Childhood in the post-war period on Schwanthalerhöhe
- titanja1504
- Aug 14, 2024
- 17 min read
Updated: Mar 21
-Munich 1945 to 1953-
(DE) "For God's sake! That can't be! It's gone! Just gone!" I, a mere six-year-old, was standing on Guldeinstraße in the Schwanthalerhöhe district of Munich on a freezing cold winter's day in 1946 and was terribly frightened. The food stamp my grandmother gave me to buy a quarter of a pound of sugar at the supermarket in Astallerstraße had disappeared on the way. Stunned, I stared at my clammy fingers, which had held on to this precious stamp as tightly as they could, and now it had disappeared. What a disaster!
My grandma and I frantically searched the snow-covered road for the tiny stamp. Our chances of finding it were not good. But we were lucky; we found it in the snow slush. Relieved, we carried the small, completely soaked, but precious scrap of paper home. My grandma ironed it until it was flat and dry so that we could set off again to get hold of some sugar.
This anecdote is typical of the post-war period from 1945 onwards. The supply situation was disastrous, especially for the inhabitants of the cities. There was hardly any production in Germany, and transport routes such as railway tracks, roads and bridges had largely been destroyed by targeted bombing. Even inner-city streets were often barely recognisable under all the rubble.
Peanut butter from the black market - pure madness!
When all supplies were used up at the end of 1946, the daily requirement of an average adult was rationed to a meagre 1550 kilocalories. In 1947, it was often only 800 to 1000 kilocalories. If there was nothing left, nothing could be distributed. The allocation of food vouchers corresponded to this measure. Too much to die and too little to live on, as the saying goes.
With the introduction of the war economy by the National Socialists, food was rationed from 1939, and food stamps were issued. Even after the war, the occupying powers and the regional German administrations retained this supply system. It was only finally abolished in 1953. Until then, food stamps were issued alongside the DM even after the currency reform in 1948.
Like most other families in our neighbourhood, inflation was an almost insurmountable problem for us. My father was not among the 25 per cent unemployed in those first post-war years. He immediately got a job at the post office. But his wages were almost worthless. A pound of butter cost 360 Reichsmarks, a pound of bread 190 RM and a kilo of coffee could cost between 500 and 1100 RM. Who had that kind of money? Very few people could pay these prices, which were charged on the strictly forbidden black market. According to official statistics, the average salary in 1947 was around RM 1,833 monthly. Of course, the unemployed had even less at their disposal.
Therefore, other ways of obtaining food had to be found, namely the so-called hoarding trips. This involved the urban population going to the surrounding villages to exchange expendable items such as jewellery, silverware, paintings, etc., for potatoes, eggs or other foodstuffs. Those who had nothing of value had to resort to begging.
I don't know whether my parents also went on such trips, for example, to the Stauchbäuerin in Warngau. But I know that my father and I once ran a black-market business together. One day, given the daily shortage, a camera seemed dispensable to my father, so we both made our way to Hackerbrücke. In some of the Reichsbahn railway carriages, one could find Americans with whom the people of Munich could barter. Similar black markets existed all over Munich, for example, at the Viktualienmarkt or Sendlinger Tor.
Many people hoped to obtain cigarettes such as Lucky Strike or Chesterfield from the GIs at Hackerbrücke. The cigarette currency was a very well-functioning means of payment in the post-war period. If you had cigarettes, you could exchange almost anything for them. Cigarettes were definitely more valuable than money or other goods.
I can't say whether my father received cigarettes for his camera because, as a little boy of six, I wasn't interested in that. The powdered milk we packed and the food tins were more appealing to me. And if I had known how good peanut butter tasted, my excitement on the way home would have been even greater.
But this delicacy, which, according to the label, was called "peanut butter", was utterly unknown to us. The whole family tasted this strange spread with some suspicion. But what can I say? It was a divine treat! We all ate it, wholly enraptured by the delicious flavour, and even today when I receive peanut butter as a gift from my daughter, I enjoy eating it and reliving my childhood memories.
Hunger is the best cook!
My life had changed fundamentally in the summer of 1945. I don't know why my parents brought me to live with my grandmother at Guldeinstraße 41 for a few months at that time. But I assume my mother wanted to stay at the Stauchhof with my two-year-old sister until my father made our flat on the third floor at Gollierstraße 36 habitable again.
