From carpenter's apprentice to civil servant
- titanja1504
- Aug 14, 2024
- 16 min read
Updated: Aug 16, 2024
-Munich 1953 until the 90s-
(DE) On the morning of 3rd August 1953, I stood proudly and excitedly before the Bauer carpentry workshop in Kazmairstraße on Schwanthalerhöhe in Munich, where I was to start my apprenticeship. Nobody was there yet. In my mind, I went through my parents' instructions again: Pay attention, learn, don't be rude, be friendly and polite!
When the journeyman finally arrived on his bike, I greeted him with a polite 'Good morning' and introduced myself as the new apprentice. 'Lad,' he replied,' I'm going to make your apprenticeship as sour as possible!'
Apprenticeship years are not master years
Naturally, I was very shocked and offended by this threat. I hadn't done anything wrong yet, and what would this guy say or even do if I did something wrong?
During the three years of my apprenticeship, I no longer trusted this journeyman, although he occasionally showed his more peaceful side. I remained distant. I can't say whether he or the boss really made my life as sour as possible because, as an apprentice, you had to do what you were told without argument. And nobody cared how the orders were given. I accepted it as inevitable but didn't let it affect my self-esteem. But the journeyman could never persuade me to go on any mountain hikes with him and his friends. I owed it to myself and my pride.
I don't think this journeyman ever thought about how to educate and deal with young people. In the 50s and 60s, the most important thing people thought about was showing children and young people boundaries and making them subordinate. Schoolchildren were allowed to be beaten by their teachers. The saying 'apprentice years are not master years' was common at that time and meant young people should not get the idea that they deserve individual rights and respect!
In the spirit of that time, I did what I was told. I even did jobs I could barely manage based on my strength. For example, I regularly had to fetch panels from the Hochstraße in the east of Munich on a two-wheeled cart because the carpentry didn't have a lorry. That was about five kilometres across the city and then back again with the loaded cart. When I had to heave the heavily loaded barrow up the Theresienberg to Kazmairstraße, I would hardly have managed without the help of friendly passers-by. But complaining was not an option. You just didn't do that as an apprentice.
Besides, not only did I enjoy the carpentry trade, but I will never forget the first money I earned myself.
8 DM weekly wage
As a first-year apprentice, I had eight marks a week in my pay packet, which was always placed on the circular saw on Saturdays, just before the end of the day. I used my very first apprentice's salary to buy myself ice skates. (Food prices in 1954 for comparison)
When the basin of the Nymphenburg Canal was frozen in winter, young and old people would meet there to skate to the beat of the music by Rudi Schurike, Willi Hagara and Bulli Buhlan. A loudspeaker provided sound for the skaters on the ice, who danced to the hit list of the 50s.
Even today, people still skate on the Nymphenburg Canal in winter, but without music. Groups meet to play curling or ice hockey. This tradition has been preserved in the Neuhausen-Nymphenburg district.
When I was 16 years old, I earned a bit more and could buy a Viktoria moped on instalments from the Kocian bicycle shop at Frundsbergstraße 13 - 15 with the help of my parents. There is still a bike shop in that house today.
Motorised in this way, I reached my training workshop more comfortably and could meet friends in other parts of Munich. One of them gave me my first sexual experience with a girl. It wasn't really romantic, but it was effective.
First sexual experiences
This older friend often had a storm-free weekend because his single mother, a tram conductor, regularly worked shifts on Sundays. On Sunday afternoons like this, we would get two bottles of 'Insel Samos' wine from a nearby builders' canteen, which was open on Sundays, and drink them together with his girlfriend, Maria. Usually, at some point, the two would disappear into the bedroom. But one day, my boyfriend thought I should learn about lovemaking. He left the bedroom door ajar so I could overhear their lovemaking sounds. Then he called me to join them, and it's fair to say that nobody had to enlighten me from then on.
