Page 14

Willi is about 18 here

Romances thread

III - Geselle zu Hause (Villingen)

Youthful social life in Villingen, spring 1924: friends, girlfriends and jealousies, Willi's first romance with Else Stoll, a family row, and permission to travel again [needs a human eye]

Diary page 14

Translated from Willi's German.

...well. But I too was supposed to have a girl, and they wanted to fix me up with one for free. I neither wanted to nor could go along with that, and so it came about that, on my own, I was only now and then a spare fifth wheel. Paul was with Lina, Edwin with Blum. Since Paul and Edwin often went off on little side-trips, I had the chance to grow closer to the girls, and through this I once again came to have a friend. Swiss Lina, who often wanted to bind me to her, carried on with me and with Herr Schaefte while keeping up a bad relationship with Paul. When I noticed this, I withdrew from her as best I could, and the squabbling between Paul and me broke out. There were fine hours at the Lindenhof, the Schlachthof, and so on. Through her, whom we perhaps enjoyed almost too fully, the relationship between Lina and Paul came apart. When the girl Glatz Anne, by whom Edwin was pushed out, came into it, there was a still greater happiness with Ehinger, Ernst Kieninger, and so on. On 1 April Paul moved to Stuttgart, and on my eighteenth birthday I began a relationship with Else Stoll, whom I had got to know while I was on my own - my first romance. We met often; my parents found out about it and there was a bit of a row. In the course of the fray I got permission to go abroad journeying again, which pleased me greatly.

People: Willi Distel, Else Stoll, Paul, Lina, Edwin, Ehinger, Ernst Kieninger

Places: Villingen, Lindenhof, Schlachthof, