Some Personal Stories of German Immigration to Australia Since 1945

By Ingrid Muenstermann

This book deals with immigration processes of Germans who have arrived in Australia since 1945. It is an attempt to catch the voices of these people, to let them talk about their hopes, aspirations, achievements and disappointments. In 2010 notices were sent out all over Australia, asking Germans (most of them Australians today) to write about their experiences, about challenges and positive happenings. The book contains 28 chapters written by German-born women and men from all walks of life, some came to Australia as children, some as adults, others talk about the lives of their immigrant parents, one person pays tribute to a partner he has lost recently, and who describes her impressions about university life in Germany and in Australia, another person looks back at twenty-three years in Australia and the fine line that divides him and the Australian people. Most, but not all, are success stories. This book also includes three chapters about organisations that provided a buffer zone for new arrivals in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s: Club Harmony of Melbourne, the Club of the Danube Swabians in Adelaide, and the SA German Club. The final chapter is an interview with a person who had to flee Nazi Germany in 1938, with Ernie Salomon.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: May 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503503137

Ingrid Muenstermann

Ingrid Muenstermann was born in Hamburg and emigrated to Australia in 1973. As a single mother of two and new settler she has worked in many different ‘professions’, studied part-time German, multiculturalism and sociology, achieved a PhD in 1997 (Social Sciences), and lectured at Adelaide, Flinders and Charles Sturt Universities. She has a keen interest in the settlement processes of migrants and in social inequality. This book is the culmination of research and personal migrant experiences.

Book preview

SOME PERSONAL STORIES OF GERMAN IMMIGRATION TO AUSTRALIA SINCE 1945

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INGRID MUENSTERMANN, EDITOR

Copyright © 2015 by Ingrid Muenstermann.

Library of Congress Control Number:      2015902956

ISBN:          Hardcover            978-1-5035-0314-4

                  Softcover              978-1-5035-0312-0

                  eBook                  978-1-5035-0313-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Rev. date: 05/28/2015

Xlibris

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Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgement

PART I

Chapter 1.1

Some personal reflections Ingrid Muenstermann

Chapter 1.2

Overview

PART II – 1946 TO 1951

Chapter 2.1

Anthony Kamphausen (1949) Employment of scientific and technical enemy aliens

Chapter 2.2

Alfons Stuetz (1951)The Jennings Germans

Chapter 2.3

Horst Blaich (1951)A young man on the way to a new world of hope

Chapter 2.4

Arno Meier (1951)A Thursday’s child – The journey from Upper Silesia to Tasmania

PART III – 1952 TO 1959

Chapter 3.1

Gisela Outrata (1954)Life’s full circle: The adventure of two sisters migrating to Australia

Chapter 3.2

Albert Loeffel (1954)Some challenging experiences in our adopted country

Chapter 3.3

Hans Roleff (1956)Remembering the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne

Chapter 3.4

Ilse BeckersSatisfaction and a sense of achievement through hard work

Chapter 3.5

Sigrid Hawker (1957) Reflections on a young person’s struggle to fit into Australian society: No more Sally Brown!

Chapter 3.6

Albert Koenig (1957)Remembering the family’s impression of Bonegilla and the railway trip across the Nullarbor

Chapter 3.7

Sigrid Erdt (1957) Experiences of a migrant woman: Surviving Bonegilla, widowhood, establishing a coffee shop, and teaching German

PART IV – 1960 TO 1969

Chapter 4.1

Gundula Schuetze (1960) Our migration with gratitude

Chapter 4.2

Katrin (Gisela) Ogilvy (1961)The fine red line of life: Experiences of a German woman migrating to Australia

Chapter 4.3

Gerlinde Cayzer (1967)‘Giving it a go’ inspired by lifelong learning

Chapter 4.4

Walter Veit (1967)Tribute to Irmline – Remembering my wife

Chapter 4.5

Irmline Veit-Brause (1967)A real and imagined autobiography. Academic life stories in Australia and Germany

