A place of longing - Communal living

(DE) "The horizon was so vast back then", Fips, my friend and former flatmate, muses when we meet up almost 50 years after our time together in our student flat. Fips, his wife Hanne and I are sitting in the garden of his atrium house on a hot summer afternoon, sifting through our memories of our time together in a communal flat in Regensburg in the 1970s. I had asked for this conversation because when I wrote my article on shared flat experiences, the memories of this commune seemed so wonderful. Too good! I suspected I was embellishing. So, I approached a founding member to get closer to reality.

Four friends for a life together 

At this time, we were two university student couples who decided to look for a flat and somehow live together as a commune in a new way of living. There was no particular ideological background, and we didn't suffer from a housing shortage as we each had a small, affordable flat. However, Fips, his then-partner Ingrid and I had been close friends for years. We travelled together, discussed relationship problems, new experiences and the like. Our last big adventure, an overland trip to and across India over several months, had brought my then-boyfriend Heinz into the circle of friends. We knew each other well. We liked each other. We wanted to spend our student years together. 

The first challenge was to find a landlord who wanted to rent a flat to four students. In the 1970s, quite a few shared flats were already in Regensburg. Still, the prejudices of the relatively conservative citizens of Regensburg were based on the reports about the immoral, drug-infested revolutionary milieu in the communes in big cities like Berlin. Pictures and reports of the famous Commune 1 in Berlin had made it into the living rooms of respectable people. Naturally, they stimulated their imagination about what might happen in flat-sharing communities. There was a fear of attracting "deadbeats" to the time-honoured apartment buildings. At the same time, most young families preferred to move into the much better-equipped new buildings on the city's outskirts. They were not exactly queuing up for flats in old buildings without central heating that needed renovation or at least refurbishment. 

Fifty years later, neither of us could say why we were offered a beautiful flat in an old building in Von-der-Tann-Straße, on the edge of Regensburg's old town. Our willingness to renovate was probably the deciding factor. We scraped old newspapers from under the wallpaper and were even happy to see what we had uncovered. The fact that there was no central heating but individual oil stoves, for which the oil had to be regularly dragged in heavy cans from the cellar to the first floor, did not detract from our enjoyment of this flat. 

We divided the four unevenly sized rooms so that each couple had the same size. One room could only be accessed via one of the other two rooms, which was a drawback but didn't bother us. It wasn't a problem in the end. You could always get through one of them; the doors were usually open anyway. 

Our bathroom had a huge boiler and space for a washing machine, but we had to hang the drain hose in the bathtub. Everyone always adhered to the rule "Never shower when the washing machine is running". 

At that time, having a bathroom was not a matter of course in the old flats in Regensburg, many of which were occupied by students. Fips remembers that at the end of the 1970s, Hanne's sisters still regularly turned up to shower in our flat because they didn't have a bathroom. 

The separate toilet was also highly convenient. With four plus x residents, you appreciate little things like that. 

And we enjoyed decorating the painstakingly renovated flat in the spirit and flavour of the 70s. The walls were very colourfully painted or wallpapered in fashionable green-brown-orange tones. For seating, there was nothing better than mattresses covered in green or brown corduroy on the floor, which could be spread out to sleep on. Wicker lamps, very modern at the time, provided a somewhat subdued light. Those who wanted to feel particularly cosy, such as our flatmate Ingrid, laid out flokati carpets all over the room. 

The lightness of a communal flat atmosphere 

But the best thing was the eat-in kitchen with a small balcony overlooking the inner courtyard. Of course, a fitted kitchen was not an option. On the contrary! We rummaged through classified ads for secondhand furnishings of all kinds, useful and cosy, a cooker and fridge, an old kitchen buffet and a sofa. 

There's nothing better for a communal flat than to have a large, cosy kitchen like this. 

Community life in our kitchen

Community life took place in this room. 

"There was always someone there," said Fips during our conversation, "when you came into the kitchen to talk to someone." That also tallies with my memories. If you wanted to socialise, you went into the kitchen. If you wanted peace and quiet, you stayed in your room and closed the door. 

"I was the first person in the commune to set off on the march through the institutions by starting my teacher traineeship," recalls Fips. "That meant I had to get up much earlier than everyone else and, therefore, go to bed much earlier. But as the kitchen was a long way from my room, I wasn't disturbed by the chatter and singing there. I was able to sleep peacefully. However, my flatmates were not necessarily granted peace and quiet at 7.00 a.m., their bedtime, when my 2 CV (Citroen) once again failed to start in winter. I then got them out of bed to push. My flatmates were usually too tired to grumble, but they pushed until the 2CV got going." 

