once told me that while leader of the orchestra, he even played the solo violin in a Beethoven concerto and still marveled at his own courage.

He later became a conductor, and after many ups and downs, he became very successful and accompanied a lot of the stars of the music world at the time with his orchestra. But we will get to that later. After he had to give up his orchestra for financial reasons, he worked as a violin teacher, which was quite hard on him.

Vaeting seemed outwardly calm and well-balanced, but when his art was concerned, he could become quite passionate and impulsive. In such instances, he threw prudence to the winds and risked his livelihood rather than accept unreasonable concessions. Commercial thinking was totally alien to him. As a result, of course, his family had serious financial difficulties, especially in later years. However, he weathered them with his irrepressible optimism and good humor.

With all this he was the best father, deeply fond of his children, whose mischief and little tricks he bore patiently. He had many intellectual interests and read a lot, even the scientific and philosophical books I brought home from the university library during my student days.

Muett came from a very wealthy, old family of Koenigsberg [Kaliningrad, Russia] merchants who lived in the Koggenstrasse and reportedly rode through town in a four-horse carriage. In a lawsuit against the tax department, which Grandfather Moser maybe embarked on out of an exaggerated sense of justice, he unfortunately lost his considerable fortune. From these times of wealth and extravagance, Muett had kept a somewhat exaggerated generous manner in managing daily affairs, which sometimes contrasted rather comically with the somber realities of life. Both parents shared a certain nonchalance towards their future, which led to peculiar situations. If they had plenty of money, which was not too often, they lived in style until their purse was only too soon empty again. But even then only the best was good enough. The best dairy-butter, the most expensive coffee, the most delicate sausages were bought. An omelet which did not contain 2-3 eggs per person was not worth having. In this way the money was quickly spent and hard times followed. Such unpleasant consequences were taken in stride, though, especially by Dittchen, who had inherited her father’s easy-going, optimistic, vivacious temperament and therefore was especially close to him.

Wera, on the other hand, had a more complicated relationship with her father. Sometimes, it was even somewhat strained. She took everything to heart, was more serious and more sensitive, and suffered from the economic insecurity. She tended to take even little jokes and gibes amiss.

Muett did everything she could to avoid and settle such small crises, but she could not prevent a certain distance in the relationship between the father and his eldest daughter. For many years, Wera lived in the house of a mathematics professor in Greifswald, whose daughter was a very close friend, and did not come back home. She received some kind of professional training at the “Berlin Lettehaus” to be a secretary or an accountant if I am not mistaken, but she only worked for a short time before she was adopted by an aunt in East Prussia (Aunt Lene Nesselmann). She then led a carefree life on various family estates (Sumpf b. Pr. Holland and Kraussen) until 1912, when she got married to the East Prussian landowner Reinhold Alsen, whose estate in Schoenwalde, near Koenigsberg, was to play a role in my life as well.

Edith, whom I was therefore much closer to, was always at home. She went to a girls’ school, then visited a teachers’ training college and became a schoolteacher. However, she also did not work long in her profession, which she found quite exhausting. She soon married a distant cousin of hers, the pharmacist Paul Gramatzki, who was called Pegram by the family. He first had a pharmacy in Hennstedt/Dithmarschen and finally in the town of Usedom, on the island of Usedom, in Pomerania. We will come back to these two places later.

Due to Vaeting’s engagements as a conductor, he spent a good deal of time in other countries. At first, he had long engagements in the imperial Russia. Thus the two daughters were born in St. Petersburg and were enrolled briefly in a German gymnasium. That also is why I was born in Wiborg or Vipuri, which was part of Finland at the time and the second largest city of that country. Vaeting worked there as the conductor of the opera orchestra.

2. Early Childhood

Telling about one’s childhood one tends to begin with the first events one can remember. In developmental psychology, the dates of these first memories play a certain role, since they are viewed in connection with the awakening of self-consciousness, thus the first manifestation of self-reflection, which is probably the most important, if not the only characteristic that distinguishes man from animal.

Whether or not this is true I would like to leave open at this point. However, I could imagine that one remembers emotionally very intense experiences without having consolidated one’s self-consciousness at that time.

Generally, the first memories of early childhood are probably hard to pinpoint. I do not remember our time in Wiborg, Finland, at all. I must have been approximately two years old when the family returned to Germany and spent two years in Greifswald. I remember this period of time in Greifswald only vaguely. I darkly recall that we lived in the Brueggestrasse right across from the Marienkirche [St. Mary’s Church], called the “Dicke Marie” [“Fat Mary”]. The large, quiet square in front of the church was where I played my first childhood games. I also remember that I was shown cannon balls stuck in the outside walls of the church, which stemmed from the Wallenstein attack, a story, which obviously must have deeply impressed me.

Since Vaeting’s plans to start his own orchestra in Greifswald or take over the local town orchestra did not come through we moved from Greifswald to Berlin, where we stayed until 1905. We lived in the Treskow Strasse50, in the north of Berlin, not one of the best parts of the city. Close by was the Schultheiss Brewery and I can still smell the pleasant, spicy flavor of malt, which filled the air around it. Our apartment was on the second floor while the first floor was occupied by a restaurant. Years later, when we returned to Greifswald, we also lived in a house with a pub downstairs for a long time and in a way it became a characteristic of the environment I lived in. Whether or not this had to do with the fact that Vaeting liked to have a drink in the evenings [Daemmershoppen] and play a game of cards—like Richard Strauss, he was an excellent player—I cannot tell. In any case, we had draft beer close at hand most of the time and bottled beer was therefore held in contempt and was never kept in the house. The consequence for me was rather unpleasant. In the evenings and sometimes even at lunchtime I was sent downstairs to get a pint or a Schnitt, which was less than a pint, for our meal. Sometimes I had to get eine Weisse, a special Berlin beer mixed with raspberry syrup, which Muett and Dittchen enjoyed a lot. These beer errands turned into the constant ostinato of my childhood, which I did not care for since I disliked the smoky atmosphere of a pub.

These Berlin years left more clear and better defined memories, but first I would like to describe a strange experience of self, which must have occurred in my fourth year and which is psychologically interesting. I clearly remember how suddenly a strange, uncanny feeling took a hold of me. Everything seemed changed. My surroundings suddenly had a different face, looked different and I felt small and insignificant. I still remember that this impression, which, in retrospect, I would like to compare to a theater curtain rising before a performance, frightened me very much and I crawled under the table and cried: “I have to die.” Soon, after some comforting words I quieted down, but I often had to think of this peculiar state, which has never repeated itself. It must have been connected with an extraordinary emotion, probably an intense anxiety, since I have not forgotten it to this day. In analogy to similar experiences described in childhood memories by various writers, such as Johann Peter Hebel, I assume this to have been an experience of awakened self-consciousness, where the “I” distances itself from its surroundings for the first time and is overwhelmed by it at first, thus a first “subject-object-experience.” This might also explain why my more dreamlike memories became more clear and more sharply outlined from then on. In this context, it is interesting that, according to Teilhard de Chardin, the awakening of self-consciousness corresponds to the birth of a new world. We gain access to a radically new environment. What happens is some kind of a metamorphosis that is unavoidably connected to anxieties of the soul which, according to his opinion, represent an archetype of human anxiety as old as humanity. This point of view might be confirmed in my own experience of myself.

Thus I remember very clearly the centennial celebrations, the New Year’s Eve festivities of 1900. The streets were lit up at night and full of people. At the Berlin castle the guards came marching up and we saw the emperor (Wilhelm II) driving along the avenue “Linden,” not in a car, of course, but in a court equipage escorted by cuirassiers.

I also have a very clear memory of a comical “family drama.”

There must have been some minor difference of opinion between Muett and Vaeting, in the course of which he must have approached her in a manner that I considered unjustified, because I grabbed my whip and went straight for him. It must have been a funny sight, the little fellow attacking his huge father. However, everything was resolved with laughter, but Muett still thought it would be wise to remove me from the perhaps not completely harmless presence of the irate master of the house.

I was vividly reminded of this event when something quite similar happened to me. At that time I already was the dignified head of a household myself and my son Juergen, at that time 3-4 years old, tried to attack me. His head was red-hot with anger and his eyes were flashing. I do not remember whether or not something I had said against his mother had enraged him so much and whether or not his sense of justice had prompted him to come to her defense. But it must have been something similar and it also caused much amusement. Obviously, everything has happened before!

There was another disagreeable experience, which has affected me for quite some time. I have mentioned before that there was a pub on the ground floor of our house on the Treskow Strasse. Due to my beer errands I knew the fat host, Daberkow, quite well. One day there was a big turmoil and the whole house smelled disgustingly like phenol. It turned out that the host had been found dead with his throat cut. He had committed suicide. That was my first encounter with the death of a human being and to this day I cannot smell phenol without thinking of the suicide of the big host.