Chapter 4.6

Heiner Herbst (1969)A fulfilled, satisfying Life

Chapter 4.7

Oliver Burmeister (1969)The importance of intergenerational relationships

PART V – 1970 TO 1979

Chapter 5.1

Sabine Hauth (1977)Some interesting experiences of a German language teacher

PART VI – 1980 TO 1989

Chapter 6.1

Detlef Sulzer (1983) From migrant to Honorary Consul of Germany in Queensland

Chapter 6.2

Helmut Kater (1985 and 2005) Retiring in Australia – Helmut’s and Waltraud’s journey from Achim-Baden in Germany to Sydney and to Wagga Wagga in Australia

Chapter 6.3

Engelhard Weigl (1988)1988 bis 2011 - Einfluesse auf mein Leben: Dreiundzwanzig Jahre Australien

1988 to 2011 – Influences on my life: Twenty-three years in Australia

Chapter 6.4

Rolf Schlagloth (1988) From reading Karl Mai to becoming a teacher at Ballarat High – A satisfying and exciting Journey

PART VII – 1990 TO 2012

Chapter 7.1

Beate Pasch (1992) Happily ever after in Australia

Chapter 7.2

Nicola Wunderlich (1996) Frustration, tears, and bribery: A trip down the Australian memory lane

Chapter 7.3

Stefan Mueller (2003)Cultural differences – The need to adjust

PART VIII – MIGRANT SUPPORT ORGANISATIONS

Chapter 8.1

Gerd Aberle, Gerhard Schulz, Heinz Wendt, Helmut Ruff Club Tivoli, Melbourne

Chapter 8.2

Fred Kleitsch, Teresa Marshall The Danube-Swabians – Donauschwaben, Adelaide

Chapter 8.3

Ingrid MuenstermannThe importance of ethnic clubs and some thoughts on South Australia’s German population and its club membership

PART IX – INTERVIEWING ERNIE SALOMON

Ingrid Muenstermann

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my daughters, Iris and Isabel-Caroline.

With love - and I thank you for travelling with me!

Acknowledgement

I am gratefully acknowledging the contribution of the writers of different chapters. Thank you for your trust, input, and patience:

Gerd Aberle, Ilse Beckers, Horst Blaich, Oliver Burmeister, Ortrud Burmeister, Dagmar Carter, Herlinde Cayzer, Sigrid Erdt, Sabina Haut, Sigrid Hawker, Heiner Herbst, Anthony Kamphausen, Fred Kleitsch, Albert Koenig, Albert Loeffel, Teresa Marshall, Arno Meyer, Stefan Mueller, Katrin Ogilvy, Gisela Outrata, Beate Pasch, Hans Roleff, Helmut Ruff, Ernie Salomon, Rolf Schlagloth, Gundula Schuetze, Gerhard Schulz, Alfons Stuetz, Detlef Sulzer, Ariane Roncon, Irmline Veit-Brause, Walter Veit, Engelhard Weigl, Heinz Wendt, Nicola Wunderlich.

Part I

Chapter 1.1

Some personal reflections

Ingrid Muenstermann

T his book has been in the making since late 2010. As circumstances changed, so did the title. At first, the title was meant to be Post World War II Germans in Australia: Hopes, Disappointments, Integration and Achievements . It changed to 2012–60 Years of German Immigration to Australia . Due to unforeseen circumstances, the publication was delayed; therefore, the introduction starts with an apology to everyone who had submitted according to schedule. Today’s title is Personal Stories of German Immigration to Australia since 1945.

Why a book on German immigrants who arrived in Australia since 1945? Maybe it is time? There are many publications regarding the early settlement of Germans, especially in South Australia, some of which are mentioned below¹. There are also a few dealing with Germans who have immigrated after World War II². What should make this book different is that it gives German immigrants from all walks of life a voice, showing that different periods of time and different Australian and German governments provided opportunities to people of various educational and professional backgrounds to settle in Australia. All stories convey a wish, a longing to improve their situation, but the accounts also show that these people were prepared to acculturate and contribute in a positive way to their adopted society. Have I caught all their voices? Hardly, I must agree with Stokvis who argues that—

. . . One tries to catch reality in theoretical networks, but something always slips through the meshes. The catch offers at most a perspective on reality. If the meshes are too large or the fish too small, the net remains empty (Stokvis, 1979, cited in F. Luethke, 1989, p. 304³).

