Kaleidoscope Of Hopes

By Neale Edwards

The story of a decent honest middle-class German family of three from the suburbs of Munich. They seek a chance to create a future away from their storm-tossed homeland in the nineteen-thirties. The family move to threatened and war-torn Britain in search of a new life.

They experience var

• Language: English
• Publisher: Neale Edwards
• Release date: Mar 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9781915889386

Book preview

PROLOGUE

In the early nineteen-thirties, the great nation of Germany was composed of a disciplined and orderly society. Germans were a hard-working, honest people, as indeed was their tradition. Therein lay much of the reason for their relatively rapid rise in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The indignity, shame even, of the defeat of that country in nineteen eighteen, and the threat of the rise of communism in the immediate aftermath, had scarred the spirits of Germans.

As though that were not enough, the Treaty of Versailles imposed conditions on Germany which, had the Allies been in a mood to consider more thoroughly, they might not have demanded. Versailles contained the seeds of much disaster which was to follow, including Round Two of the War, the Second World War.

The Weimar Republic had failed to bring the hoped-for improvements. Though there was a sense of relief that the conflict had ended, and the twenties in Germany, particularly in Berlin and other important cities, had roared with the rest of Europe, economic and industrial  failure had cast a shadow over all else, and the rate of inflation had soared to levels undreamed of. To send a letter, the stamp cost several million reichsmarks, and it was not unusual to see mountains of money being carried in wheelbarrows. During an ordinary working day, the value of the currency could well have halved by lunch time. The effects of this not only included large scale impoverishment of the middle classes and the destruction of great fortunes, but unemployment followed in biblical proportions.

Germany was, despite its recent misfortune, still the largest country in the region of Europe. Though late in the day to achieve unification, thanks to Otto von Bismarck it had done so with a vengeance. The powerful state of Prussia had become top dog thanks, inter alia, to his warlike endeavours, battling successfully with France, Austria, and Schleswig-Holstein next to Denmark. This to say nothing of his partly accomplished ambitions to create an overseas empire which would challenge Great Britain.

Against such a backdrop, it is not hard to see why, in the mid and late twenties, major changes were in the air, and there was an underlying sense that different and more comprehensive ideas must be tried. The military, industrialists, the aristocracy, and those generally at the top of the tree, all believed that major change was a necessity, and that come what may, they would between themselves be able to exert overall control over whatever new system might arise. Besides, there was a feeling that the incessant bickering between shadowy politicians was getting nowhere.

Historical misfortune and the vagaries of chance and opportunism brought to the surface one of those rare characters whose persistence and charisma had floated him into the nation’s consciousness. The turmoil and failure of the First World War, and the unsuccessful period immediately succeeding that, put Germany in the mood for fundamental change and a restauration of pride in the nation. This state of affairs was augmented by the market crash of nineteen twenty-nine, which left no nation unscathed, and served to increase the collective misery in Germany to an incendiary extent, causing a huge rise in unemployment in the entire country and in all sectors. Suffering Germany suffered to an unbearable extent. The tinder was dry, only a spark was required.

This rare charismatic upstart was Adolf Hitler. He was an undisciplined, extremely hard-working, inexhaustible, obsessive, Austrian weirdo. Adolf Hitler became the man of the moment. Even the President of the Weimar Republic, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, a hero of the late conflict, gave his support to what was called the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. These were carefully chosen words for the title of a relatively new political party. The inclusion of the words Socialist and Workers were intended to woo the working classes and the deprived, and they did. Hindenburg was advised to appoint this man as Chancellor, which in nineteen thirty-three, he did. He himself left the scene a year later by conveniently dying, thus leaving the stage empty for what every living soul now knows followed.

Hard though it is to credit such a thing, this leader, titling himself The Leader, Der Führer, came to power through the ballot box. His election was democratically reasonably water-tight. A serious contributory factor was his use of propaganda and his unusually full and extensive programme of political visits and the making of emotional and lengthy speeches in tones of great enthusiasm and commitment. This was unheard-of in a place like Germany, which generally followed logic and quiet assessment. The trick worked beyond Adolf Hitler’s greatest hopes.