In this context, it strikes me how intensely my early childhood memories are linked to sensations of smell, a confirmation maybe of the important role that this phylogenetically oldest sense organ used to play for man.

Even the whole ritual around death, the “first-class” funeral, left me deeply impressed. The horses were covered with black blankets and wore black plumes on their heads. All this and the conversations I overheard about this dark event were food for my thoughts for a long time.

I must have been a very impressionable, sensitive child. Some highly emotional experiences affected me deeply and raised emotions that stayed with me for a long time until they finally subsided. To a certain extent, this character trait accompanied me into my late years, and may be one of the reasons why I could never steer my ship easily and elegantly through the trials and adversities of life.

For the rest of it, I was considered docile and well-behaved, and in spite of the aforementioned rebellion, I was a rather quiet and shy child. I was somewhat naive and an easy prey for all sorts of pranks other children played on me until I made my first experiences with the hostile world around me and the malice of people. I remember how horrified and beside herself Muett was one time, when I returned from playing outside and my hands and clothes were covered with tar. It was a practical joke by some older boys, who had told me that this would be something wonderful and led me on to stick my hands into a barrel full of tar. Then they disappeared gleefully.

Once, when I had a toothache, I was the center of attention because I dared to go to the dentist all by myself. However, in the waiting room, my courage faded considerably and I tried to leave without success. I was trapped, because the door did not open from the inside. When I returned home after my tooth had been pulled I was greeted as a hero. In reality, the honor was rather on the side of the smart dentist, who had developed this clever trick of illegal detention based on similar experiences with other children.

Soon, it was time for me to go to school. I went to an elementary school, which was called a Gemeindeschule [community school] and had a certain number in Berlin at that time. My school had a three-digit number; I believe it was 168. I awaited my first day in school with some trepidation, but I was lucky and got a very good and understanding teacher, Leutke. I still remember how proud I was to be the first person in our class to receive an A from him in writing. I must have shown a special dramatic talent for the declamation of poems or stories. The contrast between the dramatic seriousness, which I applied to my task, and my childlike expression and mimic, must have been extremely comical. In any case, I remember how my older sisters used to make me stand on the table and recite a poem, which always caused great amusement. Dittchen, especially, was barely able to hold back her laughter. She had to bite into her handkerchief to stop herself from laughing out loud until Muett finally came in and put an end to the cruel game.

Thus I spent the first ten years of my life in the haven of a harmonious family life, where Muett, a warm and sweet mother, provided a comfortable and sheltered home. The first years of my childhood were quite carefree, particularly since the financial situation of the family during the years in Berlin was good and there were none of the strained circumstances that overshadowed later years.

In Berlin, Vaeting was the conductor of the newly established philharmonic wind orchestra, consisting of 50-60 musicians. At that time, that was a good-sized orchestra. He often went on tour with his orchestra to other towns and abroad. I remember that he was very successful in Duesseldorf during its garden show. Longer trips took them to England and Ireland. I still see him trying to learn English before the trip and having a very difficult time with it. I still kept some documents in Koenigsberg, mementos from these years in Berlin, but of course they got lost in the upheavals of war and flight. One of them, a postcard photograph, showed him in front of his fairly large orchestra. Another one, an illustrated sheet of paper from Glasgow, probably described an open-air concert, since it depicted a music pavilion with the orchestra surrounded by a large crowd, standing tightly packed in the rain with many open umbrellas. Underneath there was a review of the “music-band Robert Moser from Berlin” with details about the program. The Wagner interpretations were especially mentioned.

Despite its success, the orchestra could not survive. Personal disagreements also may have played a part in that. However, in 1905, Vaeting lost his good position and decided to return to Greifswald. In this very music-oriented small town, he hoped to establish his own orchestra with the help of music enthusiasts, particularly from the university.

For me, this was the beginning of a new stage of my life, which lasted until 1919 and included all my later school years, half of my student years and all of World War One.

3. In a Small University Town

(Greifswald before World War I)

In the beginning of the 20th century, Greifswald, or “Gryps,” as the locals called it by abbreviating the Latin gryphiswal densis, barely had 20,000 residents. It was the kind of comfortable small university town, where nothing much happened and the students either were very industrious or inclined to waste their time. Professors and students, particularly the ones in student fraternities, which sported colorful uniforms and practiced fencing, dominated not only the everyday appearance of the town, but also the social life by creating a certain academic hierarchy. A former professor of pharmacology, Geheimrat [high title of a civil servant] Hugo Schulz, who was Sauerbruch’s[1] father-in-law and whose nickname was “the homeopath on the professorial chair,” gave a humorous description of the Greifswald of that time in a little booklet, called “From a Small Town,” which is unfortunately no longer available.

Like most of the small towns of that time, Greifswald had its own town orchestra. It was only capable of providing the music for festivals, celebrations, parades, processions and dances, though. It was not up to serious music. To hear a good concert, one had to go to Berlin. For the culturally interested citizens of Greifswald, this was a very unsatisfactory state of affairs. Therefore, a circle of music enthusiasts, mostly connected with the university and active amateur musicians themselves, founded the Orchesterverein [orchestra association]. Its goal was to raise the general music level and to establish an orchestra, which could also produce classical music. In need of a conductor, they thought of Vaeting, who had spent some time in Greifswald a few years earlier and who was looking for a position just then.

Hence, with the support of the Orchesterverein, a new orchestra, the “Moser-Orchestra,” was founded with Vaeting as its conductor. Reinforced by many amateurs—there were some quite good musicians among them—and musicians from the military band of the 42nd Infantry Regiment quartered in the neighboring town of Stralsund, the orchestra consisted of about 60 players and could also give large symphonic concerts. However, these were not sufficient to finance the whole enterprise, particularly not the 20-30 regularly employed musicians. There were some patrons who supported the orchestra with considerable contributions, particularly Hans Domnick, a lawyer. He was an excellent violinist, a student of Havemann’s, and also served as the leader of the orchestra in these concerts. To survive, the core of the orchestra was very much left to its own initiative and had to compete with the town band, which was not feasible in the long run.

The beginnings were quite promising. Even so-called subscription concerts had much success; in fact, the orchestra was the talk of the town. Forty years later, after our flight from East Prussia, two programs from this time were given to me by a former friend of Wera’s, who had kept them as mementos. To us, these programs may seem somewhat gaudy and not always in the best taste, pairing Beethoven’s “Egmont” and “Eroica,” for example, with the Blumengefluester [Flower Whispering] by V. Blon. One has to keep in mind, though, that in those days, symphonic concerts were not as serious as they are today and the taste of the time had to be accommodated. This also becomes clear in the fact that the audience sat at tables and was used to drinking beer while listening to the “Eroica.” It was already a bold step to request from the audience in the programs not to smoke before the symphony and to ask the waiters not to serve during the symphony.

Tempura mutantur—times change. Today, thanks to the technical achievements of radio and television, we are at the point of slipping back into the former state. One could say that whereas in earlier times people used to shave before going to the symphony, now one listens to a symphony while shaving.

However, the orchestra could not have existed without also serving light muse.

Connecting musical entertainment and business were necessary. The musicians also had to play on guild festivals, on excursion steamboats and at balls in general. With all this, it helped that Vaeting was very popular in all circles of society and that he was generally versatile. In this way, the “Moser-Orchestra” became a dangerous rival for the public town orchestra very soon and would certainly have turned into a deadly adversary if the latter had also been a free enterprise. However, since it was publicly funded and did not need any additional income it could survive the critical period. In addition, the town officials continued to support the mediocre conductor of the public orchestra, and prevented Vaeting from taking his place, even though most people expected it. Hence the “Moser-Orchestra” had to be dissolved after some years, despite its initial great success. Vaeting remained conductor of the Orchestra Society, bringing it to a remarkable level, and continued to conduct the symphony concerts. This can be seen in a program of the “Bach-Reger-Festival” of 1923, which has been preserved. It was his last public appearance and was also witnessed by my mother-in-law.

Another testimony of Vaeting’s great success with these symphony concerts were the many laurel wreaths he was given as a sign of appreciation according to the custom of the times. I remember that the walls in our home were covered with laurel wreaths, some of which were replaced by new ones after some time. For many years, Muett kept leaves of these wreaths in the kitchen so that we were at least amply provided with this spice.

However, laurel wreaths alone do not fill the stomach, and the income from 2-4 big symphony concerts a year was not enough to cover even the most modest living expenses. Therefore, Vaeting was forced to teach the violin. Because of his general popularity, there was no lack of students, but at that time the fee for a lesson was very low. Further, Vaeting sent untalented students back home mercilessly. Still, the income from these lessons provided something of a minimum subsistence. In addition, Vaeting also directed some local choirs, such as the Studentische Liedertafel [a student choir], and gave singing lessons at the local girls’ school, where he was, of course, adored by the girls. He gave chamber music concerts as well, where mostly string quartets were played. The first violin was played by the lawyer Domnick, the second violin and the cello were played by two professors, both very good players who owned valuable instruments. Vaeting was responsible for the viola and also supervised the rehearsals. Therefore, he was allowed to keep the money they made.

