I have noticed that I receive many e-mails with the same questions, so I have started to post the most frequent questions – and of course the answers – for everyone to read. For free, can you believe that?!
As these FAQ and the many comments might already answer some of your questions, I invite you to browse this page before you contact me (or any other lawyer) about your case.
And if you find these FAQ useful or if you ask a new question, it would be nice of you to support this blog. Thank you!
1. We did not get married in Germany. Can we get a divorce in Germany or do we need to return to the country of marriage?
As long as you have some ties to Germany, whether it be residence or citizenship, you can file for divorce in Germany.
You do NOT need to return to Las Vegas, Denmark or wherever you might have gotten married. Although it could of course be a good excuse to do so, if you got married in Fiji, for example. (But still, you would probably want to go with somebody else than your spouse, I guess.)
2. We are both non-German citizens. Can we get a divorce in Germany?
Yes.
As long as one of you has residence in Germany for at least a year, or both of you have residence in Germany at the moment, the German court will accept your divorce case.
However, if you are both foreigners, the German court can apply the divorce law of your home country, if you choose to have it that way.
This is why international family law is much more complex, but also more interesting. Because it requires that I look at the different laws in play and decide which one to pick. Often, they are rather similar and it doesn’t make a difference. But just as often, they differ greatly, and you might be better off by opting for foreign law.
It’s a neat combination of filing for divorce in Germany, but using the laws of your home country. Especially as foreign citizens can also qualify for legal aid in Germany, which means that the government will pay your lawyer if you cannot afford to do so.
3. Will my home country recognize the German divorce?
That depends on your home country, of course.
But if minimum requirements of due process are kept (such as giving the other party time to respond and letting them know of the court date in due time), most countries fully recognize German divorces and other court orders.
Obviously, before I take on your case and file for divorce in Germany, I will check if your home country will recognize the outcome.
4. What are the requirements for getting a divorce in Germany?
If the court applies German law, you only need to show that you have been separated for one year. You do not need to explain why you split up, who did what, and who is to blame. This one-year separation requirement can also be met if you still live at the same address. You are just not supposed to live as husband and wife any longer, if you know what I mean.
This enables a couple who both want a quicker divorce to file way before the one year of separation by simply claiming that they have been separated for one year. If both spouses stick to the story, the court is not going to find out about it and will grant the divorce. (I have never ever had a judge doubt this. After all, they also want to close the case as quickly as possible.)
5. I am not yet separated for one year and my spouse won’t cooperate, but I still want a quicker divorce. Any chance?
There is a way around this requirement for foreign citizens residing in Germany. Because you can opt to choose the divorce law of your home country, which may have a shorter or no separation requirement at all.
Alternatively, you can try to argue that remaining married would pose an undue hardship. The courts only accept this argument if your spouse has committed criminal acts against you or is constantly harassing or cheating on you. Usually though, these cases become so messy that the whole process takes over a year and you might as well have waited for a simple no-fault divorce.
6. How long does a divorce proceeding take in Germany?
If both of you live in Germany and you file for a simple divorce (no child custody, no financial claims), it usually takes between 4 and 6 months. If you argue about custody and visitation for your children, about child support and alimony, about your house and your pension, it might easily take a few years.
If your spouse lives in another country, getting him or her served with the paperwork is the main issue determining the duration of the divorce process. This could mean another few months if we need to get somebody served in the European Union or in North America, or up to a year if you need to get somebody served in Afghanistan. However, if your spouse is cooperative, this can be sped up considerably.
7. Do we both need an attorney?
No. Only the spouse who files the petition for divorce needs an attorney. The respondent does not necessarily need an attorney if it’s an amicable divorce.
Sometimes, spouses even show up together, asking me to take care of their amicable divorce. I can only represent one spouse officially, but if he/she is fine with the other spouse sitting in, then so am I. No other attorney is needed in these scenarios and you can split the lawyer’s fees.
8. Can I file for divorce without knowing where my spouse lives?
If all of this will yield no result and we can show all the research we have done, then the court will go ahead without the other spouse participating.
9. I would like to have an annulment instead of a divorce.
You need to have a very good reason for that: Either you found out that your spouse is already married to somebody else. Or you can prove that your spouse lied to you or failed to disclose important things that would have prevented you from getting married to him or her, had you known about them (e.g. your spouse has a lethal sexually transmittable disease and did not tell you).
Without very good reasons (and the evidence to support them), it’s virtually impossible to get an annulment from a German court.
10. How soon after a divorce can I get married again?
Whenever I hear that question, I would like to ask “Didn’t you learn anything from the last relationship? Why don’t you enjoy single life for a while?”
But the client is king, and no question remains unanswered: After the court grants the divorce, both spouses still have one month to appeal. Unless both of you waive their right to an appeal at the divorce hearing, you will have to wait one month before you can get married again.
CAVEAT: In a complicated legal field like international family law, there are thousands of possible constellations. It would be impossible to write these FAQ in a way that would make them apply to all scenarios. These FAQ were written with “standard” cases in mind, which constitute the large part of requests that I receive. They might not be applicable in unusually complex cases. To find out where your case is on the complexity scale, some common sense will help: If you are two foreign nationals who moved to Germany, or you are a foreign national married to a German citizen, these FAQ should give you some pretty good guidance. If on the other hand, you are a dual citizen of Ecuador and the USA and got married in Cyprus to a dual citizen of Germany and Israel after you signed a prenuptial agreement in Switzerland, which also governs the fate of your corporations in Russia and Turkmenistan, and you have two children in school in Australia, plus an adopted child from Zambia, you know that these FAQ cannot possibly address your situation. In that case, you better book a proper consultation with me.