Typical blocks of flats in Schwanthalerhöhe
Also, I was six years old at the end of the war in 1945 and was due to start school in September. As my parents were planning to return to Munich, enrolling me in our neighbourhood school immediately made sense. I went to the Ridler school, although the Bergmannschule would have been closer. But this school had been so severely destroyed during the war that it could not open for the time being.
I can't remember my first day at school, and I don't recall the lessons, the teachers or my class, but I can still clearly picture the blue tubs and containers in which the school meals were delivered. We spooned up mushy pea soup or chewy porridge with a chocolate flavour. Unforgettable! I liked both. After all, hunger is the best cook.
But my grandma was definitely a magician in post-war cuisine. From the few ingredients that were available to her due to the food stamps, she made her own delicious "odrahde Wichspfeiferl" (today we call them "Schupfnudeln") with home-made sauerkraut, and home-made broad noodles were also on the menu. These were my favourite dishes. I didn't have to go hungry. I was fortunate at that time.
These post-war years until the currency reform in 1948 have gone down in history as years of cold and hunger in Germany, especially in the cities. However, my family managed to ensure that I didn't feel the general lack of essential supplies as a child. Memories of hunger do not overshadow my memories of this time. But perhaps it's also because of my nature that the glass is always half full rather than half empty for me.
I still remember the warming rooms in the neighbourhood in my childhood because there wasn't enough fuel for the wood and coal stoves. At least we were lucky to live in an undamaged flat. It could get uncomfortably cold there, but we were always better protected. But what could the people do who didn't have a flat, who had only made a makeshift home in the rubble? They could only protect themselves from freezing to death in the warming rooms.
There was also hardly any fuel for public facilities such as schools, so pupils were asked to bring a few coals to school if possible.
In addition, the winter of 1946/47 was the longest and coldest of the 20th century. From November 1946 to March 1947, Germany literally froze over. Even shipping routes became impassable, and stored potatoes, Germany's most important staple food, froze in their crates.
The post-war period in Germany, particularly in big cities like Munich, was a terrible time, and many people couldn't survive the hunger and cold.
However, I was lucky that my family was complete and healthy and had not been bombed out. Only my grandfather had been mistreated in the Dachau concentration camp and was only released to die in 1943, and my uncle on my mother's side was killed in the last days of the war. Both my father, whose war injury had not left any long-term damage and who was not a prisoner of war, and my mother soon found a job. He worked as a parcel courier at the post office, and she was a clerk at a retail company. My parents didn't have big salaries, but they had work and, therefore, a certain degree of security.
Childhood in the rubble
I can't remember why my father was at home in the Guldeinstraße that afternoon and not at work. But I still clearly remember tripping during the Fangermandl game and hitting my head on a manhole cover. The wound just above the eye in my right eyebrow was bleeding profusely, and I was unsurprisingly upset. At the time, people didn't have any medication or bandages at home, nor was there an emergency telephone number that could have been used to call paramedics or an ambulance. Apart from that, there was no rescue service as we know it today. So my father carried me on his shoulders all the way, more than three kilometres, from Guldeinstraße to the clinic on Nussbaumstraße, where my wound was stitched and bandaged. The scar is still visible today.
Little Sabine, about four years old, was also running around, playing with the children in our street, and was less lucky than me. She was run over by a lorry in front of us and died instantly. I didn't see the moment of the accident, but I saw Sabine lying under the twin rear tyres of the lorry. She was dead. Nobody could explain how the accident had happened. There were few cars on the road at the time. Maybe that's why she hadn't recognised the lorry as a danger. It was a mystery. All the residents of the neighbourhood, but especially those in Guldeinstraße, where the accident had happened, were in shock for a long time.
Looking back, I only realise today that we children of the post-war period lived quite dangerously. The playgrounds of my entire childhood were backyards, streets, and the surrounding ruins. There were adventures to be had there.
We searched through the ruins and rubble for pieces of brass or copper, for which we got a few pennies from the ironmonger and tugged at the cables, never suspecting what might be lurking under the rubble at the other end. Possibly an unexploded bomb!
Well, and of course, we also did some dangerous nonsense. There was a camp nearby made of planks nailed together. We didn't know what it had once been used for. Maybe it was a shooting range because we found a lot of cartridges in it. If we had also found a suitable weapon, an accident would certainly have happened. But as it was, we found another way to ensure it went off. We dug the cartridges we had collected into the ground and set them alight. We were very impressed by our heroic deed.
