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© 2010 Ally Hauptmann-Gurski

Ally Hauptmann-Gurski

P e o p l e I k n e w

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Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Boris Rubaschkin, singer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Alexis, Athens night porter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Mr. Leukel and his Juniors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

A family drama in 4 Acts

Mr. Smith, a ‘nam veteran . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Mr. P. a well connected man. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Karsten Schlamelcher, man with suitcase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Karl B. called himself a writer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

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P r e f a c e

In my now semi-retired state, being house-bound quite often I re-

member the many people I have known. With some I shared longer parts
of the journey, with others only a short walk. Being a writer by nature, I
would like to share these encounters with you.This collection is about peo-
ple I have known in Europe and in Australia.I have always been fascinated
by what was hidden from me and the discovery that wool had been pulled
over my eyes. It is those characters that I immortalize here. I have known
many, many other people, too, but the encounters with friendly normal
people do not make stories.

I write, as if I spoke to my Australian compatriotes, so some of it may

be a little peculiar to readers in other countries. Well, I have to envisage one
audience, can’t do more.

Most people in my position write their memoirs or a book. Both of

these have been ticked off, albeit not in the traditional way. The ‘Balalaika
Memoirs’, accessible in my little Zhivagoesque collection on scribd focuses
on that phase of our lives. They focus less on individuals but on events.

My book about Gypsy singer Nadezhda Plevitskaya (1884 - 1940)

has a touch of memoirs in those scenes where I transformed some scenes
from my own life and projected them into that singer’s life. Russian music is
the common denominator of Plevitskaya’s and my life, so it is not as bizarre
as it might seem at first glance.Her signature tune was one of my favourite
Russian tunes decades before I knew about Plevitskaya’s extraordinary and
colourful life story.

I cannot write this all in one hit, will add chapters about more people
as time goes by. So please look back in occasionally.

All people who I describe are for real. Events and situations are also
for real. With some people I will have to use ficitious or abbreviated names
to disguise their identities and protect myself from the courts.

I could not describe some people and events truthfully AND use their
real names.

T h i s i s a w o r k i n p r o g r e s s......
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Boris Rubaschkin, singer

What happens on tour stays on tour – for a while

We had accepted the offer by the Bulgarian singer Boris Rubaschkin

to accompany him on a concert tour through Germany, Austria, Switzer-
land, and Holland. We were four musicians but Rubaschkin wanted a sextett,
so he brought two more musicians. They were emigré Poles, who had lost
their citizenship, and travelled with us in our van on stateless Nansen pass-
ports. I do not recall their names so I will call one of them Sasha for the
purpose of this story.
In the middle of the tour we crossed from Germany into Holland
whose border guards queried Sasha’s passport without giving a reason. We
discussed and waited, explained that we had to set up in a concert hall. To
our dismay, nothing we said could make them wave us through. Maybe
three hours or so later, they let us go without an explanation.
We arrived at the concert hall too late to set up. Rubaschkin com-
plained he had to cancel the concert because we failed to arrive. He would
deduct the damage from our fee! We tried to argue, but you take these
things only so far in the middle of a tour. So we settled down for dinner in
the hotel and turned to our favourite board game. It lasted half the night
and took our minds off that financial threat.
At breakfast the next morning, everybody acted as normally as possibe.
As we loaded our cars, Rubaschkin said to my husband, ‘I’ll guide you out
of town, just follow me.’
This offer was very unusual. Finding your way out of town to the
nearest freeway is the easiest part on any tour and convoy driving is gener-
ally avoided as it is less safe. We agreed anyway because it seemed to
matter to him.
As soon as we were all the vehicle and out of Rubaschkin’s earshot,
Sasha suggested, ‘Make sure you lose him. I don’t believe the concert was
cancelled because of us. We’ll go back to the hall and see if we can find out
for sure.’
It did not take long until we were on a busy road. We dropped back
and let Rubaschkin drive through a green light, following so slowly that we
caught the yellow and stopped. Ahead of us Rubashckin had to keep going
with the flow.
We turned around to the concert hall. Luckily there was someone in
the ticket booth. I asked why last night’s concert had been cancelled. The
woman replied, ‘because of poor ticket sales.’
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Rubaschkin must have phoned ahead and known. He must have, so

Sasha said, put the border guards up to an extra throrough check which
made it impossible for us to arrive on time, so he could make us share in
the loss. Confronted with reality later in the day, Rubaschkin backed off.
This incident remained the only one of this kind and was never mentioned
again.
From the musical point of view we liked working with Rubaschkin but
we never saw him again after the tour concluded in Salzburg two or three
weeks later, which would have been October or November 1969.
.
Alexis, Athens night porter
‘He does not care about the law so I don’t, either.’

