Tagebuch, geführet seit dem 20ten Juli 1800 nebst Verzeichnis aller mitgemachten Gefechte, Treffen und Schlachten.

“I, Franz Seraph Bedall, with the authorization and concurrence of my dear parents enlisted for service as a volunteer into the Royal Bavarian Infantry Lifeguards Regiment on July 20th 1800, at the age of 19, and was stationed at Amberg in the Upper Palatinate.” These are the opening lines of the war diary that not only captivates the reader due to its age, but also due to its dense and meticulous account. Aside from military campaigns, battles and combat actions that have imprinted in the European memory, from Napoleon’s expedition against Russia in 1812 to the suppression of the March agitation of 1848, Franz Seraph Bedall’s diary also documents the daily life of a regular soldier and his strive for honors and advancement and comradery. The diary’s text is added to by images of medals, printed facsimile of present-day newspaper articles and pages of the diary itself as well as illustrations of poems paying homage to his officer corps. Franz Seraph Bedall manages to work his way up from a regular officer to a highly decorated major general. He personally meets Napoleon and dines with his most “supreme patron” King Max II at Nymphenburg. His records are not only an impressive read, but a very special historical document.

Bedall, Franz-Seraph: Diary, recorded since 20th July 1800 along with list of all combat, meetings and battles participated in.
ISBN: 978-3-937772-16-5, Hardcover, 248 pages with numerous images and family tree, 18,90 Euro

“The confusion knew no limits, the army dissolved and I find no words to describe the misery of the drawback. Without rest, plagued by frost and hunger, granted lodgings by no one, every single one was left to themselves. Villages were abandoned, blight and devastation everywhere and we often gathered around burning houses to escape death from exposure. In this desolate state we arrived at the Neman River during the night of December 10th. Both feet were frozen, I had no footwear anymore, and in order to continue my journey I had to wrap them in coarse canvas, tie them with cord and stagger through the deepest of snow.”

Besondere Vorkommnisse: Keine. Erinnerungen eines Lehrers in der DDR.

“…eternal grouch and pessimist, adopting an oppositional stance through more or less subversive expressions to almost any problem…” So the assessment of a teacher colleague, who was watching him as a Stasi informant. It was quite an accurate description of the author’s attitude towards the GDR. As a young adult Hans-Dieter Waltz had been strongly influenced by the war and by National Socialism, that he had had to participate in actively as a ninth grade student. His hope to finally live in a free country was destroyed by the developments in East Germany. In his account Waltz relives the time of National Socialism and the GDR and allows the reader an insight into daily life and the development of schooling in the GDR. Even though his age was setting him limits, post-reunification the PhD chemist was active in various ways in the organization of the new democratic order on a municipal level. 2001 he was honored with a First Class Federal Cross of Merit for his lifetime achievement.

Waltz, Hans-Dieter: Besondere Vorkommnisse: Keine. Erinnerungen eines Lehrers in der DDR.
ISBN 978-3-937772-18-9, Paperback, 280 pages, 24,90 Euro

“Making plans turned out to be a similar mania as the dreadful state of conferences had already proven to be. There was sitting upon sitting – no end in sight. The daily work affairs, of course, needed to be sorted during the weekly team conferences. Most important things, especially those of the most essential nature (and which were not of the most essential nature?), were dealt with in these “pedagogical councils” that we had the joy of looking forward to each six to eight weeks. This is where the headmaster had the thoroughly taken advantage of opportunity to lay out the state of affairs of the students’, teachers’ and individual classrooms’ political and ideological development, to make (mandatory) suggestions relating to labor optimization and to deal out copious amounts of criticism about sub-standardly functioning colleagues. Rarely did anyone emerge unscathed. (…) Many a problem could only be solved with all the colleagues of an individual grade level involved, so, about three to four times a year a grade conference (Stufenkonferenz) was called. If one happened to teach across multiple grade levels, this meant an additional ten to twelve conferences. Each school had expert roundtables (Fachzirkel) relating to the different subjects that were taught. All teachers had to be a part of the roundtable relating to the subject they taught in order to coordinate the matters of the subject and these roundtables met every four weeks. As everyone taught multiple subjects this was adding another eight “conferences” per year. As roundtables were also held on district level and each teacher was assigned to one or more this meant another five to six annual sessions to look forward to. The most important tool kit and equipment was imparted at the so called “Parteilehrjahr” (regular “guidance and coaching” by the Socialist Unity Party) that needed to be visited every four weeks. In addition, this particular conference called for written preparation. (…) And of course other organizations also insisted upon their right to congregate, for example the school group of the German Soviet Friendship Alliance (DSF - Deutsch-Sowjetische Freundschaft), as who in their right mind would not have friendship with Soviet persons at the top of the list of their heart’s priorities and want to communicate about it? (…) And as a teacher could barely function in relation to their own subjects without being instructed such conferences that instructed on being instructed were also included…”

Einwurf. Ein Sendenhorster erzählt Geschichte(n)

Heinz Höne was born in Sendenhorst above his parents’ colonial goods store on the first day of the year 1929. He so vividly immerses the reader into his childhood and adolescence, the atmosphere of days long gone, that we almost feel we can hear the clacking of wooden shoes on cobblestones and the cries of children as they play rough and tumble. Urged by his teacher the fourteen-year-old changed schools and went to “Lehrerbildungsanstalt Wadersloh”, a National Socialist elite school, from which he enlisted into the Wehrmacht with all his school comrades in 1944. His experiences both at this school and during the war turn him into a unique witness. 