In spite of all this, the money situation at home became more and more difficult, especially during the second half of the month. Most of the time it was a problem to provide for the rent or the coal in the winter. In an emergency and as a last resort, Vaeting went out to play cards, and usually brought some money back to be exchanged for food the next day.

Thus Richard Wagner’s words written as a motto for his “Pilgrimage to Beethoven” also applied here, namely that want and worry were the patron saint of the German musician, unless he was lucky enough to have a court position.

I have talked in some length about these everyday aspects of our Greifswald years because they definitely left an imprint on my life later, all the more since I was not blessed with the easy-going, happy-go-lucky attitude to skip lightly over the injustices and humiliations of our position.

Our constant worries about money also were the reason that we led a very withdrawn life. I cannot remember that I ever had visitors. There was no lack of invitations, but Muett never accepted them, knowing fully that she would not be able to return them. Muett hardly ever left the house. A half-hour long walk through the “Neuenkirchener Tannen” [wooded area] on a Sunday already was a big expedition. Since she never had any help at home, I was her maid for all the work. I did all the shopping, very often “on credit,” knew all about the prices, the kinds of meat and sausages and in particularly bad times I had to get a ready-made meal from the nearby pub. I also collected the unpaid fees, which I did not feel comfortable doing at all, especially if I knew the families concerned from school. Already then nobody liked to be reminded of debts. Particularly those for whom money was not an issue could not imagine that such small amounts could be essential for others. Their oversensitive reactions often put me into very awkward positions. Everything that cost money eventually became a problem, even in school, so I was often left out of things. Unfortunately, it even came to the point that our piano and, most painful for me, my violin, which Vaeting had brought back from Finland, disappeared to the pawnshop, never to return. Even the wedding rings occasionally had to be pawned, but they were always brought back.

From then on, I could only play on Vaeting’s violin, which he needed himself most of the time and I could only practice when he was not at home. It was also awkward that he noticed immediately when somebody else had played on his instrument, and it intensified my reluctance. Nevertheless, I used every opportunity to play when he was not around. Once, carried away by my playing, I did not hear him coming and, as Muett told me later, he stopped at the door, listened and said: “The boy does not play badly, he really tackles everything.” I had been bold enough to try out Paganini’s “Capriccios.” When I heard what he had said I felt encouraged and elated. In terms of learning how to play the violin, this kind of situation where I depended on Vaeting’s instrument probably only helped since it forced me to play carefully and avoid careless fiddling around. That may have helped to improve my sound. The chronic lack of money with its often embarrassing consequences, which marked our later years in Greifswald, must have overshadowed my childhood and probably caused certain inhibitions, which I could free myself from only much later. However, it also had its advantages. It encouraged me to secure at least my personal independence. By my later school years, I was already starting to tutor others and check their assignments. Thus I earned some money for my personal use. Later on, I even taught the violin and I felt very honored when Vaeting occasionally handed me over some of his beginners, who annoyed him too much. During my student years, I also earned money by teaching math. During that time, the following amusing incident took place. A young woman, who had obviously overrated my abilities, asked me after the math lesson to check her English essay. I had never learned a word of English. As a student of the old languages I never had any English lessons, but I did not want to admit that to the girl. Luckily, I noticed that the essay consisted of a translation from English into German. I therefore corrected the paper simply by following my feeling for the German language and pointed out some incongruent passages, which she promptly fixed. I went with some trepidation to our next lesson and felt extremely relieved when she happily informed me that she had received a good grade on her English essay.

I started earning some money in Greifswald this way and always kept a small Schwarzenfond [collection of money for a rainy day] to cover my personal expenses. Usually towards the end of the month, when things would become very tight, as it happened occasionally, and there would not even be a piece of bread in the house, I would, of course, help out with my treasures. On these occasions Vaeting used to say with an undertone of appreciation: “I really don’t know where the boy always gets the money from, but he always has money.” This may have helped to create his conviction of later years, namely that I was swimming in money, which, during the first years of my marriage, certainly was not true. He used to joke that his children were his best investment.

Apart from the growing money issues, which gave me an early taste of the hard side of life, it was the music that dominated the atmosphere in the house and had a deep influence on me as well. During the times of the “Moser-Orchestra,” I was everywhere, where the musicians, all of whom I knew very well, were. I also knew all about the programs of the concerts and helped with the transport of the music and the instruments. In this environment, I learned many things having to do with music, for example, that a waltz would not become a breath-taking experience unless not only the first third, but also the second third was accentuated in some way. Everything connected with music became second nature, even more so when I played the violin myself and was allowed to participate in the big symphonic concerts.

Apart from that, though, I lead a normal boy’s life with all its virtues and vice.

After living in crowded Berlin, where we had only the streets to play on and run around in, I enjoyed being close to nature, the fields and woods. We lived on the edge of the town on the Stralsunder Strasse, which, a few houses down, became the Stralsunder Chaussee, leading to the Neuenkirchener Tannen only 1-2 kilometers away. The forest, the nearby Rosenthal and the Kiesower Moor [swamp] were the scenes of the activities and expeditions of my childhood.

Playing Indianer [American Indians] was one of our favorite games, as I was also an enthusiastic reader of such stories. This was initiated by a very old but extremely beautiful copy of Cooper’s “Lederstrumpf” tales [“Leather Stocking Tales”] with magnificent steel engravings. The book was given to me by East Prussian relatives. Its pages had turned yellow and stained and it had the typical damp smell of old books, which I then noticed for the first time and which always reminded me of “Leather Stocking Tales” when I came across it in later life. Later, I was fascinated by “Travel Descriptions” by Karl May, which even caught Edith’s and Muett’s interest. Muett used to read it to us at bedtime. Our fascination, though, did not stop us from eventually falling asleep. I got the books from a small library on Muehlenstrasse. It was located on the ground floor of the building and smelled exactly like my old copy of “Leather Stocking Tales,” the smell of old, damp books. It was run by a little Jew named Loewenthal who looked like a character from an oriental fairy-tale, with his big beard and long caftan. When I opened the door, there was the sound of a loud chime and only after some time did the little Jew silently appear in a dignified pose, scrutinizing the newcomer over the rims of his glasses. The whole experience seemed somewhat exotic and mysterious. I was quickly thrown back into reality though, when I noticed that the little man, according to the sharp business sense of his race, had divided each of the 30 volumes, containing more than 600 pages each, into smaller single volumes, thereby tripling the lending fee.

The preference for the books of Karl May has stayed with me all the way into my “ripe old age.” I especially indulged in them when I was sick, once causing quite an awkward situation for my dear wife. She would get me my precious reading material from a Koenigsberg library, whose owner was amazed about the rapid consumption of so many big volumes and asked her one day: “And how old is the little fellow?”

For my own justification, though, I would like to point out that I am in excellent company. To my immense satisfaction, I read that also Albert Einstein and Albert Schweitzer were avid readers of Karl May, who animatedly discussed their memories of Karl May when, in America, they were both invited to visit a big exhibition of American Indian art. Of course, I also owned a silver rifle like Winnetou, an old air rifle, which I had found somewhere and embellished accordingly. Most of the time it did not work, which did not stop me from being an excellent shot. That almost became my doom. One day, playing Indianer again, I could not resist the temptation to aim at the behind of a boy who stood with his back to me. Understandably, he took it rather badly and threatened to go to the police. In the end, however, I got off relatively easy. Later, during my time as a soldier, my talent to aim proved to be an asset and our youngest son seems to have inherited this talent from me.

Another sport we enjoyed during these years was fencing with old sabers in imitation of the students’ duels. The father of a school friend of mine owned a house where the students had their own pub and their fencing floor. This allowed us to watch their duels and to imitate them. We put the big fencing helmets on, covered ourselves with protective bandages, and went at each other with old exercise equipment. The whole thing was, of course, not dangerous at all.

On the whole, though, I was not a very wild boy and rather preferred more civilized hobbies, all the more since I was physically not very robust.

Above all I enjoyed all kinds of handicrafts. First I cut and glued paper models until shelves and cupboards overflowed with my productions and I gave them away. Then came the fretwork, very popular at the time, which I turned into Christmas presents for all the relatives near and far. My masterpiece was an enormous fortress, which I copied from models. After it was finished and lost its fascination for me, I gave it to the children of Mr. Domnick, the lawyer, who were a few years younger than me. Thirty-five years later, after we had escaped from East Prussia, I met one of the younger sons in Greifswald. He still remembered it, and in return he gave me his sister’s violin, because I had lost all my instruments due to the flight. Today he runs a large film business in Goettingen, though he had originally studied law.