This ‘catch’, i.e. the stories here presented, offer at most a perspective on reality. When Erich Nossack (2004) wrote The End: Hamburg 1943⁴, he started his narrative with the feeling that he had been given ‘a mandate to write an account’. I, too, feel that there is some pressure, some urgency, to write an account of German immigration to Australia, of settlers who have arrived during my time, about their expectations, hopes, achievements, and disappointments. Every migrant from any country experiences these emotions. Some groups, the Greeks, the Italians, the Jewish, to name but a few, have presented accounts of their settlement. Why not the Germans? Are we still ashamed about the German past? Looking at the process of settling into a new culture, what part does collective guilt play? Or is it collective responsibility? Thoughts like these often enter my mind. I do not seem to be able to answer the above questions to my own or anybody else’s satisfaction. Nazi Germany and all it represents is a heavy burden to carry. I came across Bernhard Schlink’s (2009) book entitled Guilt about the Past⁵. Schlink reasons that—

. . . over the generations, collectively experienced historical events become individually varied memories. The task of dissociation from specific historical guilt leads to the creation of one’s own identity, an undertaking that every generation has to master (p. 21).

He also finds that ‘no judge can exempt, no verdict can free the children from their share of guilt formed as part of their parents’ bequeathal to them’ (p. 21). Some truly thought-provoking words. But the purpose of the book are the stories, positive and challenging, of other migrants and not my troubling thoughts in relation to Germany’s past; people have come to Australia to start a new life, acknowledging the past but looking forward to the future. Let me then introduce myself before providing an introduction to the chapters.

I was born in Hamburg, hence the reference to Erich Nossack’s book, and came to Australia in 1973 for the second time. The first time I arrived in 1959, but after two years, I left my husband with our two daughters and returned to Germany, ‘functioning’ as a single parent and establishing myself in a secretarial career. After returning to Australia, my professional career is all-encompassing: cleaner, kitchen hand, office assistant, receptionist, secretary, and project officer. Flinders Medical Centre, where I worked as endocrine secretary, provided the opportunity to undertake academic studies (being so close to Flinders University), a chance which I appreciated greatly. It took six years to complete undergraduate studies and honours while full-time working. Flinders University then provided a scholarship to undertake a Ph.D which was conferred in 1997. Here I have to mention gratefully Prof Robert Holton, my PhD supervisor, for providing the chance of a lifetime.

When I arrived in Australia with my thirteen- and sixteen-year-old daughters, I was divorced and very grateful for the opportunity to return to this country. Since I did not want to start our new life being a burden to society, i.e. receive a supporting mother’s benefit, I worked long hours, and my teenage daughters were left to their own devices, which had some damaging consequences. If one could only turn the clock back.

There is an interesting little story to tell regarding me being divorced. Our well-meaning ledger machinist at Hillcrest Psychiatric Hospital, where I started my working career in Adelaide, recommended, ‘Why don’t you say you are a widow? Don’t tell people that you are divorced!’ This indicates the attitude of Australia and its people at that point in time in relation to divorce (it was 1973!). Believing to have shown courage to leave a marriage that did not function and to take full responsibility for my children, I was adamant not to lie. Having lived in this country now for forty years, I like to acknowledge that Australia has offered me some great opportunities. I have met a few unpleasant people, so settling into a different culture and later on establishing and maintaining a professional career was not always easy, but I have also met many wonderful people, of different nationalities, whose wisdom, genuine friendship, care, and compassion will always remind me that despite some broken dreams, life in Australia has been rewarding. I am grateful that friendships have developed and lasted for decades.