Parents in our neighbourhood at that time were not overprotective. The adults reminded the children to watch out for this and that, to leave this and that alone, and then left them to their own devices or in the care of their older siblings.
Nothing happened to my sister and me. We were lucky or perhaps protected because my working parents hired a domestic help to look after my sister and me before and after school or kindergarten. Sometimes, she would send me to the Bürgerheim pub at Bergmannstraße 33 to buy a single "American cigarette" for 30 pfennigs. She allowed herself this luxury.
The Bürgerheim pub still exists today. In the post-war period, it was an important meeting place for the residents of Schwanthalerhöhe. Not only was a warming centre set up there, but even after the currency reform, cheap food such as lung ragout with potatoes was still available for ration stamps. This is a mixture of innards such as sour lung and pork belly.
Currency reform 1948
Speaking of currency reform. The currency reform on 21 June 1948 put an end to the economic and everyday chaos of inflation, black markets and shortages. The changes were almost immediately visible in the shop windows. Where there had been nothing before, overnight, there suddenly was bread and sausage and fabrics and clothes and the like.
The shopkeepers had hoarded goods so they could sell them from the cut-off date for good money. All those who didn't own anything in kind only had the one-time 40 DM allowance per family member. Savings were exchanged for RM 100 at DM 6.50. A huge loss. In the end, savers were among the losers.
On the eve of the currency reform, you could no longer buy anything for Reichsmark, and everyone realised it wasn't worth hoarding the worthless money.
My friends and I have this fact to thank for our very special miracle of the currency reform.
We were about nine years old and already realised that the adults were in a frenzy because the currency reform would finally become a reality. The term meant very little to us, only that there would be different money.
Of course, we didn't realise the significance of such a currency changeover in everyday life, and, to be honest, we didn't care. But what made us euphoric on Saturday, 19 June 1948, was that people gave us money. Just like that. Unbelievable!
On this memorable day, we suddenly owned 20 Reichsmarks. What a wealth!
Naturally, we wanted to use it to afford an otherwise unaffordable pleasure. We decided to take the tram to the zoo. That alone was an event in itself. From there, we walked to Lake Hinterbrühl.
We imagined how we would pompously and boastfully rent a boat from the local boat lender, Mr Wagner, and pay generously with our own money. Then, like we thought rich people tend to do, we would sail across the lake and simply do nothing. All the way to the boat rental, we talked about what it would be like and how surprised the boat lender would look.
We didn't quite understand why Mr Wagner didn't want our money. He waved us off and said that we could keep our worthless money. Our dream of making big payments and cruising around like rich people was over.
But our disappointment was limited because the good man took pity on us and let us travel on his wooden boat for free. In our imagination, we were no longer rich people but wild pirates on the seven seas. There was something about that!
Post-war children and their little happiness
Our wishes were very modest. We children considered ourselves lucky if we had saved up 10 pennies to buy a Stranitze with dried apple peel from the grocery shop "Decker" on the corner of Kazmair and Ganghoferstraße on our way to school.
The term "Stranitze" is no longer known today. These are triangular bags made from newspaper. Today, this type of bag, although no longer made from newspaper, is still used, for example for roasted almonds,
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, wafer crumbs with leftover chocolate were an absolute luxury—one bag for 35 pfennigs. We could only afford that very rarely and only if we pooled our money.
What a lucky coincidence that the large "Limmer" bakery was in the neighbouring house. The bakery was located in the rear building, and we, the children from Gollierstraße, found it very interesting to see how the large sacks of flour were unloaded from the delivery lorries and lifted by a small crane attached to the front of the building.
And we hoped that baker Limmer would appear in the courtyard and ask us if we had already sweated today. We always eagerly answered affirmatively because if we said we had sweated, we were given pretzels. We never asked ourselves what was behind this question. The main thing was that we got a pretzel!
The "Pfanni dumpling"
From 1947, the exhibition centre, bordered by Theresienwiese to the east, Ganghoferstraße to the west, Heimeranstraße to the north and Pfeufer and Radlkoferstraße to the south, was once again home to exhibitions of all kinds. Of course, we children would have been very interested to see and taste everything there was to see and taste, but we didn't have the money for the entry fee. I can't remember exactly which food fair it was and what year it was in the 1940s, but we were determined to get inside. There was bound to be something delicious to taste. And we made extensive preparations to ensure that we would succeed.
