The Autobiography of Devon Miles
The Summer of 1937
Before the idea of a "gap year" became popular in Great Britain, children of well-to-do families often traveled to the continent or the Mediterranean during the summers of their later teen years. Young girls went with their mothers to Paris, Milan, Zurich, and Monte Carlo to ostensibly absorb culture, but really to begin to accumulate a fashionable wardrobe and to make contact with other families of their class, both British and otherwise. Boys and their fathers often went on camping, hunting or archeological treks, where without the intrusion of the women of the family, they could discuss the things a young man "needed to know" in the world.
It was thus that my father and I spent ten weeks during the summer of 1937 tramping through Austria and Germany. Father had some distant cousins in Bavaria that he maintained contact with. I had already studied German in school, and the time spent on the continent improved my skill and accent immensely. By the time we were preparing to leave, I looked and sounded like an Aryan youth in my lederhosen and hiking boots. When I first saw Mother again after that summer, she thought I spoke with a slight German accent, but she might have been making a small joke. I am still not certain.
We left the second week in June, taking a short sea journey to Bremerhaven in the north of Germany. From there we boarded the train to Berlin where we would actually start our tramp. We did spend several days in the city, looking at the sites. The Brandenburg Gate was impressive, and Father and I got a chuckle at the carving of the Roman goddess Victoria. She is the goddess of victory and is depicted driving a chariot. The Brandenburg Gate was completed before the birth of our Queen Victoria, but the depiction of the woman is prescient. Father, a complete and total Victorian, down to the muttonchops and mustaches, was still enamored of the old Queen. The idea of her driving a chariot through London gave him a hearty laugh.
Next we saw the Reichstag. Hitler and his band, despite the infamous Reichstag fire of 1933, were there and scheming up more and more terrors and disasters for the world. This was unknown to us at the time, so we admired the building, especially its steel and glass cupola, the first of its kind. We finished our time by visiting several of the fine museums and churches the city has.
We headed to Potsdam, where we found more impressive schloss and palaces, museums, and parks, but we were both itching to head into to the forests of Germany, so we rapidly made our way to Dresden to the Sächsische Schweis ("Saxon Switzerland") in the Elbe Valley. It is a beautiful place with great variety in its hills and mountains. Although it was a little chilly still in June, walking through and camping under its trees was a great adventure for a 15-year-old. From there we headed west to the Kellerwald-Edersee Park, a glorious place with both beaches and mountains. It is very popular, since it is home to a large beech tree forest, but it is so large that one never need come across another person. I had brought a camera with me and I still have a wonderful photo of Father standing on the trunk of a tree that had partially fallen into the Eder River. He had on his boots, his sturdy hiking shorts, and nothing else. He is smiling his wide, toothy smile for me and looking like he was quite enjoying himself. And indeed he was, for not only was this a chance to spend time with me and talk about the ways of the world, it was a chance, a last chance for him, to pretend to be a young man again. The staid banker that I knew was dismissed for the summer and in his place there was an entirely different character; someone who enjoyed the most ridiculous pranks and wasn't above a little shove into a cold stream, a man who indulged his sweet tooth at every possible bakerei and café and a best friend who spoke simply and directly about women and sex. The Victorian had disappeared for the moment, the straight-laced British lord banished, and the true, natural man unleashed in those German forests. He looked quite a sight, I must say, with his Tyrolean hat perched on top of his head, his canvas hiking shorts held up by forest-green suspenders and his knock-knees on display for all to see. That was until he pointed out that I had the exact same knees!
Next, we traveled to the famed Black Forest, which is truly wild. There we took on a guide, a young man of twenty, by the name of Hans. Although the forest has been used by humans for at least a millennium, it is easy to get lost in and it is home to wolves and lynx, so Hans was a necessity. I don't think he cared much for Father and I, though. He made some remarks indicating that we were surprisingly fit for "Britishers" and seemed to find it amusing that we brought along bedrolls and cooking utensils for camping out of doors. Hans carried with him a knife, some twine, a few fish-hooks, a flint and steel fire-kit, and a large canvas which served all sorts of purposes. During the day it was a pack slung over his shoulder, carrying whatever we picked up along the way. At night, Hans made a lean-to of it with good-sized fallen branches. He would collect pine needles or dry leaves for his bed and pillow and climb under the lean-to, comfortable as an emperor. With his knife he would sharpen sturdy twigs and make a trap for rabbits, which we would cook over a fire. With his twine, fish-hooks and a long, supple twig, he would fish. He knew which mushrooms and berries were safe, how to watch the birds and the hawks to find fruit and carrion, how to read the clouds to predict the weather and how to tell time and direction from the angle of the sun and the moss on the trees. I didn't know at the time how many of these skills would come back to me just a few years later and help keep me alive.