Later, my interest in handicrafts was transferred to the technical field. I was particularly fascinated with electrical engineering, and started to build all sorts of machinery, like doorbells, motors, etc. Above all, I wanted to find a new element, which would provide a stronger current than the “Bunsen” element. Soon, the whole apartment smelled of chemicals, and when the nitric and sulfuric acids started to damage the polish of the furniture, Muett got fed up and I had to quit. So I turned to building an accumulator battery, which I made by punching out the lead sheets myself and filled them with red lead and lead monoxide. Thus I installed my own nightlight. This might sound ridiculous today, but one has to remember that, as a child, I had still known petroleum lamps, which then were replaced by gas lights. At the time of my experiments, people did not have electricity in their apartments yet. Nowadays one would play around with radio or TV sets. Shortly before our Abitur [high school diploma], when we had to write an essay on the subject of our own choice, I handed in a paper of more than a hundred pages about technical progress. Back then, I also wanted to become an electrical engineer.

Another interest, which I spent much of my time on, was my love for animals connected to zoological interests. During my expeditions through fields and woods, I collected tree frogs, lizards and all sorts of animals. I kept them in a terrarium, which I had built myself. In the fall, these animals were usually returned to nature. I managed to tame the very shy lizards to eat live flies off my hand. The high point of my menagerie was the “walking-stick” grasshoppers a school friend had given to me. These strange exotic animals multiply by means of eggs the size of pinheads, dark brown with a whitish spot in the middle. I collected them in a matchbox amply provided with air holes and put the approximately 1 centimeter-long, hatched animals with the others into my terrarium. One day, when Muett cleaned the room she discovered small grasshoppers crawling from all corners of the room, which almost led to a catastrophic end for the exotic animals. Whether the terrarium had not been tight enough for the small eggs or I had left one of the match boxes open by mistake I do not remember.

I also bred canaries, which helped to fill my Schwarzenfond. The starting point for it was a young canary, which had been given to me as a memento by some friend from our Berlin days. Later, a lost female canary took refuge in our house, and the breeding foundations were laid. I taught the young birds to sing by playing them the high notes on my violin. The young animals also became tame very quickly this way. The old male in particular was very attached to me, and after my long absence during the war he immediately greeted me with great pleasure when I finally returned.

The high point of my bird-breeding career, though, was my pigeons. A school friend, whom I had faithfully provided with his homework daily during a long illness, gave me a pair of pigeons from his own flock, together with a large pigeon house. It was put up in the courtyard in front of our windows and we, even Muett, took great interest in the pigeons, and were soon able to see that pigeons are not the peace-loving birds humans want them to be. That they were turned into the symbol of peace shows little insight into animal psychology and almost seems like an irony of fate.

As soon as the first offspring, two brothers, had become sexually mature, they started to court their mother, a beautiful proud peacock pigeon—an obvious case of the Oedipus complex. The fighting was quite fierce and finally, in their rivalry, one broke the other’s still soft beak and I had to administer my first medical treatment, since the animal could not feed anymore. I reattached the loosely hanging part of the beak by means of an adhesive tape and fed the little animal for weeks until the beak had healed and the pigeon could feed again.

Since I felt sorry for the animals penned up in the not very roomy pigeon house, I kept building and enlarging fence structures around it so they could fly around a little bit. After we moved into the nearby hotel Greif, a restaurant with a big garden and the only concert hall of the town, I installed a real pigeon loft in the attic that allowed the birds to fly freely. They were very tame and the whole flock came to greet me when I whistled to them on my way home from school. After some time, I had approximately 20 pigeons, which I was able to keep until the war started. Then, bird food became unavailable, and we had to get rid of them. That was a black day for the whole family.

By moving to the Greif hotel, we lived right on the broad passageway leading from the Stralsunder Strasse to the field of the shooting-club, where the big shooting match, also called the Schweden Ulk, went on for eight days every year. Shooting galleries and all sorts of stalls were built up on both sides of the passageway. Since my window looked right down on it, I had a good view of the life and activities of the owners and could also see what was going on behind the scenes. Of course, this was interesting and revealing in more than one respect. The big square had the usual fairgrounds amusements, merry-go-rounds, cabin swings and roller coasters, but also the newest “sensations.” It seems remarkable that—apart from the two last Aztecs, who swallowed live frogs in front of the spectators, and apart from the first wild lion and tiger show under Captain Schneider, which was quite wild and exciting since tame animal shows were not known at the time—one of the sensations was the first Kinematographentheater [movie theater], as it was called at the time. Those who remember the wretched flicks shown then would never have expected them to be the beginning of the sound film, which was developed a few decades later, followed by the colored film and finally the TV, the mass medium that dominates the whole world today.

Remembering one’s childhood like this in quick motion, one cannot help but compare it with the conditions and the environment of today’s children, and this comparison is not very flattering for the present. Without being romantic or sentimental, I think that children used to grow up much closer to nature, and that a more colorful environment was a better incentive for imaginative play and for experiencing the world in their own way. Of course, this is only based on the conditions here in East Germany, which I am familiar with. As a rule, both parents work, inhibiting a regular family life in the old sense of the word. Real warmth and intimacy are lacking. Children are taken to day-care centers and nursery schools at a very early age, where they are trained to think collectively in the prescribed manner. At home, there is the constant background noise of the radio and, even worse, the TV, soon having pathological effects. The ability to experience with vivid authenticity soon becomes blunted. This has a bad effect on the emotions and feelings of the young, whose personalities become impoverished. Quite apart from the acceleration of physical growth, the cause of which is still unclear, today’s children appear disturbingly unimaginative, matter-of-fact, impersonal, aloof and reserved. They have nothing childlike about them, appearing more like small grown-ups but not exactly happy ones. The course of this development can, of course, not be turned back, but it seems alarming that the periods of childhood and adolescence are shorter, because human beings need that time to mature not only in body, but also in spirit, and that distinguishes us from all other creatures. In addition, so much time is spent overburdening children’s minds with as much knowledge as possible, since newly acquired knowledge supposedly doubles every 10-15 years. Under these circumstances, I have little hope that there will be a chance or even a vague perspective to catch up with the long neglected development of mind and character and to stop the “Promethean descent,” as Guenther Anders called this phenomenon.

Moreover, I do not believe that we were taught considerably less in my time. However, we were taught to cultivate our own thinking.

I now turn to the memories connected with my school years.

4. The School Years

When we moved from Berlin to Greifswald in 1905, I had already attended elementary school in Berlin for three years. Since I was quick and learned easily, the plan was now to send me to a “higher” school. At that time, Greifswald had a Real Schule [high school stressing science] and a Humanistic Gymnasium [high school stressing the classics]. Both schools were located in an impressive building on the Fleischerstrasse. The central building carried the inscription Non scholae, sed vita discimus. In this proud edifice I would live through the sorrows and joys of my school life. For nine years, I walked the 10 minutes it took me to get there morning after morning, or, to be precise, I ran at a brisk pace to make it just in time. First, I attended the first grade of the Realschule, where I did well and was one of the first students to pass on to second grade. Then, a family council decided that it might be better for me to attend the Gymnasium after all. The school administration did not raise any objections as the family originally feared and thus I was transferred. Even though both schools were located in the same building, the change was not all that easy for me, because the language curriculum changed. The Realschule started with French in first grade, the Gymnasium started with Latin. French was added in third and Greek in fourth grade. By transferring from the second grade of the Realschule to the third grade of the Gymnasium, I was two years ahead in French, but I also had to catch up with Latin, which was not all that easy. Back then, Latin was not only the most important language in the Gymnasium, but also the most important subject, and therefore very demanding. It would have been impossible for me to catch up without private lessons, and we were unable to pay the high cost. A music-loving student who had attached himself to Vaeting saved us by offering to teach me Latin for very little money. In turn, Vaeting helped him with his music—with great success, for the student soon quit his studies to become a full-time musician and, in time, a conductor. In the 1950’s here in Stralsund, I read a review in the journal “Musica” and, to my great surprise and joy, suddenly found his name, Buschkoetter, mentioned very favorably. He had become the conductor of a big West German orchestra.

After a transition period, I caught up with the Latin curriculum of the Gymnasium, so the experiment had been successful. I even eventually did quite well in Latin, although I always preferred Greek, maybe because my foundations there were more solid. At any rate, I always passed easily from one grade to the next, with one exception. A crisis in sixth grade upset me very badly, but the reasons there were completely different.

In sixth grade, we got a new teacher. We had to call our teachers “professor,” but these gymnasium professors had nothing in common with university professors, who did not relish this inflationary use of their title. Consequently, the custom was stopped soon.