All of Germany likes to complain about its capital city. It is often hard to tell whether it’s genuine disgust, secret envy or simply the national pastime of nagging. Those with the strongest opinion of Berlin, calling it a monstrous Moloch, a den of iniquity or the world capital of chaos, have probably never been to Berlin themselves.
Curiously, though, Berliners are also complaining all day long. In this case, the loudest voices come from those who have never left Berlin and believe that everywhere else in the world, every bus is always on time, that you obtain passports, driving licenses and building permits in one day and without any hassle, or that in the rest of the country, all roads and bridges repair themselves overnight, without construction sites and detours, without budget overruns or delays.
Berlin, as imagined by people not living in Berlin.
I myself am not a big city person, really. But whenever I spend some time in the largest city in the European Union, I am actually positively surprised. And as the bearer of good and cheerful news, as the optimist-in-chief, as the champion of truth and beauty, as whom you have gotten to know me, I want to invite you to join me on some of my walks around Berlin.
Relatively unknown, there is a network of paths, routes and trails in Berlin where you can get a completely different impression of Gotham City. Green Walks they are called, and there are twenty of them. For a total of 550 km, these routes wind their way across Berlin, mainly through green spaces, in forests and along waterways.
I don’t know how many of them I will manage to walk. After all, I also have other travel plans (Babylon, Baghdad, Bishkek, to name just a few). And some of the trails are a bit long, up to 63 km, like the Green Walk No. 1 (River Spree Trail).
On the other hand, and this is the beauty of Berlin and the Green Walks, you can take a break at any time, get on the bus or train, go home, and continue hiking the day or the weekend after. And for in-between, there are some short trails, starting at 7 km, like the Green Walk No. 20 (Bullengraben Walk).
For the first walk, I chose a route that lies between these two extremes: The 33 kilometers of the Green Walk No. 2, the Spandau Walk. On my German blog, I have a detailed report about this absolutely beautiful hike (part 1, part 2). I am terribly sorry for my international readers, but for these long articles, I just don’t find the time to write English versions anymore. :/ – As unsatisfying as online translations are (DeepL is still better than the others), I recommend that you get a subscription of my German blog and have it translated in your target language. You will definitely get the gist of it – and all the wonderful photos.
Honestly: I was absolutely blown away! I was of course aware that Berlin is greener than Dubai or Los Angeles. But I really wouldn’t have guessed that you can walk for kilometers through nature, without seeing a single other human being. A long, very varied and absolutely worthwhile trail.
The idea for the Green Walks is an old one, by the way. The urban planner Hermann Jansen had already included them in his plans for Greater Berlin, which was established in 1920. Unfortunately, a few things happened right after the founding of the city: Inflation, depression, National Socialism, World War II, the extensive destruction of the city and the division of Berlin all got in the way. Thus, the project was not realized until 1994.
Those among you who know this blog will already have guessed: On the walks, we will encounter all of these dramatic historical incisions. Because walking with me is never straightforward, but always a wild to and fro across the centuries.
With that much to write about, I particularly appreciate the quiet places where you can pause, think, write and smoke.
Two weeks in Israel, five different hostels/guesthouses, with the most different experiences. At the last one, Al-Yakhour-Hostel in Haifa, I realize, painfully, why there is a horror movie called “Hostel”.
And it had begun so well: a beautiful old Templar house with spacious, bright rooms. Excellent location in Ben Gurion Street, just below the Bahai Temple. Modern and clean toilets and showers. A large kitchen. Sofas in the garden. A friendly welcome from the nice Arab boys who opened the hostel only a month ago. And – always the best hostel surprise, which I already experienced several times during this 2015 trip in Israel – I have the four-bed room to myself. A single room for a quarter of the price. Even more important than the savings is the guarantee of a night I can sleep through. No snoring roommate keeping me awake (as experienced in Jerusalem and Tiberias), no Erasmus students coming back late at night and announcing their return at the highest volume (bad memories of the shared apartment in Bari still haunt me).
But I made the calculation without the all-around-the-clock service of Al-Yakhour-Hostel: the non-sleeping guarantee is included in the price. Coming home from an early evening walk, I can neither use the promised kitchen, nor the lounge with library, where other guests are lounging. But they obviously don’t pay $ 31 per night like me, instead relying on their friendship, acquaintance, kinship, existing or incipient relationship to the operators of the hostel. I am either not noticed at all, or with a “what-does-the-stranger-want-here? look.”What does the stranger want here?”-look.
The big room is being decorated with garlands. A birthday? The anniversary of the Nakba? A suicide bombing? Hopefully a once-in-a-lifetime event, not a regular occurrence every night.
So I’m going out again and find myself a pizza joint. I generously give the young people a few hours and don’t return until just before midnight.
But upon my return, the hostel has degenerated into a disco. Boys and girls are dancing, drinking, boozing, bawling, singing. A laptop is playing Arabic music so loud that the neighbors in Lebanon can hear it.
How am I supposed to fall asleep with this? Maybe it’s my fault that I didn’t bring earplugs, but they wouldn’t do much good. Because noise isn’t the only problem. With each bass, the iron frame of my bed shakes. Even if I bury my head under the admittedly soft pillow, the movements of the whole barn are so strong that they probably register as an earthquake at the seismological station.