We met Alexis, whose surname I have forgotten in 1970. When we

worked in Onassis’ favourite Athens nightclub Neraida they put us up in a
hotel within walking distance. Our show was about 11 o’clock at midnight
or thereabouts so when we returned to our hotel it was governed by the
night porter whose name was Alexis.
Like us, Alexis was in his mid twenties and soon we got to know his
story. Alexis had never lived in Greece before and Greek was not his first
language. Alexis came from a well to do Greek family who lived in Egypt,
carrying Turkish passports. They must have obviously come from the once
half Greek areas in Turkey, left in one of the waves of ethnic cleansing, and
never aquired another citizenship.They were merchants, mainly tobacco
merchants, and in their dealings around the Mediterranean citizenship was
of no consequence.
Alexis had gone to a school in Egypt where they taught in English, so
his English was fluent, which was the reason why we could communicate
with a night porter in a Greek hotel. Alexis had to do this job so that he
could stay in Greece and aquire a Greek passport.

He had been studying in Switzerland when he was called to visit the

Turkish consulate in Geneva. Alexis kind of knew what they wanted and
was very apprehensive, but he had to go. They would probably want to
force him into military service in the Turkish Army. Alexis did not speak
Turkish for one and secondly gruesome stories circulated about what Turks
did in the Army with ethnic Greeks. It was even said Greeks would not
survive Army service.
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In the consulate he was indeed confronted with being called up. When
the clerk was distracted by a phone call, Alexis snatched his passport from
the desk, opened a window, and ran away. But now there was only one
way to escape punishment and army service: He had to aquire another
passport.

Alexis decided to buy one, but which kind? He came to the conclu-
sion that he could really only pass as a Brit. So he travelled to Frankfurt, to
the seedy nightclub precinct around the main train station. He looked at
the shelf of passport varieties that was on offer but decided an illegal exist-
ence was not what he wanted. Then Alexis remembered the Greek policy
that everyone from any country who was of Greek origin could aquire
Greek citizenship as long as he lived and worked in Greece for two years.

That was what Alexis was doing as a night porter in the Athens hotel
where we were staying. Alexis gave us some insight into the situation in
Greece which generated so much criticism and many demonstrations in
other countries.

Greece was then ruled by a military junta which the international media
portrayed as being hated by everyone. ‘Not so,’ said Alexis. ‘Greece can
never be ruled by any group unless they have the majority of the popula-
tion on their side. Greece has the longest coastline in the world and about
1400 islands. The arm of Athens does not reach to all of them. King, junta,
or democracy, people can and will do what they like on Greek islands.
When the junta ousted the government, people were right behind them
because it could not have gone on as before. Every day there were riots on
Syntagma Square. People cheat each other and the government. A strong
force to create some peace in the streets and order was required. Why do
you think you see so many controllers checking your ticket on the bus?
They check if passengers’ tickets are indeed from the bus company be-
cause conductors used to print their own tickets.’ I was baffled.

Alexis also said something about dishonesty and people easily abus-
ing a position of strength to exploit someone.

‘Why do I have to bring eggs and bread and all this stuff to my night
shift? The law says that for working on a national holiday I get a bit more
money or time off. But the owner of this hotel does not care about the law,
so I don’t either. I make up for it by pocketing what I charge for scrambled
eggs. Honestly, I wish I would not have to do this. It is not right that it pans
out this way.’ We remember that in 2010. The Greek taxman, and of course
the res publica, missed out then and now.
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Alexis also maintained there was a nasty little streak lurking in Greek
souls. I was later reminded of that when a former Bulgarian maintained
that all peoples who had been occupied by the Ottoman Empire could only
survive through sheer cunning. There had been a natural selection, he
maintained - an interesting theory.