Ordinary Germans suddenly found it easier to get jobs, the trains ran on time, and things in general started to feel better. A renewed self-confidence began to take root and the Nation’s pride was gradually restored. Much of what occurred was visible, who can miss noticing new autobahns springing up between the great cities? With the enhanced feeling of well-being came ambition and the realisation that Germany was once more on the map. The country now started to excel in sports, and its prowess in the arts was also thriving. The tide was turning in the early nineteen thirties.

Gustav and Klara Schrenk were typical middle-class Germans, living reasonably comfortably in Bittersdorf, a suburb of Munich. Gustav worked in Bank Bayern in Munich and held down a good secure job in the foreign exchange department, while Klara taught languages and singing in Bittersdorf itself. Their daughter Erina, Erika Christina, was fifteen years old and was at school where her mother taught.

The Schrenk family were proud Germans and good catholics, decent clean-living folk with a pride in the growth in Germany’s prosperity, of which they were aware.

However, the Schrenks and some of their friends, notably Helmut and Angelika Schreiber, were becoming increasingly aware that their beloved country was showing unwelcome signs of a precarious future. Helmut was the owner of a small engineering company engaged in precision work and a little aviation sub-contracting, gliding having become a major sport in Germany.

Though sun may shine today, there was on the far horizon the portent of a storm ahead.

While most Germans enjoyed the apparent renaissance of their country, others were becoming alarmed.

CHAPTER ONE

Erina!

I’ll be up in a minute, Mum.

Erina’s raised voice came from the clump of beech trees interspersed with silver birches at the bottom of the garden, in answer to her mother’s call. The garden sloped away towards the end of the nearly quarter-hectare plot. There was an aura of evening scent in the late autumn darkness. Young tree sap and pollen mingled with dust and wet concrete. The rain had not been hard, a mere sprinkling, but the ground was moist, and the trees dripped.

Erina, I want you to come in.

Coming, Mum.

The fifteen-year-old girl stumbled on, down to the edge of the garden where her father’s shed stood right on the corner, bounded on two sides by a chain-link fence.

Erina was a spare, wiry, somewhat gangling girl. Though not especially tall, she was not short, and could look her mother in the eye. Her hair was dark and, when tended, wavy, shoulder length. Her face was lean and intelligent. She had the looks which promised to be arresting in later life, but looked a bit insignificant now. She showed a mysterious confidence and demonstrated much promise. Erina was an independent soul.

The door to the shed was open. Daddy always locked it, she knew. He was particular about that. Better investigate.

There was a sound from within.

A figure appeared in the doorway, half-hidden by the door. He held a screwdriver in his left hand, which flashed in the light from a streetlamp, a few hundred metres away.

In his right hand he held something.

I am Karl; I’ve got something for you.

Erina hesitated while she tried to work out in the dim light what this offering might be. And who the stranger could be. He looks really awkward, she thought. And a bit silly.

Is that chocolate?

It is, my love. Come and get it.

Erina, come in, this minute.

Her mother, having briefly interrupted her routine to get her daughter back into the house as darkness fell, turned to go back into the kitchen. What do you do with a bright bored teenage girl? There’s nothing here and the poor love just mooches about between school and at weekends. Holidays are a nightmare, there is nothing to do, and we can’t afford to galivant about the place lying on beaches or whatever people with time and money get up to. At least she can’t get up to any mischief in the garden, even when it gets dark, but there’s nothing to do there anyway. Her mother decided to stop worrying about Erina, she’s a good girl and where’s the harm in enjoying the spacious garden they were lucky enough to have right here on their doorstep? Stop fussing, think of those poor devils who have seriously rebellious children who lead their parents a merry dance. Erina is a good girl, no doubt about that, and self-propelled too. An independent soul. Stop worrying.

I am coming, Mum, I’m just doing something first.

Karl spoke softly,

What a nice name. Erina. Come inside out of the rain and I’ll give you the chocolate.

My name is Erika Christina; they call me Erina. I’m fifteen and I think that’s grown up. Who are you?

Me, I’m just Karl. Here, take this. Don’t eat it too fast.