I do understand that people want to celebrate, – well, honestly I don’t understand it, but you have to be tolerant of other lifestyles – but if you charge money, renting a room to someone to sleep (!), then you shouldn’t actively prevent the customer from achieving the contractual purpose.
Shortly before 1 o’clock, I demonstratively go to the kitchen to pick up my bottle of iced tea from the fridge. I stop for a while, looking around (attractive girls), wearing an expression between angry, surprised and reproachful/uncomprehending (you have to know me to fear it) and hoping for a reaction, whether it be an apology, an explanation, an invitation, the acknowledgement of my (paying and thus financing the whole binge) presence or – my biggest wish – turning down the volume. None of these things happen. Not a very thoughtful bunch of young people.
I retreat to the room, not yet giving up the hope that the latter of my goals will come true with a little delay. Instead, it is getting louder. The singing of the drunkards is already drowning out that of the singer moaning from the YouTube video.
At 1:45 in the morning, I have had enough. Either I will put an end to the improvised Woodstock or I will at least use the sleep deprivation to write a review of the hostel. With these two goals in mind, I walk down into the kitchen again, notebook and pencil in hand. The kitchen is empty at the moment (everyone is in the disco room or outside). I pour myself a glass of Jaffa orange juice, sit down at the big dining table and start writing these lines.
Those who want to go to the fridge have to pass in front of my eyes, firing the above described look, maybe even angrier now, at each of the beer collectors. Until one of the young guys running the hostel walks through the kitchen, grins at me and says “Hi” as if everything is hunky-dory.
With a decidedly frowning look, I ask: “I hope it’s not that loud every day?”
As if he hadn’t noticed the complaint, he replies: “No, only on Fridays.”
I explain to the, according to their brochure, “knowledgeable staff” that today is Thursday.
And this information about the calendar really works miracles! After a few minutes, the music stops and over the next 45 minutes, the guests are departing, alone or in pairs. They all have to pass through the kitchen in front of me. One boy says, with venom in his voice: “Now you have it quiet”, as if the wish of a paying guest to sleep at 2 o’clock has destroyed his youth. Only two girls politely wish me a “good night”, but they too look at me as if I was a spoilsport, a grandfather or a strange oddball.
I am sitting at the kitchen table alone, but with more than two dozen empty bottles of Becks beer. Next to them, there is a brochure about Palestinian “Life under the Occupation”. The irony that their comrades in the Gaza Strip are not allowed to drink beer not because of Israel, but because of Hamas, is probably lost on these young people.
The next morning, the music is loud again. The little sister of the big party from yesterday is already in full swing. And now it’s really Friday, so tonight will be unbearable.
But here comes Farid and apologizes sincerely. For the remaining nights, he will transfer me to a soundproof house next door, which is actually reserved for families traumatized by incoming missile fire, and which costs $ 130 per night. I will have it all to myself and for $ 31 a night. And I will sleep really well.
Do you know those itchy-scratchy maps that people have in order to show off where they have been?
I always find them a bit misleading, especially when someone has been to Saint Petersburg on a cruise once, and then they mark 11% of the world’s land mass as “visited”. Or people who have been to Yugoslavia in 1984 and now check all seven of its successor states.
Granted, when I say that I have been to 66 countries or so, it also includes those where I merely changed trains and loitered around for a few hours. That’s why I never take these lists and competitions serious.
For each country that you have ever set foot in, you can award yourself between 1 and 5 points, depending on the depth of your experience. Obviously, that’s still subjective and I have seen some people be rather generous with what constitutes “staying” or “living” in a place. I myself have applied these terms quite conservatively, and I currently score 132 points for Europe.
The most depressing thing is that there are still blank spots on my own continent, after years, in fact decades of traveling.
To my great shock and dismay, I have also noticed that I still haven’t been to any new country in 2023. Nor in Europe, nor anywhere else. Obviously, I can’t allow the year to end like that.
So, for Christmas I have to go to either to
Norway (too expensive),
Finland (too dark),
Ireland (I would really prefer to visit in summer, because it looks like a lovely place for hiking),
Andorra (I think they have snow there, too),
San Marino,
Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Bulgaria,
Belarus,
or Iraq.
For what will be a trip of not more than two weeks, I really don’t want to fly. I am one of those somewhat environmentally conscious people, you know. I guess I could also take a ferry to
Cyprus or
Tunisia.
From the latter, I could then even hitchhike to Libya. That would be more in line with some of my previous Christmas trips, which have taken me to Iran, Lebanon and Syria.
I know it’s silly to stick to the at-least-one-new-country-per-year rule, because it would be just as exciting to get to know Asturias, Moravia or Bukovina. But as someone who regularly reneges on all his other resolutions, from dieting to exercise, from studying to writing, I should at least hold this last line of defense.
So, now I am asking for your thoughts, especially if you live in any of the countries mentioned. And if you have a couch, you might even make a new friend. ;-)
For reasons of global inequality, the majority of this blog’s readership is located in the northern hemisphere, where they are currently suffering from the summer heat, fleeing forest fires, or – depending on their worldview and personal priorities – simply happy that the golf course is still getting enough drinking water to keep the lawn green.
Not everyone is a Karl May, who can just make up wild stories. Or a Karl Marx. But that’s another topic, albeit one I might return to soon, because I’ve recently settled down in Karl-Marx-Stadt for the foreseeable future. Due to apartment hunting, moving stress and similar petit-bourgeois nonsense, there was also a noticeable lull on the blog this summer. But now, it’s time to put away hammer and compass, and pick up the pen again.