From the Black Forest we turned east again, this time traveling to Regensburg, home of our cousins.
Regensberg is very old, like many towns in the region. It sits at the confluence of the Danube, Naab and Regen rivers and possesses a beautifully preserved medieval center. But, outstanding as the scenery and architecture was, what we saw most was the ugliness of the Nazi regime.
At one time Regensberg had a large Jewish community. It had been banished in the 15th century but had returned over time. While it held less than 500 individuals at the time of our visit, it was a very active community. There had been two Jewish members of the city council just a few years before and there had been many social welfare, cultural and educational organizations connected to the community. In 1933, however, the Nazi Party began the dismantlement of Jewish Regensberg, along with many other Jewish communities across the country. Public schools were closed to Jewish students and an economic boycott was encouraged. We found that we could not even be served in restaurants owned by Jews. If this was not shocking enough to a 15-year-old English schoolboy, the opinions of our cousins were an even more rude surprise.
Friedrich, the eldest of the Regensberg cousins was a rabid Nazi. He believed that the persecution of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and the mentally incompetent was a good thing, leading to the cleansing of the "blood" of the Aryan nation, and congratulated Father and I for being obviously "Aryan". His older son, Helmut, gratuitously pointed out that if I wished to stay in Germany, I would be easily absorbed into their culture and could have an excellent chance of high office in the Nazi Party. Other men in the family were intent on convincing Father to allow me to be introduced to their daughters because of my so-called "Aryan genetics" which would produce beautiful blonde-haired, blue-eyed grandchildren for them.
On our first evening with Friedrich, Helmut, his quiet and unassuming wife Herta and their two younger children, Paul, and Marta we went to the main square after dinner. Most of the other cousins and their families joined us, and all were in a jolly mood. There was to be a parade, and while Father may have guessed, I had no idea what we were in store for. After it was fully dark we heard the "tap-tap-tap" of jack-boots and saw the flames of hundreds of torches as the units of the local army barracks goose-stepped through the town. The townsfolk greeted the soldiers with shouts of "Heil Hitler" and broke into Nazi songs. I will never forget the rabid look that came over the crowd, the thirst for their nation to be recognized as above all others, stronger, more advanced, more righteous. They were crazed and filled with blood-lust. As the end of the parade passed by, the crowd began to follow, and we were swept along with them. Friedrich inclined his head toward Father and I and smiling told us that we would be going to the "Jew-part of the town". We really didn't want to be there in this awful crowd and Father tried to make some excuse for us to head off to our hostel, but our cousin wouldn't hear of it.
"Heinrich," I don't know why, but the German family always called Father that, "old man! Don't be so delicate. We are just removing some old garbage from the street!"
Moments later the crowd was in the street before the Jewish Social Agency. Fortunately, anyone who had been inside moments before had apparently escaped, because one of the soldiers used the butt of his bayoneted rifle to break through the plate glass at the front of the building. A member of the crowd grabbed a torch and threw it through the broken glass. Then another torch flew, and another and another until the building practically exploded. Father had some brief, terse words with Friedrich and then grabbed me. We were pushing against the tide of bloodthirsty citizens screaming invective against any non-Aryans in their midst and rejoicing in the torching of this building. Finally, after what seemed like hours, we made our way back to our now empty hostel.
Father and I managed to escape these cousins and the city quickly, but even today, thinking about it all makes me shudder. He never told me what he said to Friedrich before that burning structure, but the two of them were red in the face and looking like they could kill each other.
After our time in Regensburg, we traveled east to the Bavarian Forest, which includes Lake Rachelsee, tall mountains and is heavily forested. It is home to a variety of animals, including otters and spectacularly colored mushroom species. It was calm and peaceful and helped both of us to recover somewhat from Regensberg. From there we went to Munich but thankfully didn't spend much time in the city, the true home of Nazism. Our singular objective was the train to Austria and the Nazism we found ourselves in was becoming frighteningly claustrophobic. I saw at first-hand the evil that was brewing and how even well-educated people could be swept up in a charismatic devil's world. To say it made an impression on me would be an understatement of great size.
We stopped for a day in Salzberg and then continued on to Vienna. While the Austrians knew that they were on the horns of a dilemma with Hitler and his cult, they continued the outward air of "gemutlichkeit" that they were known for. After a delightful few days of sipping "café mit schlag" and eating wiener schnitzel, linzer torte and all sorts of other delicacies, we boarded a fine trans-continental train toward home.
That summer was more than just bonding with my father and learning about what we thought of at the time as "a man's world"; it was eye-opening. My mother fussed over the two of us when we returned to her, but we did our best to leave out the ugly realities of Nazi Germany. As Father said, there was no need to upset her or cause her worry. There would be time enough to face those horrors. Little did I know that in just a very few short years, I would be thrust into the middle of it.
