I´m currently working through a couple of files that my father found in my grandfathers basement after his death. The files contain letters , company records from his time in Italy 1944-45, lots of photos and certificates. Those reach from the Nazi-Era over the occupation time to the late 90s.
While randomly skipping through a file I found a from an old friend of my grandfather, describing his struggles in post-war germany. The following excerpt shows pretty well how much violence was accepted among people born in the early 30s in Germany. Those people grew up being taught that violence is the best solution for anything.
"I found myself in a small village, and a local family hired me to watch over a castle which stood a few miles away from the village in the forest. It was probably a summer residence for some loval duke in the old days. Now I lived alone in this castle, except for a huge, silver cat. I quite liked this cat, it had a blue and a green eye and there were talks in the village that witches in the forest used it to perform magic (?). However, after a while the family started complaining, they said I didn´t behave like a real lord and didn´t have the right manners to live in a place like this. They fired me eventually. Before I left, I searched for the cat. We had lived together in this castle for so long and I was sure she couldn´t take the pain of my departure. So when I found her, I mercyfully released her from her sorrow with a clean shot in the head..."
Wow, that's a bit of an odd thing to do - at least from the perspective of 2010.
AntwortenLöschenI'm sure this cat would have eventually gotten over the immense grief of losing this humanoid friend, but it goes to show just how we saw (domesticated) animals 80 years ago.
Still, it was an enlightening read, and I wouldn't mind reading a bit more. ;)
Thanks :)
AntwortenLöschenI will write a new one soon, probably end of this week.