Completing my personal reflections, I feel that it is not only important to acknowledge the possibilities Australia offered to new settlers but also that it is crucial to admit that sacrifices were made. When I wrote letters to people who may be interested in contributing to this book, I asked prospective participants to write about their experiences of coming to Australia – about the challenges and also about positive happenings. I believe that the book has achieved this goal. In twenty-nine chapters, Germany-born women and men provide accounts of their immigrant experiences; some are short and look more like a bibliography, or like a business report, some people have told a story, and other contributions are based on research in the humanities. The text tries to maintain authenticity. The English language may not always be perfect; however this is part of the appeal – I believe. The educational backgrounds of the newcomers are very different.

Between 1949 and 2000, 255,930⁶ German migrants arrived in Australia; many must have returned to their country of birth, and being an ageing population, many have also died. At the 2006 Census, the German population count was 106,524. I am grateful that people put pen to paper and told their stories.

Chapter 1.2

Overview

P art II deals with Germans who arrived before the official immigration agreements were ratified in 1952; it deals with the period between 1946 and 1951. These people or their parents were recruited for a period of two years by the Australian government, who needed their expert knowledge, or by companies who needed workers. It was not a time of assisted passages; people had to pay for their fare. As far as my research shows, most of those early arrivals stayed in Australia, but there are no official statistics. Often, families joined them after having saved enough money for their trip.

Anthony Kamphausen (Chapter 2.1) talks about the Employment of Scientific and Technical Enemy Aliens, the ESTEA scheme. The family arrived in 1949. His father was employed under the ESTEA scheme to work for the Australian government, at the Defence Research Laboratories in Victoria. After two years he took the initiative to establish a career in private industry, as well as working for the government. He had been disappointed with the lack of change, or willingness to change, in that department. Anthony Kamphausen also talks about his personal academic achievements and his mother’s courageous and innovative ideas to support herself and the family after her husband’s death.

Alfons Stuetz (Chapter 2.2) has edited a book about the Jennings Germans⁷ and provides excerpts from that publication. In 1951, a group of carpenters was recruited in Germany to build houses in Canberra. Most of these men stayed in Australia, maintaining close contact with each other and with the person who provided the opportunity to come to Australia, namely Sir Alfred Jennings. The connectedness of these early new settlers is quite remarkable when one thinks about the independence and self-reliance of German migrants, as the old proverb says:

Gott schutze mich vor Sturm und Wind, und Deutschen, die im Ausland sind.

Dear God, please protect me from storm and bad weather and shield me from German compatriots.

Part II also includes the narrative of Horst Blaich (Chapter 2.3), who immigrated with his parents in 1951. He had completed an apprenticeship as colour photo lithographer in Germany, and he illustrates the boat journey and stopovers on the way to Australia quite artistically. He is proud of having been self-reliant and mentions that neither he nor anybody else in his family needed to resort to government assistance. He is the publisher of several books⁸.

There is also the account of Arno Meyer (Chapter 2.4), who arrived in 1951. He recalls his experiences at the hydro-scheme in Tasmania: the mud, the dirt, the canteen food, and the (sometimes challenging) friendships. He supported the single men in the camp by cooking and baking for them on a little plug-in stove in his room; he also ironed their shirts, all for a small fee in order to bring out his German bride. The day before he was to pick her up in Melbourne, the money had been stolen and a loan from a fellow immigrant had to be arranged quickly.

Part III looks at the period from 1952 to 1959. Germany was rebuilding. The Marshall Plan (1948 to 1952) was of great help, but it was hard to visualise a future. With horror I remember playing hide-and-seek among the ruins of Hüx Strasse, Lübeck, and some rodents … I am not sure who was more scared: we as children or the pests. Employment opportunities existed, but the housing shortage was notorious: there were many ruins but no apartments, no houses. The West German government provides data that by 1950, more than eight million people had migrated, were evacuated or expelled from former German territories in the East, from Danzig, pre-war Poland and the Baltics⁹. They had to be resettled - in Germany. Several people, often whole families, lived in a single room, sharing amenities with other families. As can be imagined, the living conditions were challenging, especially when compared with what America, Canada, and Australia had to offer, countries that were prepared to admit migrants from Europe.