The boy looked nonplussed and ill-at-ease, though impatient to get on with things. His slightly ginger hair was dishevelled. His pale face, if she could have seen it, bore little expression. Nobody would have called him good-looking, though he gave an unremarkable, even presentable impression, in a nondescript sort of a way. He was but a few centimetres taller than Erina. Karl was irresistibly fascinated by girls, but he hadn’t yet worked out how to get close to one, so his speciality was admiration from afar and immediate retreat if the unlikely event of one actually stopping to talk to him arose. It wasn’t that he was unusually shy, he just had no conception of how to proceed with these attractive but mysterious beings. He was sure that if he could only get past the embarrassment of the first stages, he would open up an entirely new and promising vista. Here he was, confronted with the puzzle of what do I do next? Hence the chocolate.

Silence followed for the brief moment it took to devour the chocolate.

Erina had not noticed that Karl had taken his coat off, and somewhat clumsily was unbuttoning the rest of his garb.

Minutes later, she looked at him. Karl looked skinny and vulnerable. He wasn’t old at all. Just grown up like her. There really wasn’t much to him. Erina felt strangely protective.

A pounce takes but the most finely split of seconds. Erina’s lips tasted of chocolate still, but the overpowering odour of tobacco intruded as Karl kissed her ardently, almost painfully, upon those very lips.

Erina wasn’t frightened. She knew she should have been, but she wasn’t. Her mind was still and cool, she was not one to panic. A certain curiosity overcame her and she started to notice extraneous things. The filthy smell of tobacco, Karl’s sweaty hands and the ragged fingernails which scratched her thighs and her breasts. The difficulty the boy had experienced taking his own clothes off, never mind those of his object of desire. In short, the sheer ineptitude of the whole business. Erina became to a small extent an outside observer of this poor and unrehearsed happening and was tempted to take over and give him some advice, help even, but she refrained and remained passive and silent. She wasn’t quite sure how all this was supposed to work, but she had a shrewd idea.

Finally, Karl groped and enveloped her, as though he had practised this many times before. Which he had, in his mind. He had dreamed often and strongly of how things must be done in the safety of oncoming sleep, though this occasion was his first attempt at it in real life.

In no time, the deed was done. Karl stood and neither of them said anything. Erina was on top of things and entirely herself, while Karl had no idea of how to get through this bit. What should he do? He had no constructive thoughts on the subject, he’d never given it a moment’s consideration. He just stood there limp and gormless and worse still utterly naked and to make matters worse, he couldn’t see where all his clothes were, strewn about and inside out.

Erina rearranged her clothes, turned, waved to Karl, ran out into the untended copse, into the court yard and back inside the house.

Before bolting, she had said to Karl,

I come here sometimes in the evening. I’ll see you again, I expect.

Mutti, preoccupied, said to Erina as she swept in,

Ah, good, you’re back. It’s getting dark outside and you’ll catch cold. Early supper tonight. Vati gets home soon and then he and I are going out to have early dinner with the Schreibers. We’ll be back by half past ten.

I’m going to my room.

Your supper will be ready in half an hour. Sausages and dumplings.

Good. I like that Mum. I’m just going to have a bath, like you said, it’s getting nippy and I want to warm up a bit.

The real problem was that she was in a mess and couldn’t wait to clean herself up and get back to feeling her normal self, though the adventure had sharpened her sense of enjoyment as well. The product of the recent escapade was running down her inner thigh and she was afraid some of this might land on the kitchen floor and open a real can of worms with her parents. So, a bath it was. As she left to go upstairs, her mother said,

Why, darling, you only had one yesterday?

Mum, I’m a bit cold like you said. See you soon.

Home was number three hundred and one, Schiller Strasse, Bittersdorf. Bittersdorf was a suburb of a suburb near Munich. The house occupied the corner plot where Schiller Strasse met Abenteuers Weg.

Not very much happened there. Farm land abutted this area and the road led to nowhere of any importance. Architecturally this place didn’t figure. It had materialised to provide places where the less well-off lower middle classes could lay their heads before going every day, by seven o’clock, to work in Munich. It served no other purpose, and that it did to minimalist standards.

You could, most of the time, just hear the constant hum of the new autobahn, which passed nearby. How much you heard depended on the strength and the direction of the wind.

