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Description Inge WEINBRECHT et Al. Erlebnisse aus meinem Aufenthalt im K.L.V. Lager Haus Elise [Adventures of my Staying at KLV Camp Haus Elsie] Strub / Schönau by Berchtesgaden: July 7, 1942 – October 7, 1942. 8°. Notebook on graph-paper, [46 pp.] manuscript text in black and blue ink, hand-drawn and coloured margins, drawings in pen and colour pencil, a photograph with manuscript names below mounted on the inner side of the front wrappers, [18 pp.] loose sheets, manuscript in blue and black with drawings, recto only, original black wrappers (good, used condition). [and:] Mein Tagebuch [My Diary] Munich – Osterhofen – Neßlbach: February 2, 1945 – February 28, 1946. 8°. [40 pp.] notebook with blank pages with manuscript in black and blue ink, illustrated cover, stapled, (missing wrappers). The two diaries in German language were written by a teenage girl Inge Weinbrecht, who was according to her entries, born on February 2, 1929. The first notebook, written when she was 13 years old, describes her staying in a Nazi sponsored camp for children, and the second one, composed in the last weeks of the war and months after, her life in bombed Munich, first encounters with the American soldiers and embracing a new life. Diary 1: July 7, 1942 – October 7, 1942. The German term K.L.V, short for Kinderlandverschickung, meaning “Relocation of children to the countryside” describes the evacuation of children in Nazi Germany from big cities to protect them from air raids. Toddlers, accompanied by their mothers, and young children were sent to host families, relatives or KLV camps, founded by the Reich, where children received education. The present diary, written by a young girl Inge Weinbrecht from Munich, starts with the arrival of the author to the KLV camp on July 7th, 1942, with words: “Our Drive to the KLV Camp. One day it said in the newspapers, that all the Munich girls, who want to enjoy relaxation, can come to a KLV camp for one half of the year…” The KLV camp described was Haus Elsie, a former hotel close to Schönau and the settlement Strub, near Berchtesgaden and not far from Hitler’s infamous private residence Berghof. Since 1937, the tiny village of Strub also housed gigantic barracks, named Gebirgsjägerkaserne Bischofswiesen, at the time most known as “the most beautiful barracks in the most beautiful location of the Reich”, designed by Bruno Biehler. The young author, Inge Weinbreht, describes fondly various days with outings, singing, meeting other girls, dancing, swimming, candle-making, visiting the salt mines etc. Sporadic entries are accompanied with vignettes, illustrating described events. Inge seemed to enjoy the summer in the mountains, led by the head of the house called Mutti (Mommy) by the girls. The last part of the notebook are filled with entries by the staff and other schoolgirls to Inge, made just before leaving the camp. The diary also gives in insight in the Reich’s plan to use these KLV camps as locations to isolate children from the outside world and possible “negative” influences, teach them discipline and direct them in to the mindset of the Nazi Germany. On the ninth day in the camp, the author describes with an enthusiasm they trip to the cinema, where they saw a Nazi extreme propaganda movie Kopf hoch, Johannes! (Keep up, Johannes!). Inge wrote with enthusiasm: “This movie was an example for us. Such a camaraderie should also prevail among us. We all wanted to take him for our idol.” The film was banned after the war by the Allies and is still on the list of the movies, which are only allowed to be shown at closed and controlled events. Diary 2: February 2, 1945 – February 28, 1946 The second diary begins on Inge’s 16th birthday, on February 2, 1945, which due to the grim atmosphere of the last months of the war, Inge describes as the saddest. She is also in love and is daily waiting for her boyfriend Jupp (Joseph), who is serving the Reich somewhere in Munich, to write her or visit her. The following entries describe days of bombing of Bavarian cities, alarms, hiding, sightings of Allied planes and catching propaganda leaflets. Inge goes away shortly to avoid raids to a Reich Labour Service Camp (Reichsarbeitsdienstlager or RAD-Lager) in a tiny Bavarian village Neßlbach, but returns to Munich during the air raids. Although Inge spent days from the late February until the liberation hiding many times per day in a shelter and the windows of their apartment were broken, she continued living as a normal teenager, waiting for her beau Jupp, writing letters to friends and going to the movies. Days before the liberation of Munich were especially hard for the civilians as Inge. On April 23, 1945, Jupp’s house was bombed and he lost all his property. On Sunday, April 29, a day before the allies entered Munich Inge writes: “Now I also have to sleep in the basement. The “Aria” is shooting, the house is trembling, the enemies are coming. … What will next days bring?” The day after, on April 30, 1945, Inge describes the entry of Americans to Munich. The text is accompanied with two photographs. According to the diary Inge’s family discovered within hours that the Americans were not as bad as presented by the Germans. Not only that they did not harm the civilians, they even brough them food and wine. A week after the liberation of Munich Inge Weinbrecht’s household got a very unusual visitor for some days – a coloured American soldier David Johnson, who everybody liked dearly. He regularly brough the family chocolate and chewing gums and also gave Inge lesions in English: “To day David Johnson. Who is David Johnson? Hi is a Neger from Amerikan. A very good boy”, Inge wrote her first words in English. After the war Inge’s entries become more scarce. Her relationship with Jupp deteriorated immediately after the war, on the day of their engagement. She enters the new, liberated Germany as a young emancipated woman, experiences her first wild home party getting drunk with friends and eventually gets a job at a bank, earning her own money and enjoying going out with friends and flirting with men, even with a married co-worker. The two diaries, written by an intelligent young woman in a clear language, reflect a transition from a child, growing in a propaganda filled environment of the Nazi Germany, through a confused teenager years during the last weeks of the war, to an overnight revelation of the world outside the Reich and a development to a modern and emancipated female.
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