My father part II

Here in Potsdam he went to the gymnasium, which is what the High School for boys was then called. There were no Majors as they are known here in the U.S. The subjects were: Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Zoology, Algebra and Geometry and, of course, languages. Aside from German he had English, French, Latin and Greek. He was not a very good student but managed to pass his exams for the Abitur, the final exam, without which he would not have been able to enroll at University. After many years of studying, or pretending to study, he received a degree in Engineering for Architecture.

He spent much of his student years traveling, pursuing different interests, visiting the museums and churches or any building he considered worthy of his attention. In 1910 he finally settled down and took the job as building inspector in Altona, Hamburg's smaller neighbor long since incorporated into Hamburg.

Altona, many years ago, had started out as a fishing community by the Elbe river right next to the big harbor of Hamburg. Though never achieving the importance of Hamburg it nevertheless grew into a sizable town under the auspices of the Danish King who, until 1866, ruled the Province of Schlesswig Holstein which, in turn, at that time belonged to the Kingdom of Prussia. Here my father spent his years until his retirement and beyond. He was fascinated with the old part of Altona when it was not much more than a village and whenever he discovered a house, no matter how humble, which clearly still belonged to the past he painted a water color of it since he did not like photography.

At one point he wrote a book which he called "Liebe alte Stadt" "Dear old town". For many years this book was a collector's item. The water colors were stored in archives in Altona and over the years have disappeared into apartments of municipal employees.