So, while it’s 35 degrees outside (and even more for those who think that Fahrenheit is a useful measure), I have dug up another refreshing expedition to a cooling place for you. Even in summer, Wrangel Island rarely gets more than zero degrees.
“Wrangel who?” you are asking, prompting me to go back in time, not only by the one hundred years promised in this series, but by two hundred years to start with. Because it was in 1823 that the history of this island began, at least discounting for such boring disciplines as geology, prehistory or paleontology, which would even put a polar bear asleep.
Ferdinand Baron von Wrangel was one of those Baltic Germans whom I have already introduced in another (and unfortunately more bloodthirsty) episode. He worked as a geographer, explorer and surveyor for the Russian tsar, who wanted to know more about Siberia, especially if there was anything useful (gold, wood, fur) to be found between all the useless stuff (snow and ice).
Now, I would ask you to pause for a second and think about the great explorers and their voyages that come to mind. You will probably remember Christopher Columbus, James Cook, Alexander von Humboldt, Vasco da Gama, Henry Morgan Stanley, Hernán Cortés, Roald Amundsen, Ernest Shackleton and all their voyages around the oceans, the search for the Northwest Passage, the marches to the South Pole, the conquest of America, Africa and Australia, but I am certain that Siberia will remain a white spot on your mental map. (Alexander von Humboldt’s expedition to Russia and Siberia is largely unknown even in his home country.)
But after the Middle Ages, Russia was just as much a colonial power as most other European powers. Except that it didn’t need to send fleets overseas because it had the world’s largest landmass right next door, just waiting to be conquered, plundered and subjugated.
Another difference with Portugal, Spain, France, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Germany is that in Russia the colonial attitude still determines foreign policy to this day.
On the map of Russian expansion, you can already spot Wrangel Island in the upper right corner. However, Baron von Wrangel could not see it in 1823, because either the weather, the sea or his mind was too foggy at the time. But while mapping the coast of Siberia, the local Chukchi people told him that there was an island to the north of Siberia. This was confirmed by bird flight, because birds usually do not senselessly and pointlessly fly into the Arctic Ocean, but towards an island where they can take a rest and grab a bite. Birds are pretty clever creatures.
One always wonders how the Polynesians, for example, were able to discover tiny Easter Island in the huge Pacific Ocean. But actually, all you have to do is surf around on the sea until you see flocks of birds. You follow the birds, and swoosh, you’ve discovered an island with mysterious statues and can henceforth make a living from tourism.
That reminds me that I still haven’t gotten around to write the full story about my trip to Easter Island. Maybe in November, when it will be grey and cold and miserable, and you will be longing for the sun and the South Seas. As a countercyclical traveler, I should also write countercyclically.
Baron von Wrangel never saw the island that was named after him. But before you want to pity him about this, don’t worry, he still had an exciting life. He sailed around the world several times and became Governor General of Russian America in 1829, later an admiral, Minister of the Sea and all sorts of scientific jobs.
Yes, you read that right: Russian America. And it’s quite logical, in a way. Once you’ve colonized all of Siberia, you won’t be stopped by a small Bering Strait, and you’ll conquer the next continent. Like the other colonial powers with their East India Companies, Russia established the Russian-American Trading Company, privatizing profits while socializing costs, and allowing a state within a state to emerge that put politics before the cart of its financial interests. (Much like Wall Street.)
It is well known that Alaska was Russian until it was sold to the United States in 1867. Less well known is that the Russian-American Trading Company also had a base in California: Fort Ross, which you can still visit today.
In 1841, Fort Ross was not sold to the USA, but to a Mr. Sutter from Switzerland, who established something like a private colony, called New Helvetia. But at least the older ones among you already know this story, which sounds suspiciously like Karl May, from the movies. Oddly though, in the film, the Swiss gentleman becomes German. The German movie industry must have been on some weird propaganda trip in the 1930s.
Even fewer people know that the Russian-American Trading Company wanted to annex Hawaii and established several bases there. Once again, a German was significantly involved. German-Russian cooperation for the subjugation and division of the world really has a long tradition. Therefore, please do not be surprised if at some point the Russian Pacific fleet appears off Hawaii and says: “You have always been Russian, and therefore we must bomb you into submission.” Strange logic that, bombing and killing the people who supposedly belong to one’s own country or people.
Therefore, let’s quickly return to the good old times when everything was happy-hunky-dory and all people were brothers.
Wrangel Island was sighted several times by whalers or explorers. The coast was mapped. From 1881 at the latest, people also set foot on the island. But nobody wanted to hang around longer than for a glass of grog, because the island didn’t really look that inviting. It’s Siberia, after all. Only further north. And surrounded by ice-cold water.
Not an island worth fighting over.
Especially not between countries that already have millions, if not billions of acres of vast and empty land. The 3,000 square miles of Wrangel Island aren’t quite nothing, but from the point of view of the United States, Canada, Russia or the Soviet Union, you wouldn’t think that they could work themselves into a frenzy over something the size of Rhode Island.
Well, then you don’t know the great powers very well.
They are as quarrelsome as bored pensioners with a grandson in law school.
The first move was made by Captain Calvin Hooper, who set foot on the island in 1881 and rammed a U.S. flag into the ground. Hooper may have been a good captain and a nice chap (I have no information about this), but he was not a scholar of international law. Otherwise, he would have known that it takes a bit more than a windy flag to take possession of islands.
But he probably wasn’t that serious, because neither he nor the United States Navy returned to the island in the decades that followed. Instead, a Russian icebreaker came by in 1911, piled up a pile of rocks, and then moved on. That doesn’t win you an island in the long run, either.
