Page 01 - Willi Distel Diary

Translated from Willi's German.

[Left page - a printed stationer's stamp:] 0710 REINHOLD FINK Stationery shop STUTTGART Rotebuhlstr. 45 [Right page:] Diary of Willi Distel [Margin note, written vertically beside a brace that groups items I to VI: Written up later, in Stuttgart] I. From 15 April 1920 to 15 April 1923 - Apprenticeship II. From 1 May 1923 to 1 October 1923 - First journeyman position III. From 1 October 1923 to 8 June 1924 - Journeyman at home IV. From 8 June 1924 to 24 November 1924 - Stuttgart V. From 24 November 1924 to 26 April 1925 - Auerbach VI. From 26 April 1925 to 22 September - Berlin

Interesting facts

A German trade path. The contents map out the standard German craft ladder Willi would climb: first a fixed apprenticeship (Lehrzeit), then work as a qualified journeyman (Geselle). Advancing meant changing towns, which is why the list jumps from Villingen to Stuttgart, Auerbach and Berlin.
The journeyman's travels. German-speaking Europe had a long tradition of the Wanderjahre or 'Walz', in which a newly qualified journeyman travelled from town to town to gain experience before settling. The restless string of places in Willi's contents reflects that custom.
Written up in Stuttgart. The margin note that the early sections were 'written up later, in Stuttgart' means the diary is a fair copy made from memory or rough notes, not a day-by-day journal. That is worth keeping in mind when reading the confident, story-shaped entries that follow.
Weimar Germany. The years covered (1920 onward) fall in the early Weimar Republic, the democratic Germany that followed defeat in the First World War - a period of political turmoil, occupation and, in 1923, runaway inflation.