Professor Wildenau was our main teacher. He taught us the three main subjects, Latin, Greek and German. He was a small man and tried to compensate for his not very imposing appearance with enormous side-whiskers and a pompous manner, not only in his way of speaking, but in his entire behavior, which created a rather comical effect. He was not particularly popular.

I soon realized that I could not do anything right for this new teacher. There was always something wrong with my answers. He asked me extremely far-fetched questions or ignored me completely as if I wasn’t there. If he condescended to acknowledge my presence, his voice was so obviously derogatory and ironic that I became more and more irritated and finally stopped speaking up at all. My written work in all three subjects was consistently judged “unsatisfactory.” Even my German essays, normally my strong point, were without detailed corrections simply labeled “unsatisfactory in form and content.” My grades slipped accordingly and it did not take long until I, up to then one of the best students of the class, had to sit on the last bench and was one of the worst. This did not go unnoticed, of course. My classmates, who tried to help me at first by prompting the answers, because they thought I did not know them, soon realized that something else was going on. They concluded that “he” obviously did not like me and that things like that happened. I came to the same conclusion. For a while, I continued to do well in all the other subjects, but after some time the obvious harassment of the powerful principal teacher had its effects, and my overall performance started to decline. The other teacher probably suspected some puberty crisis.

At home, the bad grades were not taken seriously at first, possibly because I had never encountered any trouble in school so far. My difficulties were therefore taken as a harmless and probably passing phenomenon. However, at the end of the school year, when my promotion to the next grade seemed in danger, the situation was judged differently. Of course, I had mentioned that I felt harassed because the teacher did not like me but – at least in my presence – this was not taken seriously.

Then, shortly before the end of the school year, something quite extraordinary and unheard of happened. Suddenly, the door to our classroom opened and Dr. Wegner, the director of the school, entered. He was a strict but well-meaning man, equally loved and feared by his pupils. It was to his credit that our school, which had not been well regarded under his predecessor, was now generally respected.

To everybody’s surprise, “the old man” appeared in our classroom and started to question me personally. This questioning was repeated a few times until all subjects in question were covered. I must have done quite well because after that, I passed without further complications and my grades in the three critical subjects were actually quite good. But what had happened? I learned all the details only years later. It seems that Vaeting had turned for advice to a young man he knew through his music and who was doing his teacher’s training at our school. Moreover, one of the sisters of this young man was a school friend of Dittchen’s. He took this strange matter in hand and first talked to the director, who checked all of my former grades, the written work of the current school years and finally questioned me himself. As it turned out, two things came to light. For one, Vaeting had been asked years ago to teach the violin to one of the sons of Professor Wildenau. After a short trial period, Vaeting declared him untalented and sent him home. His father had taken this very badly, and now tried to prove to Vaeting that his son was just as untalented. Secondly, it became known that this teacher of doubtful quality was already involved in a similar dubious affair once before, so he was known for such behavior. After that, the case was resolved quickly. Unfortunately, that was kind of late, for I had to endure the harassment for almost a whole year had made me a little bitter and I did not tackle my schoolwork with the same drive and enthusiasm as before. I held my position among the upper third of my class, but I certainly could have done better. At any rate, I was rehabilitated and kept my reputation as a good pupil, even though I had grown used to only doing the bare minimum, often finishing my homework during breaks or even during lessons. Religion class was particularly well-suited for this purpose. If one was unexpectedly called up, a few pat phrases were always sufficient and one could continue tomorrow’s homework behind the broad back of the pupil sitting in front.

Consequently, I was not particularly well prepared for the Abitur [final exam]. To make things even worse, I developed a bad case of angina just before the finals. As a result, I was rather nervous and tense when it came time for the orals. On that particular day, shortly before the exam was supposed to start, the whole class had to gather in front of the school to hear the results about who was exempt from the orals because of excellent work in the written exam. I could hardly believe my ears when my name was actually called up. I was lucky to be one of the few chosen, mainly because I had done so well in mathematics and the German essay. I ran home to tell the good news, but had to rush right back to school to participate in the so-called Durchsuff, an old school custom, probably an imitation of the drinking habits of university students. Those who did not have to take the orals had to gather in the Ratskeller, a nearby pub, to drink beer and wait for those who had to take the orals, to treat them with cakes.

Since I never had the opportunity to really live out my fear of the orals, it persecuted me in my dreams for years. Even when I was already a well-established doctor, I used to dream that I had not yet passed my orals and was finally forced to go through with them. This caused considerable internal turmoil, for even in my dreams I remembered that I had actually passed my state examination. This dilemma probably acted as a wake-up agent because I used to wake up in a sweat. This dream recurred from time to time and only stopped one or two decades later.

The description of my unpleasant experience with my teacher in sixth grade could cause the impression that my school years were predominantly negative and that such an occurrence should not have happened at a well-run school. However, this event had a purely personal background and constituted an isolated and disagreeable case, which could have happened anywhere.

There were amusing episodes and the usual teacher-pupil anecdotes as well, which were mostly caused by the odd and eccentric personalities of the teachers.

In sixth grade, we had a mathematics teacher, Dr. Bauer, whose strong Saxon accent was the joke of the pupils and provoked their mockery. To make matters worse, he had absolutely no sense of humor, and could not handle the ridicule of his pupils. He was a comical figure, totally lacking in natural authority. In his despair, he tried to pay us back by forcing us to learn mathematical formulas by heart and then testing us unexpectedly. Of course, most of the time his tormentors did not know the answers, which exasperated him greatly. Each time he gave a bad grade he cried, “ich schraeb Sae ein Manko an” [“I’m failing you”], whereupon he was promptly nicknamed “Manko” [“Failed”].

I soon realized that “Manko,” as disliked and feared as he was, was in reality a rather good-natured man who did not know how to handle his tormentors. I felt sorry for him and did not participate in their malicious tricks. Due to this and the fact that I did quite well in mathematics, he liked me and did not bother me with his sudden formula raids, which would have been most unpleasant for me, too. I did not like to learn by rote and was used to deducing the formulas as I needed them. However, towards the end of the school year disaster struck. The grades were already handed in. Nothing much could happen anymore and therefore the whole class was completely out of hand. Much to our amusement he took out his notebook and started to check our formulas and write down his “Mankos.” All the answers he got were, of course, wrong and in his despair he turned to me and said, “Zeigen Sae es ihnen!” [“You show them!”] It was quite a blow when he realized that not even I could reel of his formulas and he cried deeply upset, “Von Sae haett ich das nicht gedacht!” [“I would have never expected this from you!”] I must admit that I was rather upset and ashamed as well about this disappointing misunderstanding.

Another amusing thing happened in eighth grade. Our Greek teacher was an excellent pedagogue with a weakness we all understood too well. Every Monday morning, he arrived for the first class in a terrible mood. To let off steam, he carried on endlessly about the poor performance of today’s pupils. In his time, they were given 100 verses of Homer to translate from one day to the next, while today’s pupils could not even handle 50 verses. One Monday morning, after he had given us his usual lecture, my neighbor, normally a very quiet and taciturn boy, suddenly spoke up with a voice, slow and hollow like from a grave, but very distinctly. He said: “Self-praise stinks!” Everybody was horror-struck and even the angry lion was dumbfounded at first, only to roar even louder. However, there were no further consequences, given that with his sense of humor, he was unable to ignore the comic element of the situation, and he was aware that he played a rather shameful part in the affair if it got out.

On the whole, we had excellent teachers, who did their best and I think of them with much respect.

Above all, they took a genuine interest in us. They took the trouble to know their pupils personally and cultivated personal contacts, which are extremely important but sadly neglected today.

Also, the general atmosphere was proper and clean, and obscenities were not encouraged. I was therefore quite shaken when, some time ago, I came across a ten-year old school magazine of my former school. It contained a list of “famous sayings” ascribed to various teachers, which very clearly demonstrated the difference between my time and the present. To illustrate this I will quote some of the least offensive ones: “You have obviously not yet floated as a puff of smoke over the crematorium!” Or: “I want this class room to be quiet, so quiet that you can hear the gnats piss on the walls.” Or: “I will smash you against this wall so that the undertaker will have to scrape you of with a spoon.” Or: “I will kick you in your trap so that your grinders will march out of your behind in battalion-strength.”

Something like this would have been inconceivable in my time and is probably the product of the barrack-style of the Brown Era. Let me stress again that I took care to quote particularly mild samples.

One often hears today about alleged abuse in the higher schools of those times, but I can attest that in my experience, there was no favoritism at our school. It was of no importance at all whether a pupil was the son of a well-known professor or of modest people. Consequently, I never had to suffer because my family often was short of money and I was therefore often unable to take part in many common projects.