We could observe this streak from the balcony of our room, Alexis
said. The road in front of the hotel was two wide lanes in each direction. It
was straight and well lit, as it was the main road from the airport to town. In
those nocturnal hours when we were awake, there were hardly any pedes-
trians or cars. But when a lone pedestrian did cross the road and a car
came along, the vehicle changed to the lane where the pedestrian was for
the fun of seeing him/her jump.

When our contract in the Neraida was up, I smuggled the money out
of Greece because they had refused us permission to take all our fees to
our place of residence where we had to pay bills. There are international
agreements, but neither the French nor the Greeks seemed to have heard
of them.

Once or twice we exchanged postcards with Alexis but you just can’t
keep up with all the many people you meet on tours. I had almost forgotten
about Alexis, until the 2010 Greek crisis brought these memories back.
Footnote: We also saw Aristotle Onassis and JFK jr. in the Neraida but not enough
of them to write a story.

Mr. Leukel and his Juniors

Some relations should come with a ‘deselect’ button
Act 1 - Friendly relations and a tale with a sting in the tail

I first met Mr. Leukel in 1966. He was the brother in law of my beau
and he had two small sons. Junior 1 was six, Junior 2 about one year old.
Mr. Leukel had just rewarded my beau with a houselhold appliance for
patching up a spot of bother in the marriage. Mr. Leukel was of peasant
origin but had a university degree and was in a well paid job with a com-
pany which produced heavy vehicles and tanks for the German Army. The
company and its leadership had been implicated in corrupt dealings. Mr.
Leukel had been successful in shooting the accusations to pieces, so noth-
ing stuck in the end. When the company later came to Mercedes, he was
one of the few who were taken over.
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Soon the Leukels moved from Kassel to Frankfurt and we went to

see them occasionally. One tale from those years has left an imprint on me.

‘When Mercedes does not get their installments for their trucks,’ Leukel
boasted, ‘ we do not pusssyfoot around. We call in three or four big blokes
in black leather jackets and go visit that trucking entrepreneur in his home.
One way or the other, we get in. Then we search the flat or house until we
find the stash of cash which is normally in the bedroom or kitchen. We take
out what we are owed, plus our assistants’ fees, put in a receipt, and leave
quietly. A very workable method this is, very workable.’

I was astonished to hear something like this.But you don’t become a

big name in the business world without illegal methods, I learnt later. When
we believe there is success without that kind of thing, it only means, what
happens underneath the surface has not come to our attention. Therefore
the German business world has an eleventh commandment: “Thou shalt
not get caught.”

As life went on, Mr. Leukel spent a few years near Frankfurt, then a
couple of years in his home region until he was transferred to Hamburg,
being second in command for Mercedes heavy vehicles there. Hamburg is
a chunky market because of the port which has importance far beyond
Germany.

Act 2 - Double games

We visited them there once, when the wife complained that Mr. Leukel
was conducting his corrupt dealings right under the nose of the children.
When a really good second hand truck was traded in, Leukel would ring a
preferential customer. He would then take the family for an outing on the
weekend and meet up with the customer in the yard. If the customer liked
the truck, cash from pocket to pocket reserved the vehicle for him. 2000
DM was the sum mentioned in about 1978. The wife was quite dismayed
as Mercedes had a policy to sack employees for these kickbacks.

For his 18th birthday Junior 1 got a car. I was astonished that it had all
the mod cons money can buy, which I found somewhat overblown for an
18 year old. ‘Don’t worry,’ my sister-in-law answered, ‘he did not have to
pay for it because he has done someone a favour.’ Wow, I thought that
must have been a really good favour. But maybe he just pooled favours.

I was not amused by the pattern that Mr. Leukel had been the cover-
up man for corruption, then boasted about taking the law into his hands,
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and then had his palms greased, jeopardising his family’s future. In private
dealings he was quite a jovial man, but it is hard to respect a person who
has no sense of ethics.

Meanwhile, Junior 1 had become an apprentice by day, and by night

he was part of a gang who stole expensive cars and torched them in a
quarry (if that’s all they did). One day he said to my sister-in-law, ‘maybe I
have to disappear. Then you talk to my Turkish mate at the workshop. He
promised to find me a hiding place in Turkey when I need it. The gang got
busted, I was the grass, so my life could be in danger.’