Before the opening, we loosened some planks from the fencing at a suitable spot in Heimeranstraße so that they only hung from a nail at the top. We could then push them aside if necessary and quickly slip through. Once we were on the site, everything was straightforward. We walked unnoticed to the lighthouse in front of Hall 7 and waited for the inspector to make his rounds at the entrance. We naturally mingled with the visitors, looked at the goods on offer and were magically drawn to the Pfanni stand. Why? There was something to try.
We didn't know then that we were about to enjoy a historic innovation in the food industry and ready-made products - the Pfanni dumpling.
In 1949, Werner Eckart set up the Pfanni factory in the Munich district of Berg am Laim near the Ostbahnhof railway station and added the "Urknödel" (original dumpling) to his range of dried potato products. Pfanni also presented this "Urknödel" to an astonished audience at a food fair or the Munich Central Agricultural Festival in 1949. I can't say for sure. The decades-long triumph of this ready-made product is well known.
We children of the post-war period certainly appreciated that we were allowed to try these little dumplings with tomato sauce at the trade fair stand. It was a real treat!
It was certainly worthwhile for Pfanni to treat us children so generously because we were the customers of the future.
In any case, I have enjoyed eating Pfanni dumplings all my life, but with roast pork and not with tomato sauce.
Many years later, while working as a parcel carrier, I got to know the managing director of Pfanni-Werke, Dr Lange, and told him about our illegal visit to the trade fair and the dumpling feast. I am only now honouring his request to write this story down. I first had to learn to type on a typewriter and then on a keyboard. But better late than never!
Neckache Row at the cinema
However, we couldn't scam our way into one of the cinemas in Schwanthalerhöhe as we could at the fair, so we kids had to beg our parents for some money. None of us were given regular pocket money.
The Merkur cinema at Gollierstraße 24, which opened in 1927 and closed in 1962, was the most popular. I can still remember the silent film "Goldrausch" (Gold Rush) (1925) with Charlie Chaplin and "Das große Treiben" (The Overlanders) (1946). But of course, we boys were particularly impressed by the westerns starring the American actor Tom Mix (*1880 to +1940).
Tom Mix, the cowboy with style and a big heart, also appeared in German cinemas in the 1920s, and his films were very popular. The cinema-goers of the 20s and us boys of the 40s liked the dramatic and adventurous stories of the Wild West hero, which were humorously told on the screen in black and white and mostly silent.
As children, we always took seats in the so-called "neckache row" in the cinema when we had the 85 pfennigs entrance fee together. These were the cheapest seats in the very front row. We had to bend our heads way back to see the whole screen. After a while, you would get neckache, hence the name "neckache row".
In those days, when nobody had a television but at most a radio, going to the cinema was a very welcome form of entertainment. Back then, several cinemas in our neighbourhood were within walking distance. In addition to the "Merkur", we could also go to the "Westend", the "Ganghofer" and the "Eden", as long as we had somehow managed to raise the 85 pfennigs entrance fee.
Swimming in the "Dante"
There was no outdoor pool in our neighbourhood. To go swimming, we children had to go to the "Dantebad" in the Gern district. That was a good four kilometres away, about an hour's walk, and then, tired from swimming and romping around, an hour back again. There was a tram connection, but we saved ourselves the 20 pennies for the tram because otherwise, we wouldn't have had enough money for the entry fee to the Dante.
We only travelled to the Dantebad by car once, which was an adventure. A neighbour, Mr Schindlauer, offered us a lift to the outdoor pool in the back of his Ford lorry with a wood-gas engine. We were thrilled and sat excitedly on the back of the lorry. It was the first car journey of our lives.
In 1948, on the day of our holy communion, we were allowed to go by car again. My friend Fritzl, who lived in the same house as me, Annerl from the neighbouring house and I were invited by the baker Limmer to celebrate the day by driving with him to Lake Starnberg in his English "Austin Traveller", a kind of estate car. We sat in amazement on the wooden loading area. What an experience! Such a great car and so fast!
But as the journey progressed, Annerl got quieter and quieter and huddled in her corner. She felt sick from the rocking on the rather bumpy road to Starnberg. At that time, there was still no sign of a motorway for miles around. Annerl wasn't feeling well at all and had to vomit. Of course, that wasn't how Mr Limmer had imagined it. But he took it in his stride. But we children all agreed that the trip had been fantastic. Despite Annerl's sickness!