The atmosphere between us pupils was also good. I got on with everybody and had some friends. Nevertheless, I must have appeared strange to some of them, probably because of my behavior during my conflict with Professor Wildenow. Maybe it was for that reason that I was portrayed as Sphinx in our “Abitur-Magazine,” with the following little verse underneath:

In his window seat Moesing

so quiet and so good sits dreaming

and if a teacher starts questioning

he wonders, why does he pester me.

A little wood-whimpering

then blessed calm again,

what do I care for school

smiles our sage quite cool.

“Wood-whimpering” referred to my violin playing. This was generally known because I had played at a school concert, which had been reviewed in the local paper. The fine arts in our school were by no means neglected. We had quite a good school choir, which I used to participate in—I had a rather good soprano until my voice broke. This gave me the opportunity to sing in a production of Humperdink’s “Haensel and Gretel.” The music-loving wife of a professor had produced it together with a group of children. I had my debut as the little sandman; it was a short part, but had some tricky passages that were hard to hit correctly; however, they did not give me any trouble and the lady was very impressed with my good ear. This was my only stage experience. After my voice changed, I lost the ability to hit the right notes completely and had to give up the choir. I even developed an aversion to singing. Instead, I became a member of the newly established school orchestra, where I even gave a solo performance of Beethoven’s F-major Romance. This was in a public school concert when I was in seventh grade. Afterwards, Vaeting paid me his highest tribute by presenting me with a shining silver coin. I was accompanied on the piano by a young teacher, Dr. May, whom I met again quite unexpectedly in Stralsund 34 years later, after we fled East Prussia, when I was looking for people to play music with. He recognized me immediately and remembered our earlier common “appearance.”

We often played together in Stralsund in the years to come, also in public concerts, usually with Juergen, who played the cello.

I do not want to finish this chapter about my school years without mentioning that I found myself again within the walls of my old school in 1945 when, after our flight from East Prussia, we first came to Greifswald. I took Juergen there to register for school after he had come back from Holstein in the fall. The complications caused by the turbulent times immediately evaporated when I told the director that I was a former pupil of his school and that I had also been a member of the school orchestra, which still existed.

Juergen was admitted to eighth grade and soon I sat with him at the desk in the class rooms that were familiar to me from my childhood. That was a rather strange experience.

5. Career Choices

The time between the final exams of the Abitur and the beginning of university studies was called “mule-time”, maybe because at that time one is neither horse nor donkey. During that period I had time to think about my future career, which, for various reasons, was not all that simple in my case. I have mentioned before that I developed a strong interest in technology and engineering during my last school years. Therefore I was tempted to go into electrical engineering, which is also mentioned in my Abitur diploma as my prospective profession. However, to be admitted, a practical year was requested, which was supposed to be physically very exhausting. Since I was lightly built and not very robust it was feared that I might not be up to these demands. Moreover, it turned out that it was financially impossible for me to study at a Technical University, since we did not have relatives whom I could have stayed with in any of the towns that had such universities.

Of course, I had also thought of becoming a professional musician and would have probably made a reasonably good violinist or musicologist. Vaeting objected strongly, though, pointing out that music was a very pleasant spare-time occupation and a source of much artistic enjoyment, but to earn one’s living in this way made for a very hard life indeed. Considering the life we led at home, this was impossible to contradict.

Apart from these ideas, I had no strong inclinations towards any particular profession. This might have been due to the fact that my interests were quite broad, covering the natural sciences, but also questions of philosophy. Medicine might have offered a certain synthesis between these extremes. It was not the work of the medical practitioner that interested me; I was fascinated by the theoretical point of view, the possibility of a more general view of man. Since the study of medicine was the most time- and money-consuming professional training, though, it was also out of reach for me.

I do not remember who proposed a kind of compromise and suggested that I should become a dentist. As a profession it was related to medicine, but the training was considerably shorter and, last but not least, it was also financially rewarding. Thus I started out as a prospective dentist, but it took me only one semester to realize that this was not what I wanted after all, and despite everything I finally turned to medicine. I was lucky that my one semester of dentistry counted towards my medical studies. This meant that contrary to my experience transferring from the Realschule to the Gymnasium, which this change reminded me of, I did not have to catch up with any subject.

After my medical state examination, the variety of my interests manifested itself in the choice of my specialized professional career. I decided to specialize in psychiatry and neurology, a border area touching on philosophy, psychology, theology and legal issues. In later years, I thought that I could have gained satisfaction from working in each of these fields, had I chosen them as careers. In retrospect I think that anthropology would have been an ideal field for me, but at the time it did not exist in its present form. At any rate, at the end of my professional career I was mostly interested in psychological-anthropological issues.

6. Studies

After the Abitur, I was invited to spend some time with Wera and her husband, Reinhold Alsen, on their estate in Schoenwalde near Koenigsberg to recover from the school stress and all the excitement. Thus I traveled to East Prussia, originally intending to merely spend my vacations there.

I thoroughly enjoyed the pleasures of a healthy country life, the walks through the fields, the carriage rides, the tours through the stables. Thus my visit lasted longer than anticipated. Finally it was suggested that I should start my studies in Koenigsberg, since we had many relatives in that town with whom I could stay if I did not want to live in Schoenwalde, which was only 15 kilometers from Koenigsberg. Generally, I could count on support. I could not resist this temptation, especially since I had become a little irresponsible due to the carefree life I had grown used to, and I had already missed the official beginning of the semester. A late matriculation was possible, though, and therefore I registered as a student for dentistry. The solemn matriculation ceremony, which should have been especially meaningful for me, has practically slipped my mind for a very special reason.

It was a beautiful warm day in early summer and I was supposed to be in Koenigsberg for the matriculation ceremony shortly before noon. I went to look for Wera to make sure that the carriage, which should take me to the small train station, was ordered. I found her in the so-called “ice-cellar,” where she was busy bottling homemade red currant wine. But it was not only a question of bottling, there was also the tasting, which did not remain without consequences, considering the fast and lasting effects of this beverage, which was also called “Koppskegelwein” in East Prussia. Wera was already in an excellent mood and soon I was extremely cheerful as well. Koenigsberg and the matriculation ceremony were completely forgotten, when, suddenly, we heard the noise of the carriage outside. I rushed outside and was met by glaring sunshine, which made my head turn. I was quite dizzy when I arrived in Koenigsberg, and the matriculation ceremony, still a very dignified affair at that time, passed like a dream and I could hardly remember anything later.

To economize, and because the semester was already quite advanced, I took very few theoretical courses and concentrated on dental technology. Thus I sat in the technical laboratory of the institute of dentistry on Paradeplatz [Parade Square] and learned how to construct crowns, bridges and dentures. But I also enjoyed Koenigsberg, the big town. I had been given a seasonal ticket for the Tiergarten [zoo], where I was a regular visitor. Most of all, I attended the Tiergarten concerts, which were often excellent.

This pleasant life came to an abrupt end when World War I broke out on August 1st, 1914. Since politics had never interested me the catastrophe hit me quite unexpectedly. The experience probably was the same for most people, who could not imagine a war after 44 years of peace. East Prussia was a border region and therefore threatened by the Russians. Soon, it was haunted by an almost panic-stricken fear of spies and agents. Everybody who did not carry a passport or some other official identification was suspect.

Since I originally had traveled to East Prussia with the intention of spending a few quiet weeks there, I had not notified the police in Greifswald of my change of address. For that reason I only had my student identification, which was not sufficient in such a situation. Under these circumstances I decided to return home immediately to avoid any trouble with the authorities. I managed to get on one of the last trains packed with summer guests escaping from the East Prussian sea resorts.

Thus I found myself back in Greifswald and had to reconsider what to do next. That dentistry would never satisfy me and was not what I wanted to do in life had already become quite clear during my first semester in Koenigsberg. Therefore I matriculated in medicine after the summer vacation. I had discovered that I could count on considerable scholarship money, since Greifswald was a wealthy university at that time and Vaeting’s strained financial circumstances were well known. Despite this, I tried to economize as much as possible, and took only the most important subjects and lectures. Later, in the pre clinical examinations, this caused me considerable embarrassment.

During the two following semesters, the winter of 1914-15 and summer of 1915 I studied medicine in Greifswald. The lecture halls gradually became more and more empty because of the draft and the numbers of the professors and lecturers were reduced for the same reason. Among my former classmates, the war was already taking its toll. I still remember how we were dissatisfied with our times in 9th grade, because nothing ever happened. It had seemed very dull to our young minds, hungry for action. Now we were suddenly faced with times so full of action that, already during the first year of the war, almost half of my former classmates lost their lives.

