We were by no means the only ones who ran away rather than give a salute under duress. Little did we know at the time that our then four-year-old son25 would one day be wearing a brown shirt too, and in my own house to boot, and that one day I too would have to buy a Nazi flag and fly it on ‘festive days’. If we had had any notion of the sufferings that lay ahead, perhaps we would have changed our minds after all and packed our bags. And when we returned home to Berkenbrück we congratulated ourselves on our peaceful village existence. We looked at each other and said: ‘Thank God! The farmers out here in the country are not bothered about the Nazis! They till the soil and are happy just to be left in peace!’ What naive fools we were! Our eyes would soon be opened to the realities of Nazism in rural life!

Meanwhile we had grown to like our villa so much that we decided to stop looking for somewhere else and to stay where we were – but to become owners rather than tenants. That would not be possible without the consent of the Sponars. So we went to see them and made the following proposal: I would buy up the mortgages from the individual mortgage lenders, and he would agree to let the house be put up for compulsory auction. At the sale I would then acquire the house for the value of the mortgages, the property being so heavily mortgaged that there was no danger of anyone outbidding me. In return for his consent to the auction I would grant him and his wife a lifelong right of residence in the ground-floor apartment – admittedly half the size of what they had now – and in addition I would pay them both a monthly annuity that was twice as much as the pension they were getting from social services. In return, he would help out in the garden as far as his strength permitted.

I was offering the Sponars an incredibly good deal here. The protection against foreclosure would not last indefinitely; the house would come under the hammer one day, and he would lose the right of residence there, lose the garden, and not get a penny in compensation. So I was astonished when the couple seemed unsure about accepting my proposal. I pressed them, and eventually he came out with it. He felt that by agreeing to let the house be put up for auction he was placing himself entirely in my hands. Once the house had been sold at auction, he said, the Sponars would have no rights at all, and I could do with them whatever I wanted. It was easy to make promises – no offence intended – but keeping them in these uncertain times was even less certain . . . I said with a laugh that his concerns could very easily be laid to rest: all we needed to do was go and see a notary together and put our mutual obligations in writing. He promised to think it over for a day or two. I couldn’t understand it – I thought he should have been grateful to me, simple as that. What I was offering was a pure gift. But people are strange, and old people especially. But he came to me next morning – it always pays to sleep on things – and gave his consent. I suggested that we go straight to the notary and get it all down in writing, exactly as he wanted. But all of a sudden he wasn’t in such a hurry any more. He had a touch of bronchitis, he claimed. Besides, there was no great hurry, he said: he knew I was a man of my word, the end of this week or the beginning of the next would be soon enough. Which was fine by me. I was exhilarated by the prospect of owning a house of my own, when just a short time ago I had had nothing to my name. Thinking that everything was settled, I travelled to Berlin and went to one of the big banks to arrange the transfer of the prime mortgage.