My Father's Country by Wibke Bruhns

Author:Wibke Bruhns [Bruhns, Wibke]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2009-11-10T00:00:00+00:00

EIGHT

Grandfather Kurt

THERE’S ANOTHER FAMILY reunion in 1925, this time in Berlin-Grunewald at the home of the banker Walter Klamroth. He’s a cousin of Kurt’s, a lawyer and the association’s treasurer, and I remember that the duelling scars on his face fascinated me just as much as the claim that people used to have such wounds inflicted voluntarily. Uncle Walter was in the ‘Hansea’ corps. He wore a pince-nez, and as a child I hoped in vain that it would fall off his nose. It’s the first time that HG and his wife attend a family reunion together: in 1923 pregnant Else bravely went on her own, HG was in Bochum; there was no family reunion in 1924, but Else had been pregnant again, as she is this time – HG: ‘I promised her the prettiest dress for the next family reunion.’ Forty-six family members came to this one, and the clan set off in three motor boats ‘and with a lot of wine’ first to the Pfaueninsel in the Havel river, then to the parks of Sakrow and Sanssouci.

Kurt, the archivist, presents them with their ‘sociological family tree’, and delivers a lecture on ‘the social rise of the Klamroth dynasty through the generations’ – from farmer to estate-owner; from worker to factory-owner; village schoolteacher – vicar – private scholar; once a clerk, now a senior member of the government. He tells them how the ‘influx of fresh blood’ brought in by the wives contributed to the family’s impetus, since the men at the top no longer looked for wives in the neighbouring villages. He speaks of blood from Hanover and blood from Hessen and Franken, all Protestant blood, incidentally. Else’s blood is singled out for approval – not just Mecklenburg, but Denmark, too! Then they sit down in Pschorr’s Bierkeller, forty-six happy Klamroths, ennobled by blood and soil, ten years later they will sing: ‘From my father’s side comes my Klamroth blood, and a good drop of blood it is too (schrumm schrumm). So let’s raise a toast to our fine pedigree, for noble it is, through and through!!’

By that time they’ve lost their innocence. They still find it funny – schrumm schrumm – however, by then their blood is part of a trend. But in 1925? The Klamroths weren’t folkish, they were strangers to zeal. They weren’t anti-Semitic, at least no more than was usual in those days and what was befitting to social respectability. Jews weren’t their issue. Not yet. They were nationalistic, though. Not so much as to rule out a desire for understanding between nations; membership of their social class certainly allowed the Klamroths to cross borders. They were good people, decent, liberal within limits and proud not of their ‘blood’ but of their ancestors’ achievement, which imposed a duty upon them. They nurtured their common ground as a family, and that was then called ‘blood’.

Else fits in very well with all this. She is a family animal herself, and the many Danes and Mecklenburgers she

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