I worked very hard during the 2nd semester until I was called up. Military duty started at age 20. Because of the small number of students, the lecturers and students became closer, more personal than they had been before or again after the war, for that matter, when the universities were swamped with students. I was particularly interested in anatomy and in the history of evolution, especially the evolution of the brain. Both professors of anatomy were in the war, and the subject was represented by a young lecturer, Dr. V. Moellendorf, who was quite well known already then and would later become one of the world’s most renowned anatomists and the editor of a big anatomical reference book. Moreover, I was an eager client of the university library, where I took out all sorts of books and carried them home. Karl May was now replaced by Darwin, Haeckel, Kant and Schopenhauer. I also took an interest in the religious and philosophical writings of India, which brought me in touch with Sanskrit, which in turn led to an interest in and occupation with languages. I also spent much time on my violin and gave private lessons. Thus my schedule was always packed. All of this was overshadowed by the war. After the first “enthralling” victories, the western front froze in the trench warfare. When Italy entered the war against us, the spectre of a long war and shortage of food became even more menacing. This stage of my life ended when I was called up after my 20th year. Before that, though, I was confronted with an experience which shocked me deeply, and which I could come to terms with only much later.

7. The Disclosure

Shortly before being called up, I was asked one day to come to the town hall to “complete my personal data.” After a few general remarks about my studies the official asked for the personal data of my parents. After I had given them to him he replied, obviously somewhat embarrassed, “These are not your parents. You are an adopted, illegitimate child. Your mother’s name is not Marie, but Clara Moser. You do not seem to know this and therefore we wanted to inform you.”

I expected the ground to open at my feet and I returned home in a state of shock. At first I refused to believe it and suspected some misunderstanding. On my way home though, I remembered many things that had seemed mysterious at the time, but now began to make sense. For example, I had always received strikingly lavish presents from Aunt Clara, and Muett had occasionally made remarks that I had to be particularly nice to her. I had always seen this as a consequence of my not very affectionate manner towards her and had not given the matter much thought.

At home, the veil was quickly lifted. Muett embraced me in tears and assured me that she had simply not dared to tell me the truth and that I should not think badly of her and that, to her, I was like her own child. Vaeting added some remarks, partly apologetic, partly soothing. Among other things, he told me that I could not imagine how much trouble the family had given him. From this remark I concluded—wrongly, as it turned out—that he was, after all, my real father, especially since the official at the town hall had not said anything about my father. I learned only later that my assumption was mistaken and that everything was quite different. Finally, I learned that my real father was a Koenigsberg merchant by the name of Max Maync [1870-1911], who was already dead. To keep the disgrace a secret, Muett had offered to put up her sister, Clara Moser, at her home in Wiborg until I was born, one of the advantages being that it was quite far away. Then they kept me and raised me with their two daughters. This was facilitated by the fact that Muett, whose maiden name was Moser, did not have to change her name after her marriage, because Vaeting was her cousin and his name was Moser as well. As a result, I had the same family name.

It took me quite a while to digest this news. The result was a considerable psychological trauma with two psychologically interesting aspects.

First, I felt unsettled and uprooted. I was not the person I thought, for 20 years, I was. I was not the son of the people I had taken for my parents. I was flooded by a feeling of depersonalization. Subjectively, I had lived a kind of sham life and everybody except me had known about it. The insincerity connected with this did hurt me, of course, even though I was aware that, on the part of my foster parents, everything had been done with the best possible intentions. At any rate, my trust in humanity was thoroughly shaken for the first time.

In this context, I would like to say a few things about the so-called “call of the blood,” according to which the mother and child in particular are supposed to feel or sense their blood relation, even if they have never seen each other before. One can hear and read heart-moving stories about this. I must admit that, on the grounds of my own experience, I strongly doubt the omnipotence of such “blood bonds.” In any case, I have never felt such deeply rooted, instinctive love for my real mother. On the contrary I had felt a certain dislike for her from my earliest childhood, because, or in spite of her trying so hard to win me over on her occasional visits. Without wanting to generalize, I would still think that the imprint of the immediate environment of a child, and especially the influence of those giving the daily love and care, can create closer and deeper ties. Behavioral studies and observations in animal psychology point in the same direction. Even after I knew of our relationship, I was never able to accept my real mother or even call her by that name. When, shortly after World War I, I was forced to spend some time with her in Koenigsberg, there even were quite unpleasant scenes, where she complained about my reserved manner towards her. Her apartment belonged to a Huguenot foundation of the reformed church, a so-called Stift [old people’s home]. These unpleasant experiences and the whole atmosphere, stifled by dark emotions and tensions, produced a negative, uncommunicative manner in me. Another effect was a withdrawn, brooding facial expression, which disappeared after some time, but always reappeared if this issue was touched upon. This “Stiftsgesicht” [“Stift’s face”], as it came to be called in the family chronicle, also tended to show up at the sight of unwelcome visitors. So much for its history.

I think that at the heart of all these conflicts were not so much the psychological and pedagogical errors that were committed. Rather, it was the violation of the most deeply rooted laws and the most natural demands of maternal behavior. Later, I was able to rationalize much of this, to understand and explain it to myself. I also forced myself to reach a “status vivendi,” or a kind of “coexistence,” to use a modern political term. But I never managed to develop the kind of affection for my mother that is required and expected from a child. These emotions belonged to my foster parents, together with my love and gratitude.

I not only felt self-alienated and uprooted when I was informed of my origins, I also felt debased. To understand this one has to realize that, in those times, an illegitimate birth was considered a disgrace; illegitimacy was a defect. Illegitimate children were “bastards” who did not have the same legal rights as the children born in wedlock. They were second-class citizens, fit only for subordinate positions. This attitude was quite prevalent, especially in so-called “educated circles,” and in Germany it took almost another two decades before illegitimate children would be granted the same rights as legitimate ones.

Since every human being is influenced by the habits and the thinking of his time, I felt degraded and no longer worthy of the professional career I was aspiring to. I felt almost like a criminal fearing detection and I developed a real inferiority complex. Every harmless question concerning name and birth dates of my parents, customarily asked when personal data are established by public authorities, caused a feeling of insecurity in me. I no longer knew whether I should continue to give the names of the foster parents or had to give the names of my real parents now.

Of course, there were also plenty of reasonable and enlightened people who were free of such prejudices, and who tried to make me understand that such views were old-fashioned and, from a biological point of view, nonsense.

In this context, I especially want to mention Dittchen, who showed such concern for me, with her lively temperament and her imaginative, exuberant manner: “Oh Kuerting, don’t worry about it. What people are talking is all nonsense anyhow. ‘Children of love’ are often much more talented than the others. You can see it in yourself. Vaeting was also an illegitimate child and despite that he has become a great conductor and nobody bothers about that anymore. Anyhow, there are many illegitimate children who have become celebrities and even crowned heads were born illegitimate. And, considering everything, Jesus was also illegitimate. And you even have noble blood, since we Mosers are the descendants of a French Huguenot family called Chaux des Essart. This is old French nobility going back to Louis XV and Madame Pompadour. And in a side-line we have descendants of the Polish prince Radziwill.”

I could not resist the involuntarily comical effects of this argument, nor could I close my eyes to the honest and affectionate offer of help which it expressed. Perhaps she also had instinctively resorted to the old psychological trick of overcoming one’s defects by “overcompensating” for them. By the way, in my line of ancestors I really found a lady whose maiden name was Radziwill! [Great-grandmother Christina Radziwill, 1793-1835]

All the same, a sore spot remained and life kept confronting me with realities that caused new conflicts. Thus for a long time, I was unable to lay this spectre to rest.

This may sound exaggerated, oversensitive or sentimental, but let me assure you that it is not. Even in later years, I found myself in very embarrassing situations. Just before our marriage, my good wife almost got into trouble at the registrar’s office because of my origins.

It will be best if I give a concrete example that demonstrates the reality of this issue very clearly. It is a story, which happened to me at the end of the 1920s in Koenigsberg and which sounds so extraordinary and unbelievable that it could come out of a bad novel. At that time, I was head physician and lecturer, and the director of my clinic was an old Geheimrat [high title of a civil servant] with a corresponding manner; that is, quite reserved, stiff and traditional, although conciliatory and understanding within his limits. We were both in his office, going through his incoming mail, when he pulled out a rather voluminous dossier and said, “This is a strange affair, Mr. Moser; we have here an old clergyman of the French-Reformed parish who has caused trouble for this hospital for years by making all sorts of unfounded statements. It is therefore suspected that he might not be quite normal and it was decided to have him examined in our clinic. He obviously is a querulous person. I had suggested to the board to take you for an expert. And now they write back that this clergyman refuses to accept you as an expert, because he claims to know from the church register that you are the illegitimate son of one of the ladies still living in his parish. He said that you sneaked into an academic career, which he considers a disgrace for the faculty. All this is, of course, pure nonsense. Something like this is quite impossible, but it fits well with the querulous, disoriented statements of this man, who, by the way, has also rejected others as biased. In this case it is probably better if I take the matter in hand myself, if you don’t mind. I assume that a brief comment for the record will suffice, since the matter seems to be obvious.” Having said this, he proceded serenely to the next point of the agenda without expecting any reaction from me.