Even today, I still think wistfully of this option of a completely informal, uncomplicated form of communal living. 

What's more, a wide variety of visitors turned up. Every member of the flat share had their own circle of friends and acquaintances, siblings or partners, etc.They were all welcome - by the hour, by the day or for weeks at a time. 

Some travelled through on their way from Berlin to Bologna to study in what was then called the city of the Left. Not only students from all kinds of disciplines came to stay with us, but also professionals, globetrotters, mothers with children... There was always a place to sleep for a few nights or a spot on the kitchen sofa for a few hours. 

I still remember one weekend evening when Fips came home from a school assignment in another city. Shortly after his arrival, he came to us into the kitchen and presented with pointed fingers a pair of greyish male pants he had found in his bed. "I don't mind if someone sleeps in my bed when I'm not there, but they should take their pants with them!" he told us, slightly annoyed. Given these pants, we could understand his concern well. 

We, the core residents, so to speak, were always curious about the stories, plans and experiences of others. For example, a couple of vets stayed in our flat for a few weeks. "Those were exciting conversations, be it in our kitchen or in our favourite pub, the Schwedenkugel, about their work experience at the abattoir and about this completely different professional field," Fips remembers clearly decades later. 

This diversity was stimulating, sometimes exciting, sometimes annoying, but always highly interesting. It broadened all our horizons and gave us a sense of freedom. Everything was in motion. 

Of course, this also affected the members of the flat share. Relationships broke up, and new ones were forged, which led to people moving out and moving in. When we met after all these years, we could no longer reliably reconstruct who lived in which room and when. After three years, in the autumn of 1977, when I also left the flat share to study in Berlin, only Fips was left of the founding members. However, there were never any applications from outsiders. It was always people from our circle of friends who wanted and got the vacant room.  

The excellent cuisine in our commune 

I can't say whether it was because we appreciated good food. But it could well be because delicious food was vital to us. 

And we had our tricks and strokes of luck when sourcing good food despite our small household budget.

We bought meat and sausages from the abattoir, where the products were much cheaper because they came from animals that had been emergency slaughtered. In general, we made sure to put good products on the table, within our means. There was never any tension over food and drink. Life was generous to us, so we were too. 

However, the highlight of our culinary endowment was the return of our flatmate Heinz from his annual summer holiday in Sorrento, where his sister and her family lived. His brother-in-law was a  connoisseur of the highest order, so Heinz brought along a whole host of southern Italian specialities in his Fiat 650, just like an Italian mum would have given her son: home-canned olives, tomatoes and aubergines, home-made tomato sauce, olive oil and red wine in large glass containers, preserved with olive oil on the neck. Heinz skilfully decanted this wine into smaller bottles, and we had an excellent wine on the table. This was quite different from our usual house wines, such as Lambrusco, Valpolicella, or Chianti Fiasco, which were cheap and came in two-litre bottles. Heinz generously shared his Italian treasures with us and his exceptional cooking skills. 

"His goulash is still unrivalled", Fips and Hanne unanimously stated when we recalled our memories. For my part, I've never had another fillet Wellington like the one prepared by Heinz. That was quite delicious. 

Hanne's speciality was spaghetti vongole with tinned mussels and whipped cream. We loved it, partly because we didn't have to worry about cholesterol levels at that age. 

One year, we saved up money for a Christmas goose by playing card games, and on Christmas Eve, we stuffed it with chestnuts before putting it in the oven. Flatmate Gertrud was the lead cook. And it was a treat! Those of our friends who didn't have a home or didn't want to go home came to us. We mixed traditional Christmas food and anti-Christmas kitsch protest. People didn't have such a narrow view of things back then. 

Not even ideologically and politically. Of course, fundamental debates were also held in our kitchen. After all, different groups within the left-wing student community believed their analyses to be the only true ones and their solutions, too. We were all part of this scene at the university. But it would never have occurred to us to assert any claim to absoluteness at our kitchen table. I even know of a friend from the Department of Mathematics and Physics who was close to the CSU (conservative party). But it wasn't worth more than a shrug of the shoulders. Fanatics and fundamentalists didn't turn up at our table. We liked interesting, perhaps a little weird, but definitely open-minded people. 

And because we loved dining so much, we often organised vast meals with several courses, to which I usually contributed my apple strudel for dessert. 

