In the footsteps of ″ schwabenkinder ″, culture, dw

Child labor existed in Germany well into the 20th century – this is shown by the history of poor Austrian children who labored on Upper Swabian farms. DW met one of the last contemporary witnesses.

It was no different four months after his mother’s death: August Dorn, a shy 10-year-old boy, had to pack his backpack and leave his Austrian hometown of Riefensberg. His father was a craftsman, often without a job – and at a loss as to how to feed his five children. And so he made a decision that thousands of fathers had made before him in the alpine villages south of Lake Constance: his son was to go to Upper Swabia and work from spring to autumn on the farm of a wealthy farmer.

Before the railway was built, they left "Schwabenkinder" on foot – up to 200 kilometers, over snow-covered Alpine passes

Today August Dorn is a lively 82-year-old man and one of the last witnesses of the so-called "Schwaben Go" can still tell from personal experience. With his memories from the year In 1940 he was careful: "I don’t just want to talk about the negative. As long as you have food, you can endure a lot. But I simply couldn’t please the farmers on my first farm. They only insulted me, otherwise I was hardly spoken to." August Dorn had no sugar in the coffee, no cherries from the orchard, and the farmer also wanted to prohibit him from swimming on Sunday afternoons.

Time travel with the smartphone

Clear impressions of the lives of individuals "Schwabenkinder" like August Dorn, there have rarely been. Because although this particular form of labor migration extended from the 17th to the 20th century, there are hardly any autobiographical descriptions left. 70 years after the last children from the Alpine region on Upper Swabian farms, the descendants on both sides of Lake Constance have now started to dig deeper into the history of the "Schwaben walking" immerse.

One lived in this courtyard, which can be visited today in the farmhouse museum in Wolfegg "Schwabenkind" from Graubünden

The threads of the new research come together in the Farmhouse Museum in Wolfegg. It lies between Allgäu and Upper Swabia, between rolling hills and baroque churches, in the middle of the former area of application "Schwabenkinder". Grandchildren or great-grandchildren of former come here again and again "Schwaben goers", who want to know where their ancestors had to work. And this is where the initiative arose to comb through servant directories in Germany and school archives in the neighboring Alpine countries. Historians were able to create short biographies of around 8,000 "Schwaben children" reconstruct – the impetus to reopen the fates of these children in their countries of origin.

In Liechtenstein and Switzerland, in Austria, northern Italy and also in southern Germany there are now new exhibitions on the "Schwaben Go". Centuries-old paths meander between the 27 museums and cultural institutions: the routes on which many "Schwabenkinder" Before the railway was built, there were often several daily marches to get to their employers. With a smartphone app and a new hiking guide, these partially forgotten trails will be available again from June 2012; initially in Vorarlberg in northern Austria and in Upper Swabia in southern Germany.

What the kids for "Schwaben Go" force

The fact that farmers’ possessions in Austria were shared among all the children in a family can still be seen today

Those who embark on these old paths have in mind the picturesque backdrop of the Alps – and a landscape in which the driving forces for the "Schwaben Go" are still visible today. It is not uncommon for a large number of small haystacks to crowd on narrow Austrian slopes. In Upper Swabia, on the other hand, extensive fields around large farmsteads are part of the landscape. "This shows the different handling of inheritance law", explains the local researcher Elmar Bereuter, who runs the "Schwabenkind"-Traced paths using historical maps.

"In southern Germany, the eldest son usually inherited the entire property of the parents, the remaining children could only remain on the farm as servants or maidservants. Of course you can argue about what is more socially just", says Bereuter with regard to the situation in Austria. There, farms were divided among all siblings after the death of their parents. For example, ever smaller farm plots had to feed an ever increasing number of families. When parents and children could not earn enough to do casual work, there was often only one way out: the children had to go to farmers in Upper Swabia "hire".

Outrage at "Children slave markets"

The threshold to her life with foreign employers was for most "Schwabenkinder" Lake Constance – as soon as they had reached the German shore by ship, they went to the "Hats Children markets" in Friedrichshafen and Ravensburg. There the farmers negotiated the working conditions and a meager wage with the companions of the children from their home villages, often clergymen or war-disabled. The local researcher Elmar Bereuter estimates that the last Swabian children earned about 200 euros by today’s standards – for eight months of work, often not even Sundays were free.

Lake Constance was for many "Schwabenkinder" the threshold to a life with foreign employers

Newspaper reports about "temporary bondage" and "Children slave markets" reached across the Atlantic at the beginning of the 20th century and caused hectic diplomatic correspondence between Germany and the USA. The authorities in southern Germany were outraged by the accusation that the "Schwaben Go" inhumane slavery. In 1921 they finally introduced compulsory education for foreign children. Therefore "Schwabenkinder" uninteresting for many farmers, and that "Hats Children markets" disappeared. "For a long time it was believed that the ‘Swabian Walking’ was done with it", says Elmar Bereuter. "But at some point the researchers fell out of the clouds. One, Otto Uhlig, had just finished a work on the ‘Schwabenkinder’, when he found that the whole thing had continued until second World War II – not just with individual children, but with hundreds. And August Dorn was among these children."

"I belonged to this family"

August Dorn is also one of those "Schwaben children", who have kept in touch with their farmers in Upper Swabia for decades. In the summer months of 1941 to 1943, he worked on a farm in Legau in the Lower Allgäu, and there he fared better than when he worked for the first time. "I still remember exactly how everyone sat around the table in the morning. We only started eating when the farmer made three cross signs and put pieces of bread in a bowl of milk or coffee. I was part of this family, that was the nice thing", says August Dorn.

August Dorn still visits the farm on which he was born "Schwabenkind" worked – now the farm is managed by the grandchildren of the old farmer

Later he received a letter from Legau – it said that he was always welcome. "One thing I noticed during my visits: the cows used to be cleaner for me", says the former "Schwaben Young" grin. During his time on the farm, he was responsible for mucking out the stables and the calves.

Even if he liked working with the animals, August Dorn did not want to stay in agriculture. His father finally found an apprenticeship in a bakery for him – "a job with which you never have to go hungry again", as he said to his son. His master’s letter from 1951 still hangs in August Dorn’s living room in Feldkirch, Austria, thus opening his own bakery and café. And on his doorstep, a road leads up to the Alps – to where many people walk "Schwabenkinder" once started.

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