No, you can’t make the moon American like that.
The next visitors came unintentionally. In January 1914, the Karluk, the flagship of the Canadian Arctic Expedition, sank. The castaways made it to Wrangel Island. The captain, Robert Bartlett, together with a colleague, set out on foot for Siberia (the sea was frozen over, after all), and from there another 1,100 kilometers through Siberia to the Bering Strait, still on foot, to find a ship to Alaska.
From there he sent a rescue ship to Wrangel Island, and when you see the King & Winge, it becomes clear why many of the Arctic expeditions of the time ended with ships crushed in the pack ice. But this time, the rescue mission was successful, at least for those who survived the nine months on Wrangel Island.
The leader of the Canadian Arctic Expedition, Vilhjálmur Stefánsson, had a very bad character trait which, absurdly, some people, especially those working in HR departments, consider a positive one: He was ambitious.
As the majority of his posse had survived on Wrangel Island, he thought: “I might as well take possession of this island for king and country!” The country was Canada, the king was British, because Canada at the time was not yet truly independent. – As far as I know, Canadians still believe in the British king. I have a friend who has been living in Canada for ages, but he refuses to apply for Canadian citizenship, because then he would have to swear an oath to the king. Personally, I think that’s a bit pedantic; especially since he’s British. So he already has the king on his hands anyway, whether he wants to or not. That is what a monarchy is all about, after all.
But back to Stefánsson. In 1921, he organized an expedition, this time with the explicit goal of not becoming shipwrecked, instead landing on Wrangel Island with full intent and to live there for a year and thus take possession of the uninhabited island for Canada. Granted, this was a better plan than the earlier excursions, which only briefly stuck a flag in the snow and then departed again. At least in theory.
Stefánsson gathered four young men (Allan Crawford, Frederick Maurer, Milton Galle and Errol Lorne Knight). All of them under 30, fresh out of college and just as ambitious as the expedition leader. They had probably been at McKinsey or Boston Consulting Group together.
Because the Canadians and Americans were, of course, to conduct highly important research, they could not under any circumstances engage in mundane activities such as hunting, cooking or sewing tents and winter clothing. For that, Stefánsson hired some Inuit families, of whom he thought: “They live in the ice anyway, they will know what to do.”
When the whole troupe gathered in a port in Alaska on 9 September 1921 to set sail on the Silver Wave, there were two surprises.
First surprise: The Inuit immediately realized that they were dealing with a bunch of inexperienced snobs, that the equipment was inadequate, and that in case of food shortages, the plan seemed to be that the Eskimos would serve as food for the white folks.
So, at the last minute, the Inuit withdrew. With one exception, a 23-year-old woman named Ada Blackjack. She was widowed, had a son with tuberculosis, and knew that without the monthly expedition salary of $50, her son would probably die. Because Ada Blackjack could cook and sew, the explorers thought: “Well, the girl will do. This way we’ll even save the money intended for all the other guys.”
Second surprise: In port, the great expedition planner Stefánsson told his men that unfortunately he could not accompany them – “too much work at the office, you know”, – but that he would visit them next year with another ship, possibly even pick them up.
Maybe I’m a little oversensitive, but for me, that would have been one giant red flag!
Not so for our young heroes, which is why the four men and one woman went off on their own. (Plus the ship’s crew, of course, but they wouldn’t stay on the island).
Oh, and on the voyage, there was the third surprise: They were supposed to stay on Wrangel Island for one year, but they only had food for six months. To save money, clever Mr Stefánsson had planned that the Inuit would hunt enough animals for everyone to live in luxury. Except that the hunters hadn’t come along.
On 16 September 1921, the four men and Ada were abandoned on the island. The captain promised to come back in the summer of 1922 to check up on them. All they would have to do was to get through one year of cold and isolation, “for king and country”.
In the beginning, things didn’t even go badly. They built tents for themselves and traps for the local fauna. The men learned to hunt – willy-nilly, because Campbell’s tomato soup soon becomes very boring. Ada cooked and sewed furs and blankets from the skins of seals and foxes – they didn’t dare touch the polar bears, though. For entertainment, they invented a card game, which they named after their cook.
The winter of 1921/22 was hard; as was to be expected. But, like in life, you can survive the coldest winter when you know that next summer the redeeming ship will appear on the horizon.
By now, you can probably guess what the next surprise was. The summer of 1922 was exceptionally cold. The sea around Wrangel Island did not thaw, even in summer, and the rescue ship got stuck in the ice somewhere along the way.
“Surely just a little delay,” the four men and Ada thought in August 1922, waiting for September.
“Maybe they will come after the summer holidays,” the four men and Ada thought in September, waiting for October.
“It is probably taking them longer because they had to rescue someone else on the way,” the four men and Ada thought in October, waiting for November.
“Maybe they want to surprise us for Christmas?” the four men and Ada thought in November, waiting for December.
“Or for New Year’s,” the four men and Ada thought in December, waiting for January.
“Screw it, I don’t think anybody will ever show up,” the four men and Ada thought toward the end of January 1923 and decided to walk to the Siberian mainland. It was winter, after all, and the sea was frozen over.
Like here in Lithuania.
However, one of the men, Errol Lorne Knight, had fallen so ill that he was no longer fit to walk. He was suffering from scurvy, a deficiency disease that predominantly affects North Americans if they do not regularly consume fast food, fat and sugar. – Well, our merry band of explorers should have gone to the McDonald’s Islands instead, haha.