In the 1950s, sexuality was an absolute taboo in public. If you consider the extreme reaction by the church and politicians to the brief flash of Hildegard Knef's naked skin in the film 'The Sinner', my first steps into the world of physical love must have been extraordinarily condemnable and naughty. However, as is always the case when morals and taboos are held exceptionally high in society, very few people abide by them. People continue to do immoral things in secret.
According to an official survey from the early 1950s, pregnancy was the reason for marriage for three-quarters of those who wanted to get married. Contraception was not openly discussed.
A few years later, when I met the love of my life, we unsurprisingly didn't abide by moral rules, and our son was already three months old when we got married in August 1960.
For us three young people, however, our first sexual experiences back then had no consequences. After a few more delightful Sunday afternoons, sometimes also with a friend of Maria's, we lost sight of each other. Our lives went our separate ways, which is quite common with teenage friendships.
Higher wages for unskilled labour in the industry
In any case, I completed my carpentry apprenticeship on 22nd September 1956 and worked for almost another year as a journeyman in the company where I trained. Business was good for Bauer Carpentery at that time. We had many lucrative orders from churches. I often worked in the Bürgersaal church in Neuhauser Straße in the centre of Munich. However, the owner of the carpentry workshop was already well over 70 years old and couldn't find a successor to take over the workshop.
At the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s, craftsmanship lost its golden touch, as the saying goes. Industrial production conquered the markets. So, it was clear that this traditional craft business would soon close.
However, the wage gap between small craft businesses and industrial companies was critical for us workers and craftsmen.
The weekly wage for a journeyman in the 1950s was 53.76 DM gross. With a 48-hour week, that was an hourly wage of DM 1.12.
One of my friends worked as an unskilled knitter in one of Munich's many stocking factories and earned DM 2.40 an hour. I didn't have to think twice about it.
Less than a year after my carpenter examination, I gave up the job I had learnt. I now took finished stockings off the 12 machines at the Hadi stocking factory in Winzererstraße daily, hung them up and transported them to be packed.
The textile industry became a significant economic factor in Bavaria, mainly due to the founding of companies by refugees and displaced persons from the former eastern territories and Eastern Germany (GDR) at the end of the Second World War. In 1955, there were around 1380 textile companies throughout Bavaria. In particular, the production of nylon stockings generated large sales figures in the 1950s due to its fashion. In 1957, the number of people employed in the textile industry in Bavaria peaked at 119,688, and I was one of them.
I didn't mind the monotony of the work because, as a young man in the era of the economic miracle in Germany, I had many dreams I wanted to fulfil. For example, I could buy a roadworthy but damaged NSU Lambretta from my friend Alois and lovingly refurbished it. We even planned trips with this Lambretta. The world was open to us.
And because our labour was also in great demand, I changed employers again, namely to the Tauber stocking factory on Biederstein. Here, we worked 60 hours a week in shifts, which increased our weekly wages considerably. 144 DM gross per week, that was very good! You could do a lot with that!
I thought I would use my well-paid job at the Tauber stocking factory to build a livelihood and enjoy life in my free time.
But things turned out differently!
A strange note was posted on the notice board in the entrance area one Monday. Payments to creditors had been cancelled. But the employees shouldn't worry because of the company's excellent business situation.
It was true; the shop was buzzing. Production was running at full speed, and despatch took place as usual. Turnover had probably not collapsed. So what reason would there be to close the factory?
On Wednesday of the same week, I worked the day shift and experienced an absurd scenario. Unknown business people entered the machine room and identified themselves as creditors. They took the Perlon bobbins and yarns from the machines. This stopped the work process.
We workers demanded clarification, but neither the management secretary nor the union representative knew anything. The company owners, Mr and Mrs Tauber, were absent and could not be reached by phone.
When the bankruptcy administrator turned up late in the afternoon, we finally received information about our situation:
The company was practically bankrupt and had filed for bankruptcy. The bankruptcy administrator had to give notice to every employee, and a letter to that effect would be handed out later. However, the notice period of 14 days had to be observed, and everyone had to turn up for work every day during these two weeks, even though there was nothing left to do.