That was when my sister-in-law decided Junior 1 must live elsewhere.

Mr. Leukel went with him to have a look at the flat. My sister-in-law made
him aware that he should NOT co-sign and guarantee the lease, but when
he returned, he had done exactly that. What a weakling, I thought, can’t
say no. Of course - Junior 1 got behind with his rent, and Mr. Leukel had
to pay. As Junior 1 returned to the family home, my sister-in-law thought
about how she could remove Junior 2 from the influence of Junior 1. Board-
ing school was the only option for that 12 or 13 year old. Mr. Leukel made
it quite clear, that once they signed up for the boarding school chosen, he
would have to pay for the whole year. Junior 1 should be aware that with-
drawing within the year would cause double costs. Junior 1 agreed, but did
not stick to his word. Only a few months into the contract he insisted to be
taken out of that boarding school. When the father reminded him of the
agreement, Junior 2 blackmailed him. He would do something bad so that
they would kick him out. Not wanting to tarnish Junior 2’s record, they
caved in.

Act 3 - In for the kill

In March 1979 we saw them for the last time. On the night before our
departure, Junior 1 showed us the Hamburg music scene, accompanied by
a 16 year old girlfriend. There was a bit of small talk but we did not really
have a lot in common with those two youngsters. The only topic that we
had in common came up, Junior 1’s grandmother, my husband’s mother,
who had recently moved into that area to retire. Only in hindsight can we
reconstruct what possibly might have been said on that night in the noise of
a nightclub. It was probably something about the inflexibility and stubborn-
ness of the old lady and my husband and I might have made a remark to
the effect that old folk needs to be taken as they are and will die the way
they are. But it is only a guess.
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The next morning, over breakfast before we departed on our 7 hour

long return drive there was frost in the air. My husband thought it might
have something to do with the three or four low to medium value paintings
his mother (grandmother) had given him. He decided to leave them with
his sister, to be divvied up at a later occasion.

Two months later my husband phoned his mother for Mother’s Day.
She was in tears. ‘You want me dead; you said I should die.’ My husband
was horrified. ‘Whatever gave you that idea,’ he asked stunned. ‘Junior 1
has said so, and his girlfriend confirmed it.’ We found it impossible to re-
construct a conversation of two months earlier which had been so inconse-
quential that nothing had been stored in our memories.

But then we found out, that on our morning of departure, before

breakfast, Junior 1 had reported to his mother that we had wanted the old
lady dead. She rang the 16 year old girlfriend whose memory was obvi-
ously excellent, and who confirmed it. She could have asked us on that
morning, or should have phoned us a day or two later, but no, we were not
consulted.

She did come to Frankfurt some months later and we had a short
meeting. She said that she could not invite us for the confirmation of Junior
2 because then the grandmother would not come. None of them had the
guts to put the head of the grandmother right.

We did not hear any more more from them until a year or two later
when my sister-in-law rang to say Mr. Leukel had burnt on a haystack.
Although this is a popular suicide method for German peasant folk, police
investigated.

‘Junior 1 has got an ironclad alibi.’ she said, ‘he was questioned in
the police station at the time.’ Now why would that be? Never in my life,
not before or since, have I known a person who was questioned by police.
He must have been involved in something serious because German police
no longer investigated property crimes, only murder and some such like.
My sister-in-law indicated there had been some marriage troubles again,
but had her husband told her the truth?

Not long after the press reported that tax auditors had applied fine
tooth combs to Mercedes business records all over the country. I found it
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hard to imagine that Mr. Leukel’s suicide and the Mercedes audits should
not be related after all I had heard before. After all, when we get to know
about corrupt dealings we get to know that portion which could not be
hidden and the assumption must be that underneath the surface there is
more.

Well, we knew now that Mr. Leukel was dead, but to his funeral we
were not invited. (?!)

After Mr. Leukel’s death, the rest of the family fell apart, too. When
we were in Germany for the last time in 1993, my sister-in-law would have
liked to see us, but she insisted we come to her, instead of her coming to
Frankfurt. We had come 20,000 kms, but she could not come 700 kms to
Frankfurt, so we did not meet her. We heard from another relation though,
that my mother-in-law had broken with her daughter as well, although we
did not hear any reasons. She was helping Junior 1 and 2, it was said, and
why that was mutually exclusive was not revealed.

Suddenly it dawned on us why Junior 1 had concocted the lie about

her son wishing the mother dead. Under German law, a child must inherit a
minimum from a parent. There is only one reason for setting this clause
aside, i.e. when the child aims for the death of that parent. The old lady
had a bit of savings, not excessive, but more than she let on. For a 19 year
old though, they would have looked very attractive and that’s what Junior
1 ogled. So he first split his uncle from his grandmother, then his own mother.

When the grandmother did die, the court did not even make the ef-
fort to contact the children. Juniors had wormed their way in successfully.
A year or two later, we had word that my sister-in-law was sent home from
hospital for the end and would like to speak with her brother on the tel-
ephone for one last time. My husband granted her that wish and asked if
Junior 1 and 2 would be there to smoothe the journey. ‘No’, she replied,
‘they will only visit if I include them in the land title.’ Charming, Leukel
through and through.

If we thought that we had finally clicked the deselect button on the

Leukel saga, we were mistaken.

The unwelcome Act 4

Nine years later, in 2010 and 31 years after Junior 1’s sting with us,
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we received an email from Junior 2. He wished us happy Easter and re-

marked on the homely feeling that our Russian music on the internet in-
voked in him, reminding him of the 1970s. (He was still a child when we
were active in Russian music. He was sucking up to us.) He signed with a
different surname and mentioned his birthname. I checked on the web that
the email is not a fraud, but the analysis of the content made me shiver.

There was no word of regret about the situation of 31 years ago. He

did not say whether he had just changed his name, was married or just
partnered. He did not reveal his place of residence, career path, children,
or spouse.

Why now? After all we had been present on the web for nearly 11
years and many people from our past life in Europe or even America have
found us.

Why now? Because some months before I had uploaded a German

language obituary of my late brother where the word life insurance is men-
tioned. It must have dawned on these two artists that it might pay to get a
bit nosy about what us two oldies might posess and if they can’t dust off
something. There is a fair bit of envy in those millions of Germans who
have to live in apartments when they see someone living in a house. With
google earth these days they can determine exactly were one lives and
assume or find out who may own the house. Where we lived before, the
unit no was not in the phone book, so they could not pinpoint our abode.
Now they can and now we heard.

What strategy might these two Juniors have developed to secure our
left overs (if there are any) or generate availability of left overs for them
while they think it is still time? It is a bit frightening.

I could not find out anything on Junior 2 but did find Junior 1 on the
internet. He is operational manager of a town’s rubbish collection. Has he
kept his old connections? How convenient is it for some networks to know
someone in the rubbish industry and make something disappear? Maybe
not only things?

After the analysis of all this, and the cold-hearted email which in-
tended to get something out of us without revealing anything from their
side, we decided not to reply. But of course in these days of the internet
they can find out your phone number!
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The degree of persistence would be an indication of their intentions.

Sure enough, six weeks after the email, Junior 2 rang, but as soon as he
said his name I said ‘Auf Wiedersehen’ and hung up, and certainly hope
that there will be no wiedersehen.

Mr. Smith, a ‘nam veteran

Mr. Smith was one of our neighbours for a few years. He was not
really a friend but we occasionally conversed on neighbourhood issues.
Over the years we had heard that he had been an intelligence officer in the
Vietnam War and we got to know some of his stories which would not have
been misplaced in a movie script. It was all behind him but some habits die
hard. There was something odd about him ocasionally, because one day
he said that there was no love lost between him and Americans because of
his experiences in Vietnam and the next day an article on the net revealed
he was part of a local event which was celebrating an American combat
unit.

One day I was walking along the street and maybe 40 metres in front
of me, I saw him going in the same direction. Good, I thought, he is walking
so much in front that he has not spotted me because I am not in the mood
to talk about the neighbourhood quabbles today. But then he stopped,
turned around and waited for me. So we ended up talking about the neigh-
bourhood quabbles until we parted in front of the supermarket.

When I had a bit of time to reflect, I wondered. Had he turned around

and seen me before he stopped and waited for me? No, definitely not.
Then how had he known I was there, as if he had eyes in the back of his
head? Then I remembered. He never left the house without clutching a
small bag, the oversized wallett kind, which is sometimes called a sling bag.
He must have had a mirror in it, which indeed gave him eyes in the back of
his head! He obviously always looked who would be walking behind him,
even on a such an ordinary everyday little walk to the quite close shops.

