Horst

Horst

After the war, there was little to buy. Everything was scarce. We could get cornbread every day, but the baker never had enough flour, so we had to get up early to be first in line. My father woke me up at 5:30 a.m., and I waited until 7 a.m. when my father relieved me so he could get the bread at 8 a.m. It was cornbread made from American flour, sent by the Care Organization because there wasn't enough rye and wheat available. 

Pork or beef was unavailable. My father sometimes organized some horse meat, and my mother made sauerbraten. Sometimes we could get a lung, and my mother cut it into pieces and put the pieces through a grinder, and then we had lung rague. 

I befriended a vegetable farmer in the nearby foothills, a fertile plain between Cologne and Bonn, and I sometimes helped there and would then receive a few potatoes and some vegetables, for which my mother was very grateful.

Father went on a monthly hoarding tour. He organized thread, sewing needles, buttons, and zippers on the black market, which he then traded with the Bavarian farmers for bacon, eggs, or potatoes. That way, we usually had something to eat.

When winter came, there were no briquettes for heating, but every day we saw long trains of briquettes heading west. Back then, train signals were controlled by a wire rope, so one day the wire rope was cut, the train had to stop, the side doors of the carriages were torn open, and all the surrounding residents filled their bags with briquettes and were able to live a little warmer. The police always took a long time and made a lot of noise before they showed up.

​Fortunately, that was only for three years. In 1948, the Deutsche Mark came, and suddenly everything got better. 

Horst

Horst

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