A Gnostic Childhood
Part XIV
Berlin 1954 - 55

Reflections on Kalamazoo and American Dreams
 

 Reflecting on my childhood I would only like to say that despite the abject poverty and near homelessness, it was a wonderful time in my life and much preferable to growing up today in Germany or America.
 We might not have had material things deemed 'necessary' by today's standards, but we had hope, dreams and unlimited innocence.
 And it is this 'innocence' which had made my life, in those days, wealthy beyond description.
Political correctness and media brainwashing was just beginning to become a factor in schools and movies, but wasn't effective yet, because most of us were not exposed to television until the early 1960's.
 'Rias Berlin' and 'Sender Freies Berlin,' the two radio stations in Berlin, still broadcast extensive programs of classical music and operas in those days, especially in the evenings and only the American army station 'AFN Berlin' broadcasted 'pop' and 'rock' music twenty four hours a day.
 In school we heard about the 'holocaust' and the persecution of Jews during the Third Reich under Hitler, but it was still 'toned down' and thus came up only once in a great while; but we did become subjected to American propaganda, for the American way of life, quite regularly.
 Often during school we would be lead to the auditorium to watch movies about America.
One I still remember quite clearly, it was called 'Kalamazoo, eine Mittelstadt im Mittelwesten,' because it had a tremendous impact on me.

A one hour long black and white movie about this midsize city in the American mid-west, located in the state of Michigan, was extremely well done and persuasive. In fact I can honestly say that this movie formed a good part my understanding of America and eventually inspired me to emigrate to this beautiful country. 

 Perhaps it was the quaintness and innocence depicted in an 'Leave it to Beaver' like setting, or the happy people with their cars and houses blending into a vast landscape of cornfields and lakes, but it touched something deep within me,-a longing for harmony and peace.
 America seemed to me like an innocent giant, wealthy beyond imagination  promising me what I so desperately lacked in post-war Berlin.
America became to me the promise of heaven on earth.

In school, Herr Gueth, our teacher made us write a report on this movie and on America. For perhaps the first time in his class, I was inspired to do my homework with care and love. Using pictures I cut out of magazines and newspapers and researching through library books, I came up with a "stunning" report which must have shocked even Herrn Gueth. Needless to say, I got an A+ and he had me read it in class to my total embarrassment. Still, I was proud of myself and my writing ability and it perhaps even demonstrated to Herrn Gueth that I was capable to do well in school if inspired by the right material or teacher. Of course Herr Gueth had nothing to do with my 'breakthrough,' as it was this movie and it's theme which stimulated my imagination and desire to excel. From then on I made it a point of pride to write excellent reports, even on subjects which interested me very little.

 What is most amazing though is, that the real America, the America I found when I arrived here in 1963, was exactly the way I had seen it in the movie.
 Especially in Danbury, Connecticut, which was at the time just about the same size as Kalamazoo, I think.
Never in my life had I met such nice and caring people and such endless possibilities!
 This vast land and it's kind and open people, as I found it in 1963, shall always be my most cherished memory.
Propaganda or not, this movie, 'Kalamazoo, a midsize town in the American mid-west,' was true in every way. 

     
These two pictures say it all!

 America, as I found it to be, especially away from the big cities, was a most wonderful place, and, to me, a true heaven on earth. Really, I can't say enough of the wonderful people I met in those days, their almost childlike innocence and trusting ways. I was offered rides when walking on the sidewalk and invited into homes and treated like a family friend, and I was helped and guided by complete strangers for no other reward than to be helpful to a new immigrant.
 A sales clerk at a small 'Sears and Roebuck' store in downtown Danbury, co-signed my first credit application in this wonderful country. I didn't ask him to, but he offered it freely when I looked at a record player and told him that I didn't have the seventy or so dollars to pay for it.
 At Danbury Hospital I got a job in the pharmacy although there wasn't even an opening, because Mrs. Love, the director of 'Personnel' liked me and sent me 'up' to see Mrs. Palmer the pharmacist to check if she could 'use' me.
 Mrs. Palmer was also anxious to help and thus I got a job in the hospital pharmacy which I liked very much. After about two weeks working there and always being there early because I had to walk and didn't want to risk being late, she even gave me a key to the pharmacy to let myself in and set up the coffee for us.
 Where else, in the whole world, would one be trusted with such innocence and caring?
Of course, all this is no more, as this country has been ruined and destroyed from within. I only want to mention this, ahead of the story, to make the reader understand what America was like in those years.
 I feel so sorry for the youth of this country today, who have to go into fortified and police-guarded schools, and live daily in a state of paranoia and fear. Robbed of their innocence by deliberate programming on television and movies, by exposure to sexuality and depravity at an early age, by degenerate rock stars and their cacophony of music and drug use, these young people of today in America don't have dreams or a future, except the desperate hope to become 'rich' to somehow escape into their own withdrawal from life in this now 'multicultural' pit called America.
 The America of the early sixties and even seventies, is not the same country that it is today. Perhaps I'm over-idolizing the America I knew then, but what I know and experienced, with the eyes of an immigrant, is the truth as I know it.
 The people of America today have fallen from heaven into hell and they don't even seem to be aware of it.
The reason why this happened and how it was accomplished by the secret 'cabal,' those malicious people who saw in the old, true America a barrier to their plans for a one-world government, is not only obvious, but in plain sight to anyone who can still think for himself and thus see through their manipulations.
 Even if one doesn't understand it completely, one can still perceive clearly what has been going on in the last thirty or so years. Ever since the assassination of president Kennedy in November 1963, this country has gone into a downward spin.
 Isn't it all so obvious?
 As in the movie 'Soilant Green,' when the main character lies down to die, and he watches the movie played on a large screen, with it's glorious landscapes and harmonious music, so do I feel now when looking back, in my mind, at what a glorious place on earth America was.
 I too feel like I am dying now, slowly in the morass that this country has become.
Is there still hope?
 I wished I could say 'yes,' but I really don't think that what has been lost through 'social engineering' and brainwashing in schools, kindergartens and mass-media, can ever be restored.
 To me it was innocence, the innocence of it's common people, which made this country what it was.

 And once this innocence was destroyed, through the rape of our children's minds, through the manipulation of thinking by 'politically correct' doubletalk and hypocrisy and distrust into one's intuition and instinctive knowledge of 'right' and 'wrong' by the social-engineers of the cabal, all hope for a return to 'innocence' has become impossible. 

 When I speak of 'innocence,' I mean only the people, the average people of America, and I would be a fool to think of the government and all it's politicians to have, even then, been innocent in any possible sense.
 I certainly realize that even then 'social engineering' was going on at full speed and that the 'cabal' had already penetrated every branch and every aspect of government.
The only difference was, that compared to today, the cabal was still more or less 'testing the water', and that thus the average person was still relatively free from the effects of their programming. 

But now I'm way ahead of my story and must return to Berlin in 1954.

Back to Berlin in 1954

 How could I possibly reconcile, within my mind, my National Socialist beliefs and my new found love for America?
The truth is, that I really couldn't and was thus torn between the two 'extremes.'
 Then, by accident I found a book which seemed to make it much easier. It was a 'Nazi' book by someone with the fascinating name 'Colin Ross,' and it's title was 'A Hitler-Youth' travels through America.'
 Peter Kreiss had it in his small library and I discovered it while looking through his book-shelves for interesting books.
Of course, I immediately asked him if he would sell it to me and he agreed to do it for something like ten German Mark.
The book was about the fascinating story a Hitler Youth and his travels throughout the United States in the mid-thirties.
 I was ecstatic with joy, because now I could mentally unite the two previously opposing loves of my life, National Socialism and Americanism.

 I learned about the 'German Bund,' and other groups in America who attempted to develop an American type of National Socialism. And I also came to appreciate the vastness and greatness of this country even more. This book led me to other books about America from various political perspectives, as well as to novels and movies about life in America. 

Peyton Place

 One such movie was 'Peyton Place.' First I saw the movie and then I read the book and I immediately searched an atlas for this town in Maine. 

Diane Varsi the star of Peyton Place

 Diane Varsi the star of the Peyton Place movie was and still is, to me, the most beautiful woman on earth, and the coastal landscape of Maine inspired me with a longing for America as the destiny of my dreams, which would stop at nothing until fulfilled. 

 Perhaps it was the purity and innocence expressed in Diane's beautiful face, which reflected to me something so deep and mysterious, striking a cord in my soul, a longing, sexual and yet as pure as this mysterious, vast and beautiful country America.  And I knew then with absolute certainty that I was destined to live there and that the Gods of my fate would, against all odds, make it possible. 

 Not only had America become a dream, but it had become a religion to me. A faith so strong and so focused, that at my young age already I knew that it's revelation would come to me in mysterious ways and that one day I would walk on it's sacred ground, the Elysium of it's whispered promise, America. 

 As I already mentioned, I loved to read Thomas Wolfe and William Saroyan, also Jack London, Mark Twain, Theodore Dreiser and so many others. I read about the American form of government, about the various states and their governments and about demographics, the different nationalities and races living there and the segregation of 'colored' people in the southern states.

 Somehow I couldn't understand how such freedom-loving, democratic people could 'hate' people of color. The few black people which I had contact with through asking them for candy or 'chocolate,' were always nice and kind, and I couldn't imagine why people would hate other people for their 'skin-color.'
 Especially reading about the Ku-Klux-Klan and seeing pictures of lynching's, absolutely horrified me.
How could this be? Here I watched the movie 'Kalamazoo,' and people were so kind, happy and fair-minded, and then there was the American South with the Klan and segregation, with lynching and abuse of Negroes just because they had a different skin color.
 In fact, I thought and still think, that many of them look really good with their brown skin and curly hair. Thus was my innocence.

Paul Robeson world-famous singer and artist.

 Here I was, a 'Nazi' in my self-perception and I despised the Klan in the United States!
When I also read that the Klan and the Bund had often worked together, I was devastated, and I slowly began to withdraw from my love for National Socialism, or at least from what National Socialism meant to most people.
 Uncle Ali, himself somewhat brown or olive-skinned, was my example and I knew that he had never, ever made racist remarks. In fact, from what I remember, he always referred to National Socialism as a world movement which could embrace all races and nationalities on an equal basis.
 The way he had taught me was, that every nation and country could and should be part of the National Socialist world movement as totally autonomous and independent entities.
 He said, that there was no such thing as racial supremacy or Aryan superiority. Every race and every nation had it's God given destiny and should be allowed to follow their own evolutionary path without interference from outside sources.
 National Socialism was to be a world-revolution, much like Trotzky's idea of a world revolution, except that it was not meant to destroy national and racial identity, but instead use this identity and cultural heritage to bring about a more civilized and noble man. Germany as the first National Socialist nation was to be the center of the world revolution. Much like Stalin's concept of a homeland for Communism in the Soviet Union. 

 Thus I could easily compromise my views in my own mind and understanding.
Unfortunately many of the people who were involved with the 'movement' were nothing like uncle Ali, but all to often small-minded bigots and German ultra-nationalists.
 Again I was an outsider even within the various 'Nationalist' movements which had at first promised to give me an identity and an ideological family.
Now I was alone again and at odds with those who held so much promise when I first met them.

North Sea Island
Norderney

 During the summer of 1954 I was invited to partake in a youth-meeting of various 'right-wing' groups at the German North-Sea island of Norderney.
 This offer was made to me through Peter Kreiss and his 'Reichsjugend' connection.
Officially the trip was sponsored by a political party which was called: 'BHE - Bund Heimatvertiebener und Entrechteter.' Which was a somewhat right leaning party fighting for the rights of world war II refugees.
 It seems to me that various 'right-wing' youth organizations received invitations for one or two boys each.
I was chosen because Peter Kreiss and I were at the time the only members of the 'Reichsjugend' in Berlin and Peter couldn't go because of his job and age.
 After all the formalities were taken care of and my mother had paid a small nominal fee, we were told to meet at a certain day in June, 1954 at the Zoo Railroad station (Bahnhof Zoo).
 When we arrived there, there were at least thirty boys with their parents waiting.
We were told by an organizer that a compartment had been reserved for us and he also made sure that we understood how to behave when we came to the East-German zone check-point.
 Since I had already, during a previous trip to Groemitz, experienced what it was like, I felt like a seasoned world-traveler. When I looked around I saw Olaf, Peter Koehler's 'pet,' from the 'Scharnhorst-Jugend.' I couldn't believe that Peter Koehler would choose Olaf because he seemed much too young to go on this trip alone.
 Just as I was beginning to feel nervous about the whole thing, the train belonging to the East-German 'Deutsche Reichsbahn,' pulled in.
 After counting everybody as we entered, our adult guides told us where to sit in the various compartments.
Each compartment held six or eight people facing each other. The train smelled of cheap diesel fuel and was filthy. Nevertheless, we were all feeling kind of elated and full of anticipation about visiting Norderney and the North-Sea.
My nervousness had given way to a form of happy surrender to the inevitable.
 Everyone in the compartment was a stranger and we began to gradually warm-up to each other by telling stories of previous adventures and about our membership in various youth-organizations.
After waiting for about thirty minutes, the train slowly began to move and we eased out of the huge station. 

Bahnhof Zoo, Berlin (Zoo railroad station in the early 1950's)

 Our guides came around to instruct us further about the border crossing and how we must behave in certain situations, especially in case that we were detained or questioned. The main point being, that we were never to mention which organizations we belonged to, but to insist that we were refugee children on a vacation trip to Norderney.
 By the time they had finished with their little lecture, we were already on the outskirts of Berlin.
After about an hour, we came to the border crossing station and the train stopped slowly.
 We saw an open railway station and lots of East German border police with sub-machine guns and German shepherd dogs.
No sooner that the train had stopped, two of them came into our compartment and asked for identity papers. Of course we already had them in our hands in fearful anticipation.
 They looked at them and at us with bored indifference and left waving us 'good bye.'
The thick tension in our little compartment began to lift immediately and we began to relax in our seats, making some stupid jokes and comments. Of course we knew that the whole thing wasn't over yet since the border-police would have to go through all the other compartment also.
 After about an hour's time, we heard the train-station announcer give the 'all-clear' signal and the train began to move again. We were elated to have gotten away so easily. By this time now it was already getting dark outside and we watched with silent inner relief the East-German countryside pass by.
 In the twilight of dusk the dreary landscape looked even more forbidding and hostile than in the daytime.
I watched pensively every nuance passing by the window, as it was always my habit to observe and daydream about the various sights coming into my view.
Hardly ever did I sleep on trips anywhere no matter whether it was day or night. Too many things which seemed to bore most other people were of immense interest to me. I always loved to observe the architecture of old farm-houses, the deserted roads and the deep forests, people on bicycles or walking along lonely roads, ships in rivers and the architecture of bridges, everything fascinated me and stimulated my imagination.
 Sometimes psychic flashes would appear in my vision and I would be drawn to visualize things that might have happened there. 

 Visions like scenes from World War II, refugees pulling handcarts loaded with their belongings and children crying and war scenes of battle as well as invading Russian soldiers. 

  German children murdered in Nemmersdorf 1944

 No matter where I traveled, be it in Germany or the United States, even to this day, I always observe everything with the same intensity, waiting for my intuition to connect me with the landscape in view. And I love to travel in absolute silence, no radio ever, in order to immerse myself in the sights and sounds of my surroundings. 

 After some hours of travel, we came to another border station were we were checked out with the same bored indifference by the East German border-police. We were somewhere at the border of the East German zone and the British zone. It was early morning by now and we were absolutely jubilant to be 'free' again.
 I don't remember what the name of the town or city was where we stopped. But our guides came around to tell us that we could leave the train for one hour and get something to eat at the railroad station.
 I think we were in Lueneburg, but, like I already said, I don't remember for sure.
We ate hot dogs and rolls and drank soda with it like hungry wolves.
 Our fears and most dreadful imaginations about being put in jail in East-Germany, or even worse, being sent to camps in Russia, had evaporated like morning dew at noon. We were free again! The knots in our stomachs had dissolved instantly and now we were absolutely starved.

 Feeling refreshed and full of food and energy, the train continued to a town by the North Sea which I believe was called 'Norden,' where we left the train and went aboard a small boat which took us to Norderney, which is one of several German islands off the north-western coast facing towards 'Helgoland,' another island way out in the North Sea.
 The weather was blustery and we felt cold and disappointed. The smell of ocean was very intense and the immense North Sea looked like lead in coloring. 

 The waves were high and threatening and the whole area didn't seem inviting at all.
The boat which was to take us to Norderney was small and moving around like a wild stallion. Some of us got sick within minutes and had to throw up over the railing. Fortunately I was not one of them and didn't have to take the good natured teasing that went with it.
 Rocking up and down and sideways, the boat took off and we went towards Norderney. 

 The island looked so small and fragile from our distant position and grew gradually larger as we approached slowly.
As it turned out, when we arrived in the small harbor, it wasn't that small after all and looked quite interesting with it's 'downtown' area and small tourist hotels, restaurants and shops. 

 We had to carry our luggage and walk for about three or four miles out of town into an almost desolate area made up of huge dunes, sand and pine trees.
 Climbing over the dunes and dragging our luggage with sand in our shoes wasn't exactly fun, but adventure seemed to be definitely in the air.

Our path to the camp with WWI bunker 

 Suddenly after climbing over our last dune, we saw a camp consisting of about three wooden barracks similar to former 'Labor Service' barracks.
 On arrival, our guides, huffing and puffing, attempted desperately to bring order into chaos and make sense of what seemed impossible living-conditions, when we discovered that the barracks didn't have either a wooden floor nor any kind of insulation.  In other words, we were standing on sand in the barracks and the cold wind was blowing through huge cracks between the wallboards. Military style bunk-beds with thin mattresses had been put along the walls and the center of our barracks and we were told that we had to go to another barrack to get blankets and sheets. While getting our bedding, we were also told by our guides that the 'cook' would not be preparing meals until the next day and that we had to walk back into town later in order to get something to eat.

This is 'Jugendheim Bauer' where we stayed in Norderney

Photo-album cover I made after the trip to Norderney

I still have the report book and this is the first page.
Doesn't look so impressive by today's standards, but I was very proud of this project.

Continue my journey, go to page 15 next

 Return to Page I and Index

PEYTON PLACE LINKS:

Meeker Museum's Peyton Place Page (Outside Link)

Diane Varsi, Star of Peyton Place, Page (Outside Link)

Grace Metalious Author of Peyton Place

Click on picture to read her short biography off this website

Continue my journey, go to page 15