Erina’s life was empty of excitement. It consisted mainly of school and waiting for more school.

She needed no reminding that nothing happened in Bittersdorf. Mercifully, she had found refuge and enjoyment in reading. At this moment she was deeply engaged in War and Peace, knowing how sad she would feel when she finally reached the end. She must one day get to know something of Old Russia, it was a true enigma and she was intrigued by it. How did anyone run such a huge and diverse place? Well, they didn’t did they? It all went tragically wrong, that was why she wanted to know more about Imperial days. Her mind turned to the present day. Does everywhere sooner or later go wrong? How did we get here and where are we going to end up?

Vati, Dad, Gustav Schrenk, worked as an accounts clerk in the foreign exchange department, in the Bank Bayern in Munich. His was a highly respectable job.

Gustav was a tall, upright man. He carried no spare weight and looked benign, his face bearing a smile which was natural and near permanent. He was a kind man, and looked the part. He was the youngest of three boys, of Ernst Schrenk, Direktor, Palatinate Inspector, of Masse, Münzen, und Gewichte. The whole subject of weights and measures was fast becoming vital for the growth and prosperity, particularly internationally, of trade, and this man had been important. He was an upright citizen and a respected member of the growing middle class.

Mutti, Mum, Klara Schrenk, was a teacher at the Gymnasium, the secondary school in neighbouring Graffenberg. She taught English and French and singing. She was the daughter of Dietrich and Christine Grauerlein. Her father had been the Bezirksleiter, Area Superintendent, for the Augsburg region of the old Königliche Bayerische Staats-Eisenbahnen, the Royal Bavarian Railways, the second biggest, next to Prussia, in the land. After the war and the abdication of the Bavarian royal family, the Wittelsbachs, the company had become simply Bayerische Staats-Eisenbahn, Bavarian State Railway. That soon became the Bavarian Division, Gruppenverwaltung Bayern, of the German State Railway, Deutsche Reichseisenbahnen.

It was, therefore self-evident that Dietrich was a cheese of formidable proportions.

Klara and Gustav had first met at school, when both were in their mid-teens. There had been no whirlwind romance. Each had grown first to respect the other, then love had followed. They had been married in their early twenties as soon as the two sets of parents had been willing to give their blessing. It had been a successful, if unspectacular marriage, but they were living proof that fireworks need play no part in a happy and enduring liaison. Their one treasured child was Erina.

Klara had a strong face. She was a woman of firm convictions and a devout faith. She was of average height and still retained the athletic figure of youth. Her dark hair had begun to turn to grey, and she wore it up in a bun. Her face was symmetrical and fine featured beneath a determined brow. She was blessed with a sensual inviting mouth. Klara was the mainstay of this small family, and she bore the look of quiet authority. Klara had well informed opinions on much that occurred in Germany at that time. She kept her opinions largely to herself though, believing that the family position on such things was the province of Gustav, and her role was to support him when required, and to shut up at other times. She performed this function with distinction and was well aware that the two of them saw the current state of the nation, and of the world in general, in broadly similar vein.

Both of Erina’s parents spoke good English, and she herself spoke it well, if a little more hesitantly.

The day was the 30th of September, 1935. It was a Monday. Black. All Mondays were black, after the Sunday, upon which the Schrenk family, good Catholics all, had spent the time divided between mass and rest.

On Sundays, family lunch was special. Mother, Father, and Daughter enjoyed the chance to sit down to a square meal together and talk. About anything, and to glow in each other’s company. Being an only child of intelligent parents, Erina had learned how to engage in adult conversation, and she had further learned that silence and listening vastly exceeded in value idle ill-considered speech.

Monday contained little but the drudgery of work and the efficient running of the home.

To Erina such a day was the very definition of boredom, and her saviour, as always, was reading and writing secret thoughts in her diary which she kept in a drawer in her bedroom, under lock and key. She tried to make this diary more than just ‘got up, had breakfast etc’. Anyway, no one would ever see it, and she wouldn’t go on with it if life one day became a bit more exciting. For now though, it was a blessed relief and wonderfully private. She was still debating with herself whether or not to put Karl into it. That could be dangerous if it ever got out, so up to now she was against it. She referred to it en passant in code and