Station: [08] World History at Letter Berg: From the 19th Century to 1945

What would you do if you had no prospects for making a living? Would you leave everything behind and start over somewhere far away? And can you imagine what it’s like to have to do that twice in your life? 

That’s exactly what Heinrich and Rosalie Brinkschulte went through. 

You can listen to the story here on the audio guide, or you can pick up a radio and listen to the accompanying radio play. 

Heinrich was born in 1905 as the fourth child of a farming family from Letter Berg. From an early age, he knew he wanted to become a farmer and work his own land. But according to tradition, his older brother Franz would inherit the farm. 

In 1915, at the age of 19, Franz is drafted as a soldier into World War I. He survives the war as a prisoner of war in France. And while he is working in the mines there, French prisoners of war in Lette are performing forced labor building roads. Among other things, they pave the road to the Brinkschulte farm. They are housed in the old Letter church. 

Heinrich attends elementary school, then agricultural school, and, as is customary, works for two years on someone else’s farm. This is called “Auswohnen.” But buying a piece of land of his own? That’s unaffordable. Inflation in the early 1920s wiped out all the family’s money. 

Soon the Great Depression hits. And the agricultural crisis. As a farmer, Heinrich isn’t even allowed to switch to industrial work. What is he supposed to do? Marry someone from somewhere else, become a farmhand on someone else’s farm? He can’t imagine that. Then he meets Rosalie. She works at the Hellermann dairy farm, and soon they can envision a future together—wherever that may be. 

In 1933, Hitler becomes Reich Chancellor, and the NSDAP wins the Reichstag elections. Membership numbers rise, even in rural Catholic areas.  

The subjugation and control of all structures begins immediately: government agencies, schools, clubs—the so-called “Gleichschaltung” (enforced conformity). Everything is subject to the Führer principle. 

The Nazi government launches the National Socialist agricultural program—based on the so-called “blood and soil” ideology. Among other things, it combines agrarian romanticism with ethnic and imperialist thinking. 

Nazi propaganda recruits farmers like Heinrich to settle in the eastern provinces. To Heinrich, this sounds like the opportunity of a lifetime. In reality, it is part of the Nazi state’s expansion plans and preparations for war. 

Heinrich and Rosalie make their decision: They will take the plunge together. But where? Heinrich travels around, visiting other resettled farmers from Lette, for example in Pomerania. To make a purchase, Heinrich must, among other things, prove his ancestry and join the NSDAP. 

He is Catholic and does not approve of National Socialism. But the Pope does not take a stand against the Nazis. He signs an agreement with the Nazi leadership, the Reich Concordat: The Catholic Church retains its autonomy, but it is not allowed to engage in politics. 

Heinrich and Rosalie are able to pay for a small farmstead in Neuwaldau, Silesia, with a loan. Competition is fierce. But there is also a Catholic church and a school there. That is the deciding factor for them. 

They gather tools and are given household goods as wedding gifts. Just a few weeks later, in October 1937, they move in with Heinrich’s sister Änne and a few helpers. They settle in, plant fruit trees, cultivate the fields, and build a barn. Two sons are born. 

Then World War II begins. Heinrich is drafted into the air defense forces and remains on duty throughout the entire war, mostly on the front lines in southern Italy and Sicily, with breaks for military training and home leave for farmers in the spring and during harvest time. Rosalie gives birth to three more sons and, with her helpers, continues to run the farm throughout the war. Among them is soon a forced laborer. 

In the winter of 1944, the Eastern Front draws closer. Rosalie remains on the farm. Millions of people flee westward to escape the Red Army. Rosalie stays. 

On May 8, 1945, the German Reich finally surrenders. The war is over. Heinrich is taken prisoner. Mail is blocked. Contact with Rosalie is cut off for months. They have no news of one another: Where is the other one now? Are they all still alive? Will they see each other again? 

Meanwhile, at the Potsdam Conference, the Allies decide that the German eastern provinces will be ceded to Poland—as compensation for the Polish territories demanded by Stalin. 

As a result, by 1950, all Germans are expelled from the eastern provinces, including Rosalie, her five sons, and their German helpers. They are forced to leave, abandoning their animals and possessions. With only a single wagon, they set out on a trek toward the west. Whatever they have with them is looted. All they have left when they return to Lette in June 1945 is the youngest son’s baby carriage. 

While in captivity, Heinrich is forced into agonizing idleness. He is released in the summer of 1946. In Lette, Heinrich and Rosalie are finally reunited. All they have left is their lives. They have to start all over again. For the second time. From nothing. But they manage it: In the postwar years, they build a new life; they are able to take over Hellermann’s dairy business, run a market stall, and then a small grocery store. They have two more sons, but one dies the day after he is born. Later, with their six sons, they establish a grocery store in their own house, which their son Hubert and his wife Maria will go on to run. 

A new era has dawned. And the story continues with the hair salon on the other side of the room.