South Australia Archive stores early landing butts of immigrants who arrived by boat. German women were identified as domestics, men as labourers. When teaching German at the School for the German Language in Adelaide, I met two of those ‘domestics’, who actually held teaching degrees achieved in Germany. At that point in time, during the 1950s and ‘60s, Australia did not need and want to admit educated people; in order to move from primary to secondary and tertiary industry, Australia needed a manual workforce. The work ethics of Australians is scrutinised by Rudolf Jacobs (1962)¹⁰, who found that ‘Australia needs people who can cultivate the land; an unskilled labourer is much more sought after than an intellectual squirting ink’ (p. 26). How times have changed.

Part III starts with the story of Gisela Outrata (Chapter 3.1). She and her sister arrived in 1954, aged eighteen and nineteen, respectively. They were joined by another sister two years later. The reasons for leaving Germany and trying to make it in Australia are described. Gisela Outrata tells how Anita, one of the sisters, became Miss New Australia. The sisters were young and ready to conquer the world. Interestingly, today, the author contemplates how they, at such a young age, could make life-changing decisions so easily – without any doubt to fail.

Albert Loeffel (Chapter 3.2) made the long trip to Australia in 1954. He recollects some negative experiences during the first years in Australia. He recalls name-calling at work and the plight to get council approval to build a house: it took him seven years and the employment of an architect to get building approval – the same plans, submitted by himself and in his own name, had been rejected on six occasions. When writing his story, he is ninety-eight years old, but these early memories still cause pain. Apart from the negative experiences, he has managed the challenges of immigration and finds that he has had a good life in Australia.

Hans Roleff (Chapter 3.3) arrived in 1956 and remembers the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne – not as an athlete but as a kitchen-hand. Of particular interest to him was the German soccer team, which lost one nil to the Russians. The author asks the question whether this was a fair result. He considers the different opportunities the players had: those from the western side of the Iron Curtain had to maintain amateur status, while those from behind the Iron Curtain were given lucrative jobs (army and administration) and played as State amateurs. Apart from this challenge, he has enjoyed his time at the Olympics; the kitchen staff met Prince Phillip, which Hans Roleff fondly reflects on.

Ilse Beckers (Chapter 3.4) reflects on her and her husband’s journey to Australia in 1957 and on the opportunities the country offered. Both were disappointed with Bonegilla, the migrant receiving camp, and moved on as soon as possible. Her husband (deceased after a few years of coming to Australia) worked at the steelworks of Port Kembla, was employed at a bakery in Sydney, owned and drove a truck, and later on helped establishing a transport company. For Ilse Beckers, having had to flee Pomerania and later on East Germany, Australia offered a third beginning. She was a professional teacher, but after arriving in a foreign country, she decided to be the homemaker. In order to progress financially, she took up different casual jobs during the time the children were at school. She recalls sewing and knitting all the clothes of their children and her own. She also recalls the challenges of learning how to drive a car and how to improve her English at night classes.

Sigrid Hawker (Chapter 3.5), who arrived in Australia in 1957 as a young child, describes her efforts to fit into the Australian society. Most importantly, she wanted to change her name from Sigrid to Sally, Sally Brown, ‘who had ever heard of a name like Sigrid?’ The food her mother prepared for the school breaks, wholesome black bread and salami, caused teasing at school, so did her clothes, which looked too European. She longed to have grandparents and cousins to play with. German friends became substitute aunts and uncles, but there were only a few children who could be like cousins. Sigrid Hawker is grateful that her parents maintained some German customs: old values and traditions enriched her life. She also finds that ‘while being an immigrant did at times feel like being an outsider, over time the people of this country embraced the wealth of culture that migration brought’.

Al Koenig (Chapter 3.6) arrived, like Sigrid Hawker, as a young child. He recalls the family’s impression of Bonegilla, the trip across the Nullarbor, and the beginnings in Perth. The accommodation provided at Bonegilla was very basic and most migrants considered the facilities as not suitable for families and referred to the huts as ‘chicken sheds’. Boredom was another issue, and for the parents it was stressful to wait for arising work opportunities in the city of their choice, in this case Perth. Many migrants explored the area surrounding Bonegilla. The train trip across the Nullarbor offered some interesting sights; the family saw kangaroos and emus and started to appreciate the vastness of Australia. After arriving in Perth, things settled down. The parents established a bicycle business, Al went to school and later on to university, and his sisters got married. The whole family settled in Perth.