So we sat in the halls, played cards and watched the creditors take away the inventory and machines. It was an absurd situation.
Mr Tauber and his wife, had gone abroad and could no longer be legally prosecuted for the delayed bankruptcy. One of the main creditors, probably ruined by the bankruptcy, committed suicide, according to press reports.
All employees were made redundant and had to look for new jobs at the end of the notice period. A takeover and continuation of the business was not planned and was no longer possible due to a lack of machinery and inventory.
'On the dole'
So at the end of August 1958, I was out of work, registered as unemployed and had to go to the job centre on Thalkirchner Straße every week to 'sign in'.
During this time, unemployed people had to go to the clerk at the job centre once a week to ask for work. If no suitable job was available, you got a stamp on the back of your registration card and received your unemployment payment at the cash desk on the ground floor. In my case, that was around DM 58 per week. That was quite a lot of money these days. I was still young and unattached back then, lived at home with my parents, had hardly any commitments and therefore felt like I was on holiday during the first two weeks of my unemployment.
Of course, the clerk at the job centre knew the job market in Munich very well. He also knew that a young man like me with training and work experience would have no problem finding work if he wanted to. That's why he called me a 'lazy dog' when I approached him to either be offered a job or to get the stamp for the unemployment payment. At that time, it was not an offence for an employee of the job centre to insult an unemployed person; instead, the unemployed person felt ashamed and stigmatised. So did I.
After two weeks - and on my own initiative - I got a job at the Haaser & Co. hosiery factory in Augustenstraße in Munich's Maxvorstadt district.
Dreams and decisions
Now, I was back at work and planning a several-week-long holiday trip to France with my mate on my NSU scooter. Such a trip abroad was a dream, and we had a lot to think about: what was essential to take with us, saving money and exchange our DM into francs, checking the expiry date of our passports, finding out about cheap accommodation in travel books or agencies, getting maps and a German-French dictionary ... Back then, there was still a border between Germany and France. There were still different currencies in Germany and France, and there was no internet to consult or mobile phone to help you find your way around and communicate abroad. Information had to be painstakingly gathered, or you had to set off on the off-chance and then solve the problems on the spot.
During all these preparations, I came across a pretty distraction. She had blue-grey eyes, and I fell in love with her immediately.
As with almost 20-year-olds, you can't tear yourself away from the person you love when you fall in love. I found myself in a dilemma. Should I go away for a few weeks and leave my Marianne behind in Munich, or should I stay in Munich and not have the wind blow on my face on the faraway roads or see France?
I usually asked my father for advice when faced with such difficult decisions.
He suggested I stay with my girl and spend time with her if I really loved her.
What can I say? I didn't see France until much later in life. Instead, I became a father to a son in May 1960 at 21 and a husband in August 1960. We said yes to each other in St Anthony's Church in Kapuzinerstraße, and we celebrated our wedding in a modest setting at the Frundsberg restaurant in Neuhausen.
This year, 1960, really had it all because the Bundeswehr, founded in 1955, as the army was called from 1956 onwards, also asked for me. I received my conscription notice.
Unrecognised conscientious objector
'Never, do you hear me, never pick up a weapon!' my father had told me over and over again because of his own war experiences. I didn't want to serve as a soldier in an army myself. So, I looked for ways to escape the compulsory military service. I sought advice from Jehovah's Witnesses, who have years of experience with conscientious objection. But that wasn't as helpful as the support of an SPD (German Social Democratic Party) man from our circle of acquaintances who knew about the legal situation.
On his advice, I refused to undergo the medical examination and was given a certificate of fitness grade 3 'after external assessment'. (see document left) I had not allowed myself to be examined by the doctors at the conscription board. Of course, as a conscientious objector under Article 4(3) of the German Constitution, I also had to answer questions about my conscience in front of an examination board, which, as expected, asked me questions like: 'What do you do when there's a fire?' There were no 'right' answers to such questions, and I didn't find any.