You learn something every day, although it is not clear at this stage
what this learning experience might be good for. You can, if you are so
inclined, keep a look out for people who ascertain who walks behind them,
and maybe you can ask if James Bond is their cousin?

I made him Mr. Smith as he has a young family.

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Mr. P., a well connected man

I met Mr. P. in Frankfurt/Main through the drummer we were working
with in that phase when we made very creative bouzouki music in 1969.
He was not a friend or business associate, just one of the many people you
meet when you are part of the music scene. Mr. P. spoke German very well
but had a slight eastern accent since he had come from one of the then East
Block countries.

Mr. P. travelled to London often, selling his songs, or so he said. We

never heard which or how many songs he had sold. He also made demo-
tapes with young hopefuls. One girl he made a demo-tape with became
world famous later, but not through Mr. P.’s project.

We did not really know Mr. P.; he was just a person in the ‘scene’, and
our drummer was also more of a businessman than a drummer at that
stage in his life. He worked with us more for fun than the meagre
Deutschmarks our creative efforts yielded.

Imagine my surprise when one day he rang and asked if I knew where
Mr. P. was. ‘I’ll hang him on a butcher’s hook in the forest,’ he blurted out,
‘he has taken all my money and done a bunk.’

I was staggered. What was this all about? He then explained, Mr.P.
would take quite chunky sums of cash from Frankfurt business people like
him and restaurateurs who had cash income. A week or two later he would
return them with profit, nice profit. This was all way out of my league. I had
absolutely no idea where to find Mr. P. who had apparently been kicked out
by his girlfiend.

I forgot all about it until I read an article in the German SPIEGEL

magazine, probably only two months later. An international drug and arms
smuggling ring had been busted after an airplane experienced engine trou-
ble on an island airfield off the West African coast. I can’t remember now
whether the load confiscated was arms or weapons. The scheme was to
bring arms to Africa and drugs to Europe. The operation was steered from
London, SPIEGEL reported. The weapons, so the SPIEGEL article, were
from the German Army Bundeswehr where fake ‘end of life’ destruction
certificates had been issued.

Now that was what Mr. P. had been up to! He collected the capital to
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fund that operation (or part of it) and when that particular shipment was
seized due to a malfunction of the plane, the capital input of the investors
was nullified. Ever since then, I watch police reports under this angle: Who
would that be, who lost their investment and how much? It seems that law
enforcement quotes street value, so one third of that is the loss which in-
vestors are hit with. This also looks like an explanation for otherwise
inexpliccable bankruptcies of seemingly very healthy businesses. In July
2010, Australian TV reported a cocaine seizure worth 84 Million $, mean-
ing that some investor(s) lost 28 Million $. Who would they be, you won-
der. Surely, the importers of the cocaine laden pavers would not have funded
the entire shipment?

Coming back to 1969/70, I have no proof that it was indeed Mr. P.

who had organised funds in Frankfurt for that international operation, but
this is what I believe. We did wonder sometimes about people who had
come pennyless to Frankfurt from other countries but only a couple of
years later they were wealthy businessmen with impressive property port-
folios.

Some years later, I heard a little more about Mr. P. He must have
indeed lost that money, not embezzled it. His girlfiriend had turned him out
when people arrived on their doorstep in the middle of the night to claim
their funds. Mr. P. slept on park benches for a little while, sometimes played
the piano in a bar in an international hotel. Then the people who had lost
the money got together and gave Mr. P. the opportunity to slot one of his
songs into success on the hitparade.

Mr. P. should make enough money to pay them back. One of them
became co-owner of the copyright so they could monitor how much the
song generated for Mr. P.

Mr. P. cleared his slate, but never had another hit parade success, not
in London, not in Germany.

The publishing house who was involved (which I did not know at the
time) tricked me two years later into a contract that allowed them to keep
100 % of the proceeds for the music that I had provided. A salesman told
me it sold well, but I never saw a cent from Mr. P.’s friends at ‘World Melo-
dies’.

40 years later, Mr. P. was still writing and producing songs, but an
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internet search did not reveal another success beyond that the initial one.