These were gigantic feasts with many people, better than usual wine and the sounds of Heinz and John on the guitar and Richard playing the accordion. We sang songs by the Beatles, Stones, Kinks, ballads by Biermann and others. Richard was a source of versatile songs with his accordion. Everything from Bella Ciao to German folk songs and opera arias was included. Marvellous! For us anyway!

For the neighbours, it was often an annoyance

We were indeed a nuisance to our neighbours. The door to the kitchen balcony was usually open due to the heat and cigarette smoke, and a backyard like that has good acoustics. When we had a good time, the neighbours were probably all standing upright in their beds. It certainly wasn't malicious intent or indifference, but simply the inexperience of young people who think they're the centre of the world and can't understand that what's good for them isn't good for everyone. 

For example, we loved our clogs. They were clunky shoes made of wood and leather. When we walked in them down the long corridor, the neighbours below us must have felt a herd of cows was trampling over their heads. One day, the tenant below us vented her anger, and I think we tried to improve things. 

This neighbour also had no sympathy for the fact that a friend who went to study abroad for a few months stored his beloved wardrobe in the hallway next to our front door. Fips also thought it was strange but on the other hand.... None of us remembered what the flatmates then did with the wardrobe. 

I think we got on the nerves of the whole neighbourhood at least once. Fips and I both remember this blissful event. 

As we had done many times before, we had organised one of these great dinners and decided to go afterwards to the late screening at the Ostentor cinema, which was more or less around the corner. Strolling home after the show, perhaps inspired by the film, we discovered the street decorations for the next day's Corpus Christi procession. Due to our arch-Catholic childhood, we were very familiar with the rituals of this holiday and started our own procession. One of us held something up as a liturgical monstrance. The rest of us grabbed the birch branches that adorned the path and formed a procession. One of us ran ahead and knelt at the side of the path so that the procession also had followers who crossed themselves. Once we had passed, he overtook us and kneeled again. And, what must have been the last straw for the residents of the neighbourhood, when we sang Corpus Christi songs like "Meerstern ich dich grüße" with great enthusiasm accompanied by an accordion, presumably played by Richard. 

I can't remember anyone shouting abuse at us. In any case, nobody called the police to punish the nightly disturbance. I still don't understand why. Maybe it was the church hymns, so the residents were unsure whether it could be classified as disturbing the peace. 

But we didn't just get up to mischief. 

We also discussed, talked shop and worked in our kitchen. We learnt about the content of other study subjects and discussed them. Germanists, historians, educationalists, physicists, future doctors, and vets all had something to say to each other! We discussed Fips' first teaching sample at the kitchen table. And Alois' computer-controlled physics project for his diploma, an absolute novelty at the time, was also a topic of conversation at our kitchen table. 

That was quite something! 

Disharmony and arguments? 

After reminiscing enough about our fond memories that afternoon in 2023, I still tried to find a few flaws in this idyllic communal living. But for my former flatmate and old friend, nothing mattered. We never had any arguments about the money in the communal kitty. The cleaning schedule, which included the kitchen, bathroom and toilet, was more or less adhered to. 

Still, I remember being annoyed when the dishes piled up in the kitchen sink bucket so that I couldn't reach the tap. I was probably grumpy and often washed the dishes because my flatmates didn't see the need for such an action, but I did. 

I also remember Fips banging his fists against the bathroom door because he wanted to study for his exam while I sang at the top of my lungs in the adjacent bathroom under the shower. You have to know that I definitely can't sing. So, his request made sense to me immediately and didn't lead to any further frictions. 

Our communal living time in Regensburg was indeed a good period, and it shaped me. However, I think I was more needy than the other flatmates. I needed the security and reliability of a surrogate family because my family had split into two hostile camps, and there was no home for me beyond our communal flat. The coming and going of members and a certain emotional lack of commitment didn't help. Anyone could disappear at any time, never to be seen again. That was my sore point. The threat of loss loomed everywhere and always! Perhaps to avoid this, I left Regensburg for Berlin with my new boyfriend Günther in the autumn of 1977 to live in a way I didn't really want: Living in a flat in a close relationship with one partner, which meant social isolation and emotional dependence on a single person. But it wasn't to stay that way.  

In contrast to Fips, I tried again and again to repeat this experience of a true communal life, and twice more, I founded a commune.

But this open spirit of broad horizons no longer emerged. Living together was much more narrow minded and severe. 

The Regensburg flat-share in Von-der-Tann-Straße was dissolved in July 1981 when Fips and his wife Hanne went to teach at the Amani secondary school in Kabul, Afghanistan. After that, the landlady rented the flat to a family again. (TA)