Therefore, I am officially an unrecognised conscientious objector and could have been called up. (see the following document)
However, they obviously had no use for me because the alternative civilian service had not yet been set up, and I would have been a nuisance in the army. So, I was spared from military service and planned to build a life for myself and my family.
The impact of the block formation on my life
But this was thwarted by the State's regional economic management. The formation of a bloc between East and West and the Cold War between the European states led by the USA and the Eastern European states led by the Soviet Union resulted in the Iron Curtain being lowered along the border with the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (CSSR) and the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The final division of Germany began with the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961.
In Bavaria, the areas along the border with the (eastern) German Democratic Republic and Czechoslovakia were now 'zonal border areas'. The previously lively economic relations with eastern Germany and Czechoslovakia no longer existed, and the trade routes were largely blocked.
There was hardly any work in the towns west of the 'zone border'. Many travelled to the big cities such as Munich, Nuremberg and Regensburg to work week after week and only returned to their villages at the weekend. Others turned their backs on their homeland and settled further west in parts of the country where the economic miracle was in full swing, where there were jobs, schools, modern shops and leisure facilities.
To prevent impoverishment in the border zone, the Bavarian State supported the border region with economic programmes intended to make it attractive for businesses to settle here, for example, by subsidising wages.
My employer, Haaser & Co., therefore relocated its production from Augustenstraße in Munich to Furth im Wald in the Upper Palatinate district in 1961, right in the centre of the border zone with Czechoslovakia.
The company management asked me to go with them to Furth im Wald for the time being to train the new workforce. The boom in stocking production in Munich was slowing down noticeably at this time. Closures and migration to rural regions were the order of the day. So I went with them to the Upper Palatinate.
During these months, my little family often visited my parents-in-law's farm in Loipfering in Lower Bavaria. This way, I could at least manage the 110 kilometres between Furth im Wald and Loipfering over the weekend to be with my family. Between Munich, where we lived in a room with my aunt in a typical traditional flat at Maistraße 4, and Furth im Wald were almost 200 km. At that time, there was no motorway, so one had to drive along minor roads and through villages. The journey would have taken far too long for a weekend. You also have to bear in mind that people were still working on Saturdays back then.
I had known that I wouldn't have a future with Haaser and Co. in Furth im Wald, but the fact that they sacked me a few weeks before Christmas after I had completed my work there really hit me. After all that hard work, I would have loved to have received my Christmas bonus.
Parcel deliverer - a vocation
The Christmas period is not the best time to look for a job. So, I was unemployed for a while, and it didn't feel like a holiday this time. After Christmas, I secured an employment contract as an insurance agent at Frankfurter Versicherungs AG. I was now often out in the evenings and at weekends advising customers. Neither I nor my wife enjoyed such a life. This work was definitely detrimental to family life.
The year 1962 also held some positive surprises for us.
Our little daughter Brigitte was born in October 1962, making us a family of four.
Because life with two children in one room was very stressful, my mother used her connections with the housing association in Neuhausen. As a result, we were awarded a 65-square-metre flat at Erhard-Auer-Straße 8, which we moved into in November 1962 and where we still live today.
However, I still had to continue to work as an insurance agent until March 1964. I am a positive person and always look for and find the good things in everything, but my dissatisfaction with this job grew and grew.
My father, who had already worked as an employee and later as a civil servant at the Deutsche Post (the German Mail Office) after the war, persuaded me to work there too.
I had never dreamed of becoming a civil servant. It was definitely not my career aspiration, and I couldn't imagine what a post office job would be like.
But I followed my father's advice and became a parcel deliverer at the post office in 1964.
It turned out that this job was my calling. The independence at work, namely in the Postbus on the roads in my district, getting to know and dealing with my customers, gave me great pleasure throughout my life.
In 1970, I became a civil servant, and in 1995, I took early retirement with a heavy heart following the privatisation of Deutsche Post.