The first Wies'n
Yes, we children from Schwanthalerhöhe lived in modest circumstances, but I have fond memories of those years as a school child. Everything was an adventure. Many things were experienced for the first time. After all, we war children had been young children at a time when the world around us was getting darker and poorer. In the post-war period, new doors and paths were opening. And many things were also "for the first time - again!" for the adults.
The first "Wiesn" (Oktoberfest on the Theresienwiese) after the war took place in September 1949. For me and all the other 10-year-olds, it was the first Oktoberfest of our lives because no Oktoberfest had been held from 1939 to 1949. It was a tremendous event.
Business-minded as we were, we pushed the carousel at the Stibor children's carousel for 10 pennies an hour and then jumped on and went for a ride. This ride still ran without a motor. We had to use our own strength to get it going. What luck for us!
We could afford the 20 pfennigs entrance fee for the Devil's Wheel with our money earned. You were allowed to ride for as long as you wanted; of course, we made the most of it. It was great fun. This cult ride is still trendy at the Oktoberfest today.
When we got hungry, we went to the chicken roastery and begged for the chopped- off chicken offcuts we were given to nibble on.
That was our world, and the Theresienwiese, which is so world-famous today because of the Oktoberfest, was part of it. I learnt to ride a bike there, for example. It was an ideal place for it. It was a vast square where nothing was happening most of the time except during the two weeks of the Oktoberfest.
My father had assembled a bike for me from parts of old bikes, and now I was learning how to ride on the Theresienwiese. There was no obstacle in sight, just a vast empty space. Some distance away, an elderly couple strolled unsuspectingly across the area. But as part of my cycling exercises, I rode right between the man's legs from behind. I was utterly baffled about how this could have happened, and the man was understandably very annoyed. He called me a stupid idiot and barked at me unnecessarily, asking if I couldn't have been more careful. If I could have, I would have done so immediately, but I was distracted by balancing and pedalling!
Schwanthalerhöhe or Westend, a working-class neighbourhood
Schwanthalerhöhe, also known as Westend, was created at the end of the 19th century. Although initially planned as a residential suburb of Munich, it developed into a densely populated working-class neighbourhood. This was because many industrial companies were established along the railway line, which meant work for the people. The accommodation offered by private landlords to workers and their families in the rear buildings and courtyards was dark, small, damp and unhealthy. Water had to be fetched in the hallway, and there was one toilet for several tenants in the stairwell.
When the workers joined to form co-operatives and built their own apartment blocks, living conditions improved somewhat. The standards of the co-operative flats were basic, but at least they were no longer run-down neighbourhoods.
Social tensions repeatedly led to a high crime level, and the Westend and Schwanthalerhöhe neighbourhoods were known as the "broken glass district" and "robbers' quarter".
I don't know whether our neighbourhood also had a bad reputation in the 1940s and early 1950s. Children aren't interested in such things. We weren't aware that there were no villas in our neighbourhood but rather run-down apartment blocks with peeling plaster. And compared to the ruins that existed for quite a while after the end of the war, every block of flats looked lovely.
Of all the possible crimes committed in a "robbers' neighbourhood", I can only remember one. A murder in our street, at Gollierstraße 36!
A woman who lived on the ground floor was found murdered. For the adults who discussed this case heatedly, it was because this married woman went to another man who lived in the neighbourhood whenever her husband wasn't at home. It was a complete mystery to us children why she would be murdered because she was visiting someone. The whole thing was very mysterious!
Nevertheless, we weren't afraid of a murderer in our street. We instinctively believed that this crime had nothing to do with us children.
We soon forgot all about it. It wasn't that exciting after all.
Our family gradually moved away from Schwanthalerhöhe. At the end of the 1940s, we moved with my grandmother to a larger flat at Maistraße 4 in Ludwigsvorstadt. For me, this meant moving to Tumblingerschule. In 1951, my father got us a flat in the post office block at Ruffinistraße 9 in Nymphenburg-Neuhausen. I had to go to a new school again, the Renata School. But I always made friends quickly, and many children lived in our block of flats. So it was no problem to make friends.
In 1953, after the 8th grade, I started my professional life at the age of 14. I did an apprenticeship as a carpenter in Kazmairstraße. So, every morning, I returned to my old home on Schwanthalerhöhe or in the Westend, whatever you want to call it.
What happened to me then is another story. (HB)
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