In such exceptional situations, it helps to have a clear moral compass. For the other three men, it was therefore immediately clear: “Ada, you stay with the terminally ill guy, and we’ll get out of here.” Of course, they also promised Ada and Knight that they would get help, but everyone had heard that promise more than enough. That’s like me promising to “take care of it this week” when you call or e-mail me. You might as well wait for the next ice age.
Because Knight could no longer get up, Ada now had to go hunting all by herself. For lack of experience, she often caught nothing at all for days, and then only a rabbit. Despite absolutely insufficient food intake and although Knight lay on the couch all day like Al Bundy, Ada was able to nurse him through another five months. It was not until 22 June 1923 that he died.
Crawford, Maurer and Galle, the three men who had made their way to the mainland, died as well. However, no one knows where or when or how. They disappeared, and ain’t nobody never found no shred of them.
Ada Blackjack was now all alone in the Arctic Sea.
You may have noticed it above in the group photo. If not, take another close look:
Exactly! The men, who otherwise got nothing right and did everything wrong, had made one correct decision. In good seafaring tradition, they had taken a cat with them.
The cat’s name was Victoria and she was extremely sweet, cute, kind, smart, cooperative, funny, sensitive and generally the perfect companion in all situations. In addition, she proved to be very adaptable and resilient, motivating the humans, who otherwise would have long ended their misery, to stay alive and keep going.
Indeed, it must be stated unequivocally: Without the cat, Ada would not have survived. And all the expeditions that failed before and since – whether in the Arctic or Antarctic, in the Himalayas or in outer space – probably lacked a cat.
And so, Ada and Victoria held out until 20 August 1923, when the Donaldson finally arrived to pick up the two sole survivors after almost two years in the ice.
Because the Donaldson thought she would find a prosperous Canadian colony, she had immediately brought along a slew of new settlers. Charles Wells and twelve Inuit climbed off the ship cheerfully and – were people really that stupid back then? – were not discouraged by the fact that everyone but Ada and the cat were dead.
And Stefánsson, the unlikable organizer of the whole mess? He claimed that the island now belonged to him – not the king – and sold it.
Pretty cheeky, you might think. Until you think about it a bit and realize, together with Jean-Jacques Rousseau, that all of capitalism is based on this cheekiness:
The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say this is mine and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. What crimes, wars, murders, what miseries and horrors would the human race have been spared, had someone pulled up the stakes or filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellow men: “Do not listen to this imposter. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all and the earth to no one!”
Fortunately, in the meantime, just around the corner from Wrangel Island, a country had emerged that wanted to reverse this misguided idea. In the course of that, it sadly took its own many misguided paths. The Soviet Union renewed a claim to the island that had already been made by Tsarist Russia in 1916, this time not for king and country, but for the workers, peasants and soldiers.
The USSR sent the ship Red October (not the one from the movie) in 1924, told the Americans that the fun was over and got them off the island. And then the Soviets did the same nonsense as the Americans and Canadians before: They sent colonists to the island, left them to themselves again for years, because the supply ships couldn’t get through the ice.
But the Soviets made one additional mistake: They didn’t bring a cat.
That’s why the governor of the island, Konstantin Sementchuk, went crazy at some point in the 1930s and had all the other inhabitants murdered, persecuted, poisoned and starved to death. The story is too grim to go into the details. On the other hand, quite normal for the Soviet Union under Stalin, where every day and in every life, there was big drama. You actually have to be thankful that nobody detonated a nuclear bomb on the island.
Stalin died in 1953 – probably because he didn’t have a cat.
From then on, almost normal life developed on Wrangel Island, though never with more than a few hundred people. But the icebreakers had improved, so ships with newspapers and tobacco showed up regularly. The town of Ushakovskoye was founded, with a school, hospital, department store, airport and even a library.
If you are now thinking “great, I’ll go on a holiday there”, you are too late. Because in 1997, the settlement was abandoned. The older inhabitants refused to move away, like they always do. The last surviving lady got eaten by a polar bear in 2003.
Probably how important cats are for mental health and survival during hard times.
Links:
All articles of the series “One Hundred Years Ago …”. – You probably noticed that I only found time for the August episode in September, but there will also be an episode for September 1923. Either about the Bauhaus, about the military coup in Spain or about Bavaria, just in time for the upcoming state elections there.
Many visitors are surprised when, in the center of the German capital, right next to Brandenburg Gate and Parliament, between plenty of other monuments, and only a short walk from the train station, they see two Soviet tanks and an impressive Soviet War Memorial.
Every year, hundreds of thousands of visitors excitedly snap photos of the Tiergarten Memorial, thinking they have been to the Soviet War Memorial in Berlin.
In reality, they ain’t seen nothing yet.
For the real thing, you gotta hop on the S-Bahn to Treptower Park and walk towards said park, where soon, through the trees, you will spot massive structures. Once you enter, you will find yourself in the largest Soviet memorial built outside of the Soviet Union.
Because you probably missed this when you were in Berlin, I went there on your behalf. And as befits war memorials, I went on a snowy, cold and grey morning in February.
On top of the monument stands a Soviet soldier protecting a child and squashing a swastika.
Another interesting detail lies in the text chiseled into the large slabs of stone on both sides of the enormous square. The history of the Great Patriotic War, allegedly written by Stalin himself, explicitly mentions that “Hitler’s henchmen tried to enslave or exterminate the people of Ukraine, Belarus, of the Baltics, of Moldova, of Crimea and of the Caucasus”, stressing the multi-ethnic composition of the Soviet Union – and of the Red Army. The attempt by modern Russia to exclusively equate itself with the Soviet Union and its fight against fascism is clearly a falsification of history.