I felt an abyss open in front of me and was grateful that no answer was expected from me. I am convinced that the old Geheimrat would have been as shocked as I was had he been told that at least this statement of the old clergyman was not based on illusion. It surpassed his imagination to such an extent that he saw no need to seriously consider it to be true. Therefore, there cannot be any doubt that this would have been a scandal, which would have cost me my position and my career. I left it to fate whether or not my “disgrace” would come to light, and during the following weeks, my emotional state was accordingly. It was possible, after all, that this ill-fated clergyman would also reject the Geheimrat, who was the superior of an unworthy head physician and lecturer. He could have proved the truth of his statements by means of the church register, even though that would have meant a serious breach of secrecy. This obviously did not happen though. I never heard of the matter again, and my fears gradually died down.

However, a few years later, the old spectre was raised again. National Socialism came to power and everybody had to prove their Aryan origins. University employees were requested to do this particularly thoroughly, down to the fourth generation. Otherwise, one was considered non-Aryan, and consequently lost one’s position.

Since equality for illegitimately born children was part of the national socialist’s program—the only advantage I had from this disastrous regime—the fact of my illegitimate birth was at least no longer incriminating and compromising. The old Geheimrat had died some time ago and his successor was the exact opposite. When I told him why I could not simply produce proof of my Aryan origin, he dismissed the whole matter with a half embarrassed, half humorous remark.

How was I to prove my Aryan origins, though, with my real father dead for more than 20 years, with no knowledge about him and his ancestors and with my birth having taken place in a foreign country? To get the necessary papers together seemed an almost hopeless endeavor. I was close to despair. Feeling bitter and increasingly allergic against these reappearing difficulties caused by my birth, I was ready to give up, all the more so since the completely unreasonable behavior of my real mother made everything even more difficult.

Here again it was my beloved wife who not only helped me emotionally but also took this matter in hand and brought the whole business to a successful end. It is hard to imagine today how much time and trouble, how many errands and letters this meant, how many inconveniences and difficulties she had to overcome. First it was necessary to get a statutory declaration about my father from my mother, who refused to give it. This was not only the obstinacy and stubbornness of old age, she also accused us heatedly that we were only out to compromise her. She claimed to be unable to give us the personal data about my father. All she told us was where he was buried. My good wife immediately started an investigation and it was like a miracle that she discovered the old grave behind some overgrown blackberry bushes. By means of entries in church registers and by further inquiries, she found out that a brother of my father was still alive in Berlin and also found his address. In this the rarity of the name proved quite helpful. This brother wrote back right away and was very nice and understanding. He also immediately sent a statutory declaration to the effect that he knew for sure that his deceased brother was my father. We also received information from him about other relatives and ancestors and finally land was in sight. In addition, we got a very nice and candid letter from one of my father’s sisters [Gertrud Maync], who lived in Stade. Thus my paternal ancestors were slowly lined up. All the documents then had to be sent to the “expert for race investigation” at the interior ministry in Berlin. On October 31st, 1933 I received a report that my paternal ancestors were accepted and my Aryan origins confirmed.

With this settled, this sad chapter, at least, seemed closed. Even in my years in Stralsund, though it happened that I was questioned because of discrepancies in questionnaires dating from different times—my mother’s first name was once given as Marie and once as Clara. In this case, though, the matter could be cleared up by phone.

In this context it is, by the way, remarkable that in the German Federal Republic [West Germany at the time], the equality of status between legitimate and illegitimate children was revoked after 1945. As I write this, I hear on the radio that there are plans to reestablish the equality of illegitimate children, but it is still uncertain as to when this law will be adopted! They are even saying that the biological nonsense about the illegitimate father not being officially related to the illegitimate child is still not abrogated.

I have talked more extensively about this “sore spot” in my life, this unfortunate “complex,” because it overshadowed my whole existence and was often hanging like the sword of Damocles over my professional and social life. Also, it was not without influence on my development insofar as it robbed me of my free-spiritedness and innocence, and considerably undermined my self-assuredness and self-confidence. Consequently, in later years, I always tried to be inconspicuous and went through life—so to speak—with one foot always on the brakes. Since I had a strong aversion against anything having to do with personal data and the filling in of questionnaires, I avoided all changes of place or position as much as possible. This was definitely a disadvantage for my professional career, and ran counter to my basically quite active disposition. Many things that might have turned out differently can probably be explained by this “key experience.”

I want to come back to the year 1915, now, though. My conscription into the army helped me to overcome the first shock, since I had neither time nor reason to brood on the matter. As I mentioned before, the second crisis leading to a total estrangement from my mother only took place in 1919. But that time, the heavens were merciful and sent an angel to heal the newly opened wounds.

8. World War I

In October 1915, I received my orders for the army. After I was found fit for garrison duty, I was assigned to be a medic. For basic training, I went to Stettin [Szczecin, Poland], where I met up with a few former medical students from Greifswald. We lived eight men to a barrack, among them a heavyset butcher with horribly sweaty feet. I still remember our protests over having to share a room with this awful smelling man. One student even wanted to make an official complaint, which, of course, would have led to his own arrest. Luckily, our sergeant was able to calm him down and remove the aromatic fellow. We became accustomed to the military etiquette and learned how to walk and salute; then I was sent as a medic to a reserves hospital in Deutsch-Krone [Walcz, Poland], West Prussia. I gained my first medical experience there, although the two doctors in charge did not pay too much attention to their assistants. The town was rather dull. A fellow assistant was my only diversion. He was a professional painter who used every free minute to paint while I watched him. With his help, I finished three small oil paintings, which I gave away later in Greifswald and Schoenwalde.

The boredom and rather easy work must have agreed with me quite well, because after another medical exam in the beginning of 1916, I was found fit for active service. I went back to Stettin to the Fuesilier regiment 34, Queen of Sweden,” a former Swedish regiment, for more basic infantry training. The regime was not especially strenuous. As a so-called Einjaehriger, or first-year conscript, I did not have to live on the post any longer, but was able to live in a rented room nearby. Thus I had a chance to spend some time in Stettin and its well-known theater. The opera was particularly good and I still remember excellent performances of “Mona Lisa,” conducted by Max von Schillings.

In the summer of 1916, I went as an infantry soldier to the east front to Duenaburg [Daugavpils, Latvia], where it was relatively quiet. The front we occupied was southeast of Duenaburg, which we were able to see through the stereo telescope. Our trench was near a lake, the other side of which were the Russian positions.

Even though fighting never broke out, the Russian sharpshooters sitting in trees across the lake nevertheless gave us some trouble. Once, when I was fetching water for shaving, one such soldier evidently had set his sights set on me, and his well-aimed shot hit the water right next to me. Being near this lake made life in the foxholes wet, and the rats running around at night were not particularly good company. They were especially hungry for our bread rations that we hung from the ceiling with wire. To kill time, we went after the beasts—which, by the way, had a lot of biological similarities to human beings—with our bayonets. Also unpleasant was the fact that our front line, because of the protection of the lake, was only sparsely occupied, forcing us to stay in our positions for a whole year without relief. In the winter, when the lake was frozen, we had to patrol the lake in white winter overcoats, although, at -40 degrees Celsius, we were pretty cold without fur coats. Our only ray of hope was the occasional assignment to Kowno [Kaunas, Lithuania], where the main headquarters under Hindenburg was located. Before our assignment, the old General Field Marshal Hindenburg himself visited our battalion unit and had a pleasant talk with the man next to me. I also saw him on several occasions in Kowno, so I got a rather good impression of the old Prussian warrior tradition.

It was in the spring of 1917 when I suddenly received orders to prepare to march, but not to go on a leave or begin the officer’s course as I initially thought. A new order was issued for all medics who had taken at least three semesters to return to school to finish their fourth semester. Then we were to take an exam, which, in times of peace, would only be taken after the completion of five semesters, and after the exam we would be assigned as medical doctors. The order was probably due to the fact that doctors were becoming scarcer.

I returned to school and signed up for all the necessary courses, including labs. Others were in the same position, and we all waited for the exam date. But things turned out otherwise. We learned unexpectedly that our original orders to report back to the university were a mistake and should have only applied to students who had taken four semesters. Not only were we not allowed to take the exam, but we were also ordered to return back to active duty. Of course, that came as a cold shower to us, and we returned with hanging heads to our original units, wh

Memoirs of

Kurt Moser

and

Ilse Moser

Table of Contents

Thoughts and Memories Between Two Worlds