I have experienced a lot and gained unique experiences in all these years.
Experiences from the world of parcel deliverers
Together with a colleague, I will tell what it feels like when you want to drive off in a fully loaded Postbus but suddenly have the free-swinging gear lever in your hand. Or why does a parcel delivery driver sit in the car and cry? We also want to tell you about our good relationships with our customers, about the 'Rosenkavalier' (the Knight of the Rose, an opera by Richard Strauss), the hero of everyday life and about the search for recipients on the large construction site of the hospital in Großhadern.
(HB)
Sources and background information on the contemporary phenomena mentioned:
Further information on the history of education and pedagogy:
In the 1950s, the education of children and young people was strongly characterised by the ideas of enlightenment education, which aimed to drive out the feral nature of children and young people and instil reason. From 1977 onwards, there was a name for this violent pedagogy, which also relied on intimidation: Black Pedagogy. (Katharina Rutschky, 'Black Pedagogy')
It was not until 1973 that corporal punishment was banned in schools in the German federal states and in Bavaria only ten years later. In 2000, the following was enshrined in Section 1631 of the German Civil Code: 'Children have a right to a non-violent upbringing. Physical punishment, psychological injury and other degrading measures are not permitted.'
It is also interesting to note that corporal punishment in schools was abolished in Finland as early as 1914, in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1949 and in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) only between 1973 and 1983.
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Further information on prices and purchasing power in the 1950s:
To better appreciate the value and purchasing power of the 8 DM apprentice salary, some selected food prices from 1954 are listed here:
1 kilogram of butter/ DM 6.32; 1 kilogram of pork/ DM 5.19; 1 kilogram of coffee/ DM 27.50; 1 kilogram of potatoes/ DM 0.45; 1 egg/ DM 0.22;
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Further information on morality in the 50s:
According to official surveys, in the early years of the Federal Republic of Germany, almost three-quarters of new marriages have a child on the way. However, pregnancies were not openly discussed, and pregnant bellies were hidden under flowing maternity clothes. According to the prevailing morals, sexuality was not an issue, recalls Hanna Laux: 'I didn't talk about sexual matters with my friends either. We were pigtail girls, shy and harmless to the point of 'no more'.'
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Further information on the textile industry and hosiery production in Bavaria:
In Bavaria, numerous hosiery companies specialising in the production of fine Nylon stockings ventured into a new start, such as Elbeo from Saxony, which first moved to Augsburg, or Kunert from Bohemia, which settled in Immenstadt. Even the well-known textile company Dierig relocated its headquarters from Langenbielau (Bielawa) in Lower Silesia to Augsburg, where it had already owned the Mechanical Weaving Mill on Mühlbach since January 1918. Of almost 1,380 Bavarian textile companies in September 1955, around 42% were owned by refugees and displaced persons, most of which were small businesses. The Bavarian textile industry grew in the wake of the so-called economic miracle. By 1957, the number of employees had risen to a peak of 119,688. In Augsburg alone, 17,500 people were employed in this industry.
(...)
The year 1957 marked a momentous turning point in the history of the German textile industry, as the volume of foreign textile imports exceeded the volume of German exports for the first time. These imports initially came from Western Europe, such as France and Belgium, and over the years, they have also increasingly come from Eastern Europe, such as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria. The liberalised foreign trade responsible for this - together with the reduction in customs duties - began to negatively impact Bavarian textile companies, which often had a low export quota. This was the beginning of a profound structural crisis in the textile industry in Bavaria.
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Further information on conscientious objection in the FRG:
The fundamental right to conscientious objection was enshrined in the German Constitution in 1948. However, this did not mean that the State created appropriate structures for dealing with conscientious objectors after rearmament and the founding of the Bundeswehr in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG).
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Further information on the borderland programme in the 1960s:
The Bavarian border region was severely disadvantaged economically by the Iron Curtain on the border with Czechoslovakia and the GDR. The Bavarian state government, therefore, launched programmes to support the region's economic structure.
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