Another inscription mentions “the heroic defenders of Odessa”, sadly topical nowadays.
When you leave the site of the Soviet memorial, you will find that many residents living across the street are trying to make exactly that point by flying Ukrainian flags from their windows and balconies.
For a short time, there was an additional monument in Berlin, a tank destroyed in the current war waged by Russia against Ukraine. And yes, your sense of architecture has not mislead you, that building in the background used to be the Soviet Embassy.
Links:
If you are wondering why World War II only began in 1941 on Soviet war memorials (and why even countries other than Russia don’t want to change this), here is the explanation.
For the project “Journey to the Center of Europe”, I am going to visit all the places that have ever laid claim to being the geographical center of Europe or the European Union. And write about them.
I am sure you remember when I launched this series with a daring journey to Ukraine, across rickety wooden bridges and battlefronts, where, amid rocket fire and the thunder of artillery, I sought out this 1887 menhir that supposedly marks the center of Europe.
The inscription – Locus Perennis Dilicentissime cum libella librationis quae est in Austria et Hungaria confecta cum mensura gradum meridionalium et parallelorum quam Europeum – was as mysterious as Arne Saknussemm’s runic writing, which once showed Professor Lidenbrock and his nephew Axel the way to the center of the Earth. Many readers, vaguely remembering little bits of Latin from grammar school, have already given up in despair.
Today – 620 km to the west – we will finally solve the riddle.
Thanks to the comment of a reader, who couldn’t be bothered with easy languages like Latin, but learned Czech right away, I had to realize that my list of central points was incomplete and that there are as many midpoints of Europe on the soil of the Czech Republic as in the rest of Europe combined. One could almost get the impression that the Czechs don’t take my project quite seriously, torpedoing it intentionally with arbitrarily placed points.
I, on the other hand, always take everything far too seriously, which is why one early Easter morning I take the bus from Budějovice/Budweis to Lišov. It is much too early and too cold, or the village is simply too small. Either way, there is nothing going on here. Just a few early risers walking their dogs and frowning suspiciously at the dogless vagrant.
If you live in a similar village, you must know this from the local newspaper. They run reports like: “On Sunday morning, an unknown person was observed on Huntington Drive in Bragg Creek, looking at the houses. The police is asking the population to be extremely vigilant.” People have become so screen-fixated that they find it suspicious when someone is walking around with open eyes, admiring the local woodcarving.
But actually, I’m looking for something else.
A hiking map.
A waymarker.
An information board.
But nothing. I wander around until I find this signpost on a garden fence.
“Středem louky k lesu”: Walk across the meadow and you’ll get to the forest.
Well, what a surprise! I don’t think you would find any meadow in Central Europe, at the other side of which there ain’t no forest. A completely superfluous hint, like carrying wood into the forest, as they say in Czech. Which probably makes more sense than our coals-to-Newcastle saying, because who is aware of the current fossile fuel situation on the river Tyne? I don’t even think they mention that in the Financial Times anymore, because they have all gone bitcoin and bonkers there.
But as I don’t find any other clue, I decide to follow the ominous sign. Across meadows that look like swamps after the incessant rain. Over a secret pipeline project, which is strictly off-limits, but which is not manned with guards, thanks to the Easter holidays. And finally into the promised forest, past suspiciously gloomy witches’ cottages, straight from Hänsel and Gretel. (Please stop robbing that poor boy of his Umlaut!)
Deeper and deeper, I am getting lost in the forest, until suddenly a clearing opens up. It lies a little lower and is perfectly flat, like a pond. It is surrounded by small rocks that look as if the clearing is the result of blasting. Tall trees shield it against prying eyes.
And in the middle of the clearing, there it is, prominently: a menhir, a stele, a monument, an altar.
Three deer are grazing in the meadow, enjoying the lush grass along with the first tender rays of the sun. But as soon as they hear me, they jump into the bushes. (On the first photo you can still see the three white bottoms to the right of the stele.) They don’t seem to be used to visitors. Or only visitors who want to shoot them.
And, even if it has a different color, the connoisseur immediately spots the similarity with the construction in Carpatho-Ukraine. As the decoding of the year MDCCCLXXXIX shows, this monument also dates from the Habsburg period, namely from 1889, making it two years younger than the same marker in Kruhlyj.
Why should the geographical center of Europe have shifted by more than 600 km within two years? No idea. In 1887, France did something in Indochina. In 1888, German colonialism did a bit of fiddling around in Zanzibar and Nauru. (Also in 1888, slavery was abolished in Brazil, but that had more relevance for the geographic center of Brazil.) In 1889, German mountaineers claimed Mount Kilimanjaro as the highest mountain in the German Empire, but the story about the highest mountains of all European countries is a different one.
Fortunately, the inscription on this stele is much better preserved (or repaired) than on the stone placed in the Carpathians.
And so, at last, the mystery is solved. The inscription is identical, but on the stele in Ukraine the last two words are missing: “vocant erectum”. No wonder linguists, historians and geographers have been puzzling and arguing for generations!
The text
Locus perennis diligentisimae cum libella librationis quae est in Austria et Hungaria confecta cum mensura graduum meridionalium et parallelorum quam Europeam vocant erectum.
means something like
This is a permanent location, recorded for eternity for the purpose of leveling, determined during the measurement of European latitudes and longitudes, which was carried out in Austria-Hungary.
