Der Ausländer (The Foreigner)

 Der Ausländer (The Foreigner)

Book 1 : Chapter 1 : Oldenburg Ammerland (1948 - 1958)

June 5, 1948 - I was born in Oldenburg, Germany as 

Georg Friedrich Lienemann.

My families hometown was Ofenerfeld, a rural farming community situated just north-west of the city of Oldenburg, in an area known as Oldenburg-Ammerland. At the time of my birth this area was in the district of Bad Zwischenahn, a well known lake resort, horse breeding and farming community, with a very picturesque traditional architecture and lifestyle, to this day.

My father (born Georg Lienemann in Ofenerfeld) was at the end of the war an Engineering Student and avid sailplane pilot. Since he was relatively young and attending engineering university, he was spared from the front and spent the last years of the war in neighboring Holland, working at a desk job in the Luftwaffe and flying sailplanes in his spare time. 

My mother (born Eva Maria Schnell in Marienburg, East Prussia) was the daughter of a Prussian Cavalry Officer, her family had fled from the advancing Russian troops in 1945. Traveling on one of the last ships from Danzig (now known as Gdansk) to Schleswig Holstein. After a stay in Schleswig Holstein, the family moved to a farmhouse, operating as a Prussian Refugee Center, in Ofenerfeld, Oldenburg, the long time home of my father's family. 

My paternal Grandfather operated a very popular "Gasthaus" (hotel, feed store, grocery store, post office, ballroom, etc.) known as the Ofenerfelder Krug, it was the social center of the local farming community and also hosted the Pfeiffen Club (Slow Smoking Pipe Club) and other family and sports activity celebrations. There was always a few tables full of locals celebrating something.

I assume that my parents met sometime in 1946 or 1947. At that time my parents families lived a very short distance from each other.

Earliest memories from Ofenerfeld

I have no complete memories of the first three years, but around age four, I do have some very graphic memories that have stayed with me. My parents divorced around age 3 or 4, I am not really sure of the exact date, but I have no memories at all of my mother and father ever being together. I do have memories of mother and father separately and also my grandparents from both sides separately.

The earliest memories are of the farmhouse we lived at in Ofenerfeld with my mother and her family. The house served as a transit center for Prussian Refugees who had just arrived from points further east, usually Schleswig Holstein. There was what I remember as a very large cherry tree in the front yard, and we were surrounded by cow pastures. We would walk through the cow pastures to get to a neighboring farm, where we would pick up small pails of milk to bring back to our grandmother. There was a maternal aunt who was only a few years older than I was and she would usually lead our little expeditions around the neighborhood. 

I also still have a very strong memory of the horse drawn wagon that would come through the neighborhood every day, selling pickled herring. I still love the smell and the taste of the pickled herring, especially the rolled up version known as “rollmops”. On my last trip to my home town in 2017, I was very disappointed not to find any horse drawn carts rolling down the country lanes, but I did eat pickled herring quite a few times.

Another memory from the farm was of a family gathering, possibly someone’s birthday, where my uncle (my mother’s younger brother) strung flash paper across the room and took photos with what was probably the first camera I ever saw. It left a lasting impression.

The last memory from that location was a very bad headache (at age 2 or 3), that was cured at the time with a visit to a doctor and medicine, but would return periodically and finally be cured at age 10 by a Chiropractor in New York City.

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Moving into a Refugee Village in Metjendorf

Around age 5 or 6 my mother moved into her own house in a new village built for East European Refugees (from World War II). Her father was an official working for the local government office in charge of resettling the refugees, and after building a house for his family, he also arranged for my mother to build her own house. I moved into this house with her, but my sister moved in with the grandparents. 

It was around this time that I first started to realize that I was an outcast, even in my home town. I had friends among the local farmer families, but I also had friends that had strange last names that came from Eastern Europe. Some of these kids were pretty rough and more street wise than my local friends whose families had been farming in the Ammerland region for many generations. 

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My first bicycle and my first attempt to follow the Gipsies

In 1954, for my sixth birthday, my father came to visit me and gave me a bicycle. 

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In early 1957, my mother asked me if I would like to move to America. She gave all the reasons for wanting a better future and education for me. I knew that she had a serious boyfriend and wanted to get married again. I assume she also knew this would be very hard on me. So we started to prepare for the journey to America. 

There were interviews with the US Embassy in Hamburg, I had to stay in a Hospital for Refugee Children for a couple of months to show that I was sick and in need of help, strangely enough I did get sick at the Hospital (from the incredibly bad food) and forced to clean the bathrooms by the Nuns, because I had gotten ill and thrown-up on my plate in the dining room.

My maternal grandmother was a strong but usually very kind woman. Unfortunately my maternal grandfather (the ex Prussian Cavalry Officer) was a very bitter man, who never hid his hatred for my father, and did not like seeing my face in his house. When my grandfather died in 1957 my grandmother blamed me (and of course my farther) for his death.

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Leaving Germany and flying across the Ocean to New York

When it was time to leave my home town, in early January of 1958, I was more than willing to leave Germany behind and see what America had to offer.  

Oldenburg - Bremen - DC 3 - Short flight

Copenhagen - New York - DC 6 - long flight (possibly a stop in Iceland or Greenland)

The DC 6 flight hooked me on long distance airline flight - It was too this day still the most luxurious and amazing plane I ever flew on - the stewardess took me into the cockpit to say hello to the Captain and see all the incredible instruments.

I did not know at the time that my father had his own private airplane and that we would be flying around the North-East of the US on weekends from then on. Thinking back on it, it is really amazing that I did not become a pilot myself.

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