Under Hitler’s national strategy Germany was not in a position to support and feed its entire population. Therefore the Austrian philosophy – ideology born dictator of a dysfunctional catholic family introduced an impossible strategy that led to World War II. The end result of World War II did not bring along any improvements for the general population in Europe; it was nothing more than forcefully moving people around in the world, making life much harder for those who had survived. Another trend of migration was created in living Europe.
Farm, House and Stable in Europe
My parents were born in 1897, the golden years of second Reich, Germany. My father worked on the land. He was a very sick man, mainly due to world war I.
Our property a farmhouse never had a bathroom or toilet and over the past 15 years no maintenance was carried out. Due to the war electricity was cut and we had to carry the water again from a small creek. The farm was badly run down and it was impossible for us to survive on our small farm of 28 acres.
After working for two months on the farm and the harvesting was completed, I went job-hunting again. At the same time I had also become choosy of positions and there was plenty of work in West Germany. A number of vacancies were available in the district, which I did not want. Then I entered the 30 kilometres zone from home to look at vacancies. The most suitable work place was Lennep a company that was formed in 1828. It was a one-hour ride on my little 98 cc motorbike from our farm.
The Remscheid – Lennep district was always a strong socialist district. It had also some strong Nazi supporters during Hitler’s time and Juden were deported.
I paid no church tax at Wender & Duerholt and no coffins were made in that workshop. Better still, I did not have to work in an enclosed environment infested by smelly air. It was for me the best of what I could find. I made up my mind that I would travel in good weather all the way on my 98 cc motorbike to Lennep, and in the bad weather from home Baumhof our farm or only 6 kilometres to Wipperfuerth railway station and the rest by train. It was the 3 October 1951; I started in the middle of the week, because I wanted the position working as a joiner in a large old workshop. I was there only three weeks when I was sent out with other workmen on to building sites in Wupperthal and Duesseldorf. We had to travel by train in our own time, not in paid working time.
The working time, paid time, was meant to be spent on the job and work. The fellows with whom I was working with did not complain over my workmanship.
On a later date I discovered the original establishment of the company Wender
& Duerholt a very old company owned by two people, Mr Wender and partner Duerholt. They also had a household fuel depot, supplying coal and firewood to the people in town. One of the owners from the complex had been in charge of the joinery workshop, producing doors and windows; the other had the foundry, producing hardware locks and hinges.
Mr. Eugen Lohman who was a bricklayer by trade during the 1930’s and had partners and they had worked on buildings erecting additions onto houses most importantly toilets and bathrooms. This type of updating to houses in the 1930’s was very much supported by the German socialist government under the Adolf Hitler regime. The government of the day provided many grants to various people including my family for updating their living quarters and made itself very popular. Eugen Lohman stepped into Wender & Duerholt in 1939 due to one of the owners wanting to retire. The WE DE history given to me, Eugen Lohman had bought the property Wender & Duerholt including their business. Most timber industry businesses during the war had become suppliers of materials to army camps and hostels and many other camps in the country. In buying Wender & Duerholt, Mr. E. Lohman also inherited some remnants of prefabricated camp building materials, which were used after the war on Wender & Duerholt property for their own workmen’s living quarters, due to the shortage of housing in the district. These camps were later packed and shipped to South Australia for accommodations of their own workmen. Mr. Wilhelm Soens from Remscheid, a World War II returned soldier master joiner by trade, was the foreman in the timber yard since the end of the War II. Wen I started to work for Wender & Duerholt Wilhelm Soens was in charge of pre-cutting and
assembling the materials for the timber frame houses to be sent to Australia.
But at that stage I was not aware of Wender & Duerholt business operation or its owner. The first group of 4 men including the Schneinermeister Wilhelm Soens left by plane in January 1952 to South Australia Port Adelaide project.
(see page 142 to 143) Some time later I realised that Mr. Eugen Lohman was the sole owner of Wender & Duerholt and much later I became aware of his background that Eugen Lohman was a newcomer to the timber housing industry since World War II.
Management noticed that most of the times I arrived in the morning on a motorbike. A supervisor asked me whether I was willing to go out on jobs by myself and travel on my motor bike, if possible straight from home. I said, “Yes”.
Little did he know where I lived, nor did he know that I had 32 kilometres to come to work. The day came when he gave me the order to go next morning to Luedenscheid and to install windows in a United Nations Military Barrack. The supervisor handed me all the tools including a Hilti gun, and said; “Take the gear home with you and make sure you are there at 8 in the morning to get the job completed by 5 pm”. It was a long way to travel from Lennep to Luedencheid instead of from Baumhof where I lived to Luedencheid. I finished the job at 3 pm that day, packed the tools into the carry bag and made my way back to the workshop in Lennep. As I drove through the gate and past the office window, it was about 4.30 pm another half-hour to go before clock off time. The supervisor including the foreman came running out of their office before I could get off my bike. I had a heavy load on my little bike. The question was; “What happened, did you finish the job. What is wrong”? My answer was “The job I have finished otherwise I would not be here”. Then the supervisor went back into his office and made phone calls, I think he rang Luedenscheid to find out whether the job was completed. It was only then that I realised the supervisor, Mr. Krueger was the son-in-law to Mr. Eugen Lohman and Eugen Lohman was the owner of Wender & Duerholt. Eugen Lohmann found out at that time where I lived, on a farm called Baumhof some 25 kilometers away. Little did I know at that time of Eugen Lohmann associated friend Robert Schultz a Jude, who had been living in Remschied and had to flee in 1936 to Australian. In Lennep workmate told me that the company had built a timber exhibition house in Holland fully furnished in the late 1940s.(see page 211 to 228). Robert Schultz was introduced to us the first time some weeks after we had arrived in Adelaide as the director of Wender & Duerholt Australia. That picture became clear to me who is who, and who is boss when I arrived in Australia.