Sigrid Erdt (Chapter 3.7) has mastered many challenges in Australia since she and her husband immigrated in 1957. The couple had established a successful cake shop, but her husband suddenly died after a short illness. So this writer set up her own business, a coffee shop. Unfortunately, she had to sell the venture because managing a young child and running a business became too much. As soon as opportunities arose, she started to teach German at a Technical and Further Education College and at the German Saturday School. Sigrid Erdt states that she never regretted to have immigrated to Australia but that the longing for her home country, Pomerania, is sometimes hard to conquer.

Part IV deals with the period from 1960 to 1969. Gundula Schutze (Chapter 4.1), who came to Australia in 1960, pays tribute to her parents and nephew who have passed away. She recalls her parents’ deep-seated ‘connection between man and environment; natural, physical, cultural, linguistic and social. As Christians, their spiritual connection with God was the foundation of all they believed and achieved’. The parents settled in South Australia. Her mother, highly qualified, speaking four languages and being an experienced music teacher, was given a position as home economics teacher. Her father, greatly concerned about the environment, gained tertiary qualifications in horticulture and town planning, took the opportunity to work as a gardener, and later on secured positions where his expertise was recognised (Flinders University Campus, Flinders Medical Centre grounds, Waite Agricultural Institute). His knowledge of indigenous plants in relation to the environment was awarded with an OAM and a memorial at the entrance to the Onkaparinga National Park.

Katrin Ogilvy (Chapter 4.2) talks about the fine red line of life, which she encounters in moments of insight. She met her Australian husband in Bossey, near Geneva, in 1961. She was an ordained woman minister from Frankfurt, and he had finished his theological studies in Melbourne. She accepted his marriage proposal and migrated to Australia in 1961. One of the red light moments occurred on arrival in Adelaide: the moon was standing on its head, and she realised that she was now in the southern hemisphere. ‘Now what have I done?’ Katrin Ogilvy ‘fell for an Australian bloke’, but she also ‘fell for Australia’. She loves the country, its flora and fauna, and, most of all, its people. She gratefully acknowledges the help of Australian people and the First Australians with whom she walked across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in May 2000. In the last decade, she discerned the red line of her life in learning from Buddhism.

Herlinde Cayzer (Chapter 4.3) made the journey to Australia in 1967. She and her then husband ‘wanted to give it a go’. They settled in Brisbane. She recalls her thoughts when, on Christmas Day invited to lunch and passing the University of Queensland, the notion of ‘. . . this is the land of opportunities, isn’t it?’ appeared. Years later, she completed a secretarial course at a TAFE college, worked as secretary for a German conglomerate, and then worked for the Dean of the Business Faculty at Queensland University. Herlinde Cayzer had to type a speech the Dean was to give to high school leavers, in which he stressed that learning is a lifelong process. ‘This moment changed my life … his dialogue awakened my desire to study as well. I was not too old, I will just give it a go’. So she embarked on undergraduate studies, completed a first class honours, and was awarded a scholarship to do a PhD which was conferred in 2008. She also completed a Graduate Certificate in Higher Education, enabling her to teach German language and literature. This author is content with how ‘by giving it a go’ things have turned out for her in Australia, but she does look at cultural differences and contemplates how well she actually fits into her chosen society.

Walter Veit (Chapter 4.4) and his wife arrived in 1967. In his contribution to this book, he pays tribute to his wife who passed away in 2010. Walter Veit has had a successful academic career in Germany, Ceylon, and Australia, teaching German literature and philosophy, comparative literature, and European studies. He is Adjunct Associate Professor at Monash University.

Irmline Veit-Brause (Chapter 4.5), who arrived with her husband and two small daughters in 1967, had established herself