Life is a Journey: Live it (Part 38)

The other autobiography
While most of my classmates were having a good time partying, parties I see as a waste of precious time, in the first six months at Wirtschaftsgymnasium City-Nord I woke up in the mornings at five am, got my shower and breakfast before getting on my bike to head for Shell German Headquarters in City-Nord. On level seven northwings I would hoover and clean twenty offices having fifteen minutes break. Each floor had a pantry with free of charge vending machines. I loved the hot chocolate on offer and never continued working without it. After work was done two hours later I was home again. By bike Shell was around ten minutes away from Alte Wöhr. It took me ten minutes to change and get ready for school, locking my bike, seeing the rich students being dropped off by their parents or arriving in style in their own cars. Looking back I guess they never knew nor ever were interested in how I made it to school. In school soon I was highly respected by them, seeing me as a very good student not allowed to be pushed around or fooled with. Soon they asked me to assist them with their homework. I kept a low profile after losing my election campaign for the Presidency of the students' union.

The first six months though were tough, very tough. To adapt to the new academic landscape among rich students a boy from a working-class family with little money and a single not intelligent mother brought me to the brink of collapse. For a few days, I had the impression to better to kill myself than to continue schooling. I saw myself as a loser. Ulrich Groß later by his looks described by Sabine Fuchs as a rapist soon became my close friend. It was because of him that I overcame my fears and darkest thoughts. After these six months, I was free and felt very welcomed in school.

Ulrich Groß was the son of two teachers. His older sister had left home a long time ago. His parents were old and retired. They had taught at a nearby prestigious school, Albert Schweitzer Gymnasium. He played piano and to me was the most intelligent person whom I met in my entire life. Like many highly intelligent people, Ulrich Groß faced problems of being constantly misunderstood by others. When they looked at him and with his constantly soft and sweating hands would try to explain himself and what he was asked about, their interest in him soon subsided. When he eventually realised someone only had an interest in him for what he knew Ulrich Groß would turn around and ignore that person. Often I went to him near Ohlsdorf train station sitting around the dinner table to complete our homework. His mother loved to see me in her house knowing I was honest to her son; a real friendship. While studying our subjects she used to enter the room and serve us with hot chocolate and biscuits. In summer Ulrich Groß and I took our bikes along the river Alster from Ohlsdorf to Poppenbüttel and back. We took three to four hours to ride side by side along the riverbank. As Spanish was a serious problem for me while enjoying the sun and the bike ride Ulrich Groß would lecture me to improve on Spanish until I enjoyed it and was marked with mark two by our teacher.

It was he who helped me to find back on my true way in life. Thinking of what to do after receiving my A-levels, I wanted to be rich like my classmates and study economics. I saw myself sitting in a big office not working, only giving orders. Under a weeping willow at the riverbank, Ulrich Groß stopped me, letting me reflect on my inner self. He was right to study for the only reason to become rich was not for me. Money, especially big money, was not part of me. To know everything there is to know in this world, oh yes, that was for me. Until my early forties when I realised money is not the instrument of the devil, it is not bad, only the attitude which is connected to money is. I wanted to change the world for which money, big money is needed. When I got to that point in my life I started to look out for money, never forgetting it was not for me to show off but to achieve my agenda.

Two classmates made my heart jump. Gräfin Gisela von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, from an old royal German family, her father was the German Ambassador and Heidi Willer, her father owner of five jewellery shops in Hamburg.