He also worked with someone we knew, someone who had no good

connections to radio and TV to slot in another success. They let him in
once to get their money back. Why would they share their formula for
success when there is no need? Nonetheless, Mr. P. enjoys ‘elder’ positions
in the industry.

I never saw anything about an investigation into the false army certifi-
cates.

Karsten Schlamelcher,
the man with the suitcase
When I worked as a local journalist in Frankfurt, I got to know the
local politicians. Karsten Schlamelcher, who lived two doors down, was
one of them in City Hall for the ruling conservative side of politics. He was
also a policeman and in his early thirties. He never said to which police unit
he was attached. Had it been traffic or crime, he would have probably said.
From what I could see, he devoted very little time to police work and
seemed fully occupied with City Hall and CDU party matters. Most politi-
cians are also keen to leave their work phone numbers with the local jour-
nalist, which Schlamelcher did not do. Whenever someone is secretive about
where he/she works, you are left wondering what their secret might be.

After we migrated to Australia we no longer had any connection with

him. Nearly 30 years later, I pottered around the internet and found him
described as ‘the man travelling with suitcases full of millions’ - not nuts,
money. In the dying days of the Soviet Empire he took millions of
Deutschmarks to so called Germans in the Soviet Union on behalf of an
organisation for Germans in foreign lands, which was based in the then
capital Bonn.

The webpage which I had found, reminded the reader that this same
organisation had liaised with ethnic Germans in the eastern areas during
WWII, aiming to uncover and round up Jews. The authors of that webpage
omitted (or did not know) that Schlamelcher had been involved in politics,
with the CDU party, and with police. Where the millions came from and
what goods or services they were designed to pay was not mentioned on
that webpage.
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Unfortunately, in between these trips, Karsten Schlamelcher was found

dead in his Bonn home one morning. Heart attack was stated as the cause.
Isn’t it peculiar how people die of seemingly innocent causes when money
and/or politics are involved.

So I tested that organisation. I emailed a kind of commisuration in

German and asked, if new investigations had revealed any more about his
unfortunate and untimely passing at the age of about 40. I certainly did not
expect a proper answer to that question, but wanted to test whether that
organisation was really an organisation for Germans in foreign lands or a
front. If they had been a bona fide organisation for Germans in foreign
lands, they would have tried to recruit me as a member. I am a German in
a foreign land and nearly all organisations like to refresh their membership.
They wrote back some ‘small talk’ and did not try to recruit me - so they
were/are a front, but for what?

One also wonders: Who provided these millions that Karsten

Schlamelcher took to the Soviet Union? Were they bribes, but for what? In
all likelihood, they were public German funds from under the table. Could
they have been the kickbacks which the French elf Aquitaine paid to the
group around Helmut Kohl? At the same time when elf Aquitaine extended
their fraudulent activities from Paris to Germany, they also bribed their way
into various areas of the then Soviet Union. One bagman’s case is docu-
mented: Bagman André Guelfi would not have been let in on a cotton deal
in Kazakhstan had he not carried cash for elf Aquitaine, which fronted as an
oil company but in reality was an arm of the French secret service.

While some people may find it really far fetched to bring in a possible
link to secret service activities, one ought to consider that for every opera-
tion to which one individual admits 20 years down the track, the ratio be-
tween admitted operative and undocumented footsoldiers would be 1:10
or possibly 1:20.

In late July 2010 the Washington Post put out their recent research
on how many agencies and individuals are involved in clandestine activi-
ties, a staggering number. So when something does not quite fit like in the
Schlamelcher case and the later on described case of Karl B., this aspect
needs to be considered.

Holes in a story? Speculation blossoms! Was our former neighbour

Karsten Schlamelcher another bagman and somebody came at night to
snatch his bag?
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Karl B., called himself a writer

We met Karl in 1968, when he and his American born wife rented a
small business from us. We had just paid out our partner with loan shark’s
money after he had cheated our joint venture on a Saturday night when he
was rostered on. A contract was made and upon Karl’s request a price was
put in the contract in case they wanted to take over that business at some
stage.

It turned out to be a bit of a problem to get the monthly rent from Karl
and his wife. They applied the old tactics to be late one month, later the
next, establish an irregularity in the payments to create confusion, which
would enable them to keep a payment or two. From time to time we had to
argue which payment was for which month.......

When the first tax statement was due, of the 1968 period, that we
both had to sign, Karl insisted he would need to visit us. When he came he
said, he could not mention over the phone that the statement was half
concocted. He was obviously under the impression that ours or his phone
would definitely be tapped. His reasoning was ‘if you do not cheat the tax
office, you are cheating yourself because it is all factored in the tables.’

What a sorry creature, I thought, because it was no secret that he

lived in a taxpayer funded cheap apartment while his wife lived mainly in
the somewhat rundown accommodation which was attached to the busi-
ness premises. He must have been certain his or our phone was monitored
or he could have said, ‘just sign the papers. You were on tour most of the
time and could not be aware of what happened in the business while you
were away.’ We signed without looking at the figures, of course.

We never quite understood what exactly Karl was living on. He was
about 50 and had been a musician in his younger years, playing jazz. He
had also been involved in a pub, but said he was out of that. For years and
years we heard he was writing about jazz, but we never saw any evidence,
apart from the fact that we found it hard to believe such a minority topic
could feed a person year in year out.

The business was officially his because he was a German citizen, but
it was managed Karl’s wife. She used quite a bit of hired help and I was
sometimes wondering how that would feed a household of three or what
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© 2010 Ally Hauptmann-Gurski

exactly they were living on.

The only proof of his writing endeavours over 15 years was one little
booklet and the co-authorship of a reference book.

When the lease of the business was due for renewal they convinced
the landlord to become direct tenants. We then proceeded to obtain the
sum mentioned in the contract which was for the goodwill, fixtures, and
name. Astonishingly, they claimed ‘we have paid rent for four and a half
years, it is all ours now.’ It was not a hire purchase contract so we won in
court.

Every time we sent the bailiff, we were told ‘she has nothing’, ‘he has
nothing’. Then, they’d pay a token amount to prevent us from initiating
bankruptcy proceedings. I had to establish an account for their payments
with the post bank which was widely known as destroying records after
three months or so. After a while they’d stop paying, we put the pressure
on again, got more token amounts and the cycle started again.

Then it came to my attention that madam was singing for City Hall.
Our solicitor initiated the confiscation of her fee. This sounds like normal
business practice but in artists’ circles this is the one thing you do not do to
your colleagues. When the bailiff turns up at the client of an artist, it is very
embarrassing and most people will never hire that artist again.

From then on, payments came a bit more regularly until she must
have heard that we had gone to Australia and took that as a signal to shirk
her obligations. From Australia we hired a solicitor again and he told us
‘they are ever so very skillful in slithering out of their obligations’ which
sounded like he knew them from a similar case of shonkiness.

To end the whole silly game with Karl B. and his wife, who were not
really worth the oxygen they breathed, the solicitor negotiated a settlement
so that we would get half of what was rightfully ours.

We never thought of them again until the internet emerged and I

found an obituary of Karl B. At the same time when they did not honour
what they had suggested to put in the contract and what the court had
awarded us, Karl B. had the money to take out US citizenship, and live half
a year in Germany and the other half in an expensive, nice, and sunny US
State. The obituary also mentioned that he got out of being drafted into
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WWII by starving himself so that he would be rejected on health grounds.

From my parent’s generation I had never heard of a similar case. All

the army would need to do, was to keep the person in and feed them
properly for a while. At the same time, so the obituary, he continued to
make music in Nazi ruled Germany in these war years, while so many
people were drafted into factories. He continued to make that kind of mu-
sic, which was strictly verboten by the Nazis - and as his luck would have it,
none of the neighbours was one of the many GESTAPOI informers, so he
was not taken in. Music performed on several brass instruments is quite
loud - wow - and nobody heard the forbidden music and reported it!

Karl B. was a truly lucky man, just as lucky as he was some years later
when his first wife could not get a dime out of him to contribute towards the
education of their daughter.

Karl B.’s story only tallies under the aspect that he was a NAZI in-
former himself, and when the Americans moved in in 1945, he saved his
skin by changing sides. He must have received a pension for services ren-
dered for which he had to aquire citizenship and live half his time across the
Atlantic.

I had no idea what a sorry creature the late Karl B. was when a fellow
musician introduced him to us in 1968.