After this episode soccer aids his return to the local community and into a “normal life”. He visits a high school from Münster temporarily set up in Sendenhorst, due to the severe bombings in the city, and earns his school fees working as a construction laborer, in a brick factory and peddling moonshine. 1952 he became the Munsterian Soccer Champion with his soccer club Sendenhorst. 

His ambition is not weakened by sport but propelled him, now father to three children, to leave the security of his civil servant’s job and pursue self-employment. 

Höne, Heinz: Einwurf. Ein Sendenhorster erzählt Geschichte(n).
ISBN 978-3-937772-26-4, paperback, 174 pages, 14,90 EUR

“To grow up in a house with a store is something quite special. When I was a young boy the salesroom with all its smells, conversations and my mother behind the counter exuded a huge gravitational pull. I almost preferred it though when it was empty and no one was minding the lolly jars, all bright and colorful and placed neatly waiting for the next customer…”

Subtly and continuously Ruth Damwerth contextualizes Heinz Hönes memories. The reader is given a unique insight into the perfidious strategies of the Nazis…

Westfälische Nachrichten, 01.25.2014, on “Einwurf. Ein Sendenhorster erzählt Geschichte(n)“

Zeit und Wandel Bewegtes Leben in bewegter Zeit

Ingrid Guntenhöners life story shines more than just a spotlight on the German history of the past century. Influenced by her mother’s attitude and involvement with the “NS-Frauenschaft (a NS women’s alliance) in order to make faster headway, Ingrid, born in 1929, visited Napola Kolmarberg one of the Nazis very rare elite schools for girls. At the end of the war she must completely change her way of thinking. Whilst she witnesses the German economic miracle and shapes it moving up from a simple office clerk position to becoming a successful businesswoman, the mother of two and grandmother of three still notices that during every phase of her life she has her very personal conflict with the question: “What is actually true?”

Guntenhöner, Ingrid: Zeit und Wandel. Bewegtes Leben in bewegter Zeit.
ISBN: 978-3-937772-27-1, paperback, 172 pages, multiple images of historical records, 14,90 Euro

“I cannot recall when exactly it was that my mother arrived home from one of the “Frauenschaft” meetings completely electrified. It must have been spring or early summer of 1941, I was twelve then. She had been to a presentation on the construction of a new school for girls in Luxembourg. “That’s where we’ll enroll you!”, she had claimed enthusiastically. “If you pass the entrance examination you will have great professional prospects.” She went on gushing about this school, it was going to be in a castle and the students would be allowed to travel abroad – it sounded more like a fairytale to me than school…”

As a child Ingrid Guntenhöner had black hair. In the school’s archive she was listed as ‘dark blonde’: an interpretation the Nazis preferred. The now 85-year-old attended school at Napola Kolmarberg, one of the most prestigious Nazi elite schools for girls. German studies specialist Ruth Damwerth has written down her story. It is the first biography of a female Napola student.

Westfälische Nachrichten, 04.16.2015, on “Zeit und Wandel“

Ich schreibe mein Leben Kriegsfolgen im Frieden. Frauen der Wende erzählen Familiengeschichten.

We want to hear, tell, appreciate and value women’s stories. That was the main concern when the Intercultural Women’s Network (Interkulturellen Frauen Netzwerk) at the University of Dresden was founded. And it has been that way ever since. This is the space of exchange and creativity where the authors of this book met…

At first topics such as the Peaceful Revolution of 89/90, stories from the GDR that we had witnessed as much more colorful and multi-facetted time than generally seemed to be reported, where discussed and then more and more conversations surfaced that seemed to circle a central topic, that of a time that we had not even lived through ourselves yet seemed to be impacted by: the time of the Nazis and that of the Second World War. We were asking ourselves: What had our grandmothers and grandfathers, our mothers and fathers experienced or even what had they done, how have these often buried and silenced experiences shaped their lives, ideas and method of child rearing, and which fears and conditioning have they consciously or unconsciously passed onto us, the war children generation or war grandchildren generation?

In very diverse texts six women present their own review of a century of (East)German history. They are fascinating historical documents and stories of healing. Healing wounds that preceding generations inflicted or wounds that were inflicted upon them and that still ache. “We tune into each other’s existence”, says the North American theologian Nelle Morton. Transferring the idea to this book: We are reading a new, deeper sense of understanding into our lives.

Riedel-Pfäfflin, Ursula, Andrea Siegert und Heidrun Novy (Hrsg.): Ich schreibe mein Leben. Kriegsfolgen im Frieden. Frauen der Wende erzählen Familiengeschichten.
ISBN: 978-3-937772-28-8, 300 pages, 19,90 EUR

“I was born in 1964, the Second World War had ended 19 years ago. When I was ten we were 29 years post end of the war, three times as much as the life of a ten-year-old – an eternity. To me, so I thought, the war meant nothing. We were living in the future. The past was way back. The baddies, the German fascists, had all – so we were told – escaped to West Germany and were high-ranking officials over there. We were the good ones. We had built a country, this is what we were told, in which exploitation did not exist, there were no rich people and poor people, no private property. In school we were taught that as Germans we were responsible for monstrous crimes towards other peoples. German soil will never sprout war again. That is what we stood for. My parents’ generation built up Socialism and my generation was to construct Communism. That was our first order. 1964, my year group, had the highest rate of child birth in both East- and West Germany in post-war history. We were 33 children in my class. My name as one of the most popular for girls born in 1964 – next to Kathrin, Annette and Sabine. The most popular boy names were Thomas, Steffen, Michael and Frank. We were many and the future belonged to us…”