There is nothing at all about the center of Europe. It is simply a point for land surveying.
One again, a myth is busted, and a local tourism authority is severely disappointed. That’s why, unlike other travel bloggers, I never get invitations to Caribbean cruises or for the new hiking trail in Bhutan. And now you know why you never read anything critical elsewhere, and why everything is always nice and sunny and wonderful on the travel pages in the newspaper.
And thus, instead of on a sunny island, I find myself standing in a clearing in the woods, wondering what to do with the rest of the day. For such situations, I have a standard solution: I walk to the next road, put my thumb out, and see who will give me a ride.
The “locus perennis” is not far from the E 49, which runs from Magdeburg (in Germany) to Vienna (in Austria), crossing the Czech Republic. The road runs in a straight line for a few kilometers, so it’s easy to see how cars are veering and zigzagging to the left and to the right. Normally, this indicates acute cell phone use, but the cars here all come from Budějovice/Budweis, so it may be the beer. Mobiles and malt, both have murdered millions of motorists. (Maybe fewer, but hey, it’s an alliteration.)
After only 10 minutes, a driver stops. He was just eating his breakfast at about 100 km/h and has to clear the passenger seat of bread, sausage, cheese, a jar of cucumbers, eggs, a salt shaker, mustard and cutlery. This guy is having a better breakfast in his car than I eat at home. The foodie doesn’t even ask where I want to go. Instead, his first question is how long I have been waiting.
“No more than ten minutes,” I say, which I don’t deem too bad. But he is visibly disappointed.
“It’s Easter!” the chauffeur gets angry. “People are driving to church, but leave others standing by the side of the road.”
And then the Czech man, who fortunately speaks a whole array of foreign languages, including German, explains why he, too, wasn’t driving in quite a straight line: “I’ve only slept two hours. And I’ve been doing that for a week. Two hours every night, and then back to work.”
He keeps a rather atypical flextime account, working seven months in a row, and then five months off. His season has just begun. During the spring and summer months, he drives through the Czech Republic and Slovakia, through Germany and Austria, and into Hungary and Italy, collecting pollen.
“I drive up to 1000 km in a day,” he says, and it sounds much more exhausted than proud.
He collects the pollen for a pharmaceutical company. They in turn use it to produce medicine for those who suffer from allergies. He watches the weather forecast and especially the pollen calendar, and then drives toward the sun and away from the rain. Crisscrossing the whole continent, a bit like my search for the geographical center of Europe.
He has probably seen more of these midpoints, or at least driven past them, than I have. And he would have no problem deciphering the Latin inscriptions either, because when we drive past trees, he always refers to them by their Latin names: Betula pendula. Fraxinus excelsior. Salix caprea. He spies these trees from hundreds of feet away, like other people spot a fast-food joint.
So, if you are on antihistamines, think of this poor man climbing trees all over Europe for your medicine.
By the way, I myself no longer have any problems with allergies, ever since an Inca medicine man in South America let me in on a secret: “Against the birch tree’s pollen yoke, the only cure is tobacco smoke.”
The pollen collector prefers wild trees or trees in public parks. But if he sees a magnificent specimen in someone’s garden, he rings the bell and asks for permission to harvest the pollen. If people hesitate, he offers chocolate. If they still hesitate, he offers Czech beer. And in very stubborn cases and for extremely fertile trees, he offers money.
What baffles me the most: Even then, some people refuse.
The next town is Třeboň, where the birch trees stand between the prefabricated buildings at the entrance of the town. Sort of public, that’s perfect. He asks if he shall take me to some castle or something. Very kind! But I think of the pollen and the two hours of sleep and thank him very much.
A few minutes later, I’m already sitting in the park and realize that the blue flowers on the ground fascinate me much more than the fine dust high up in the branches. What can I do, I am such a romantic guy.
Because I didn’t know that I would end up in Třeboň that day, I am wandering around a bit aimlessly.
Thereby, I probably overlook a lot, but at least I find confirmation that the Czech Republic – along with Italy and Portugal – is one of those countries where you can actually go to any small town. No matter where you go, it’s picturesque and pretty.
Honestly, I don’t know why all tourists flock to Prague and to Český Krumlov. The latter is pretty, of course, I happened to stop by on this trip as well.
But I don’t understand the people who fly to Prague and then drive 200 km to Krumlov, leaving all the other cities to the left and right. That’s like the tourists who land in Frankfurt and drive straight to Neuschwanstein, past at least 250 other castles that they don’t even look at. Besides, such places need the additional tourism as little as Newcastle needs another barge of coal.
For the return trip from Třeboň to Budějovice/Budweis I take the train. The direct route would be about 25 km, going west, but the train first goes to České Velenice in the southeast, all the way to the border with Austria, where I have to change to another train back west. The detour of about 80 km is necessary because even 100 years after the end of the Habsburg Empire, all railroad lines start from Vienna and extend from there in all directions. – Which could settle the question of where the center of Europe is, I guess.
Despite this indisputable argument for Vienna, I will continue the search for the center of Europe. Until the end of May, I’m still cat-sitting in Markkleeberg (near Leipzig in Germany), but after that comes the summer, perfect for hitchhiking, so there’s nothing standing in the way of exploring all these abstruse points.
Have a look at the map and the list of all the places to be visited. If you live near one of these points, I would be happy to meet you! And the esteemed supporters of this blog will receive a postcard.
Do you want a posctard?
Actually, you would be surprised how hard it has become to find postcards in some places. But for you, dear reader, I’ll walk the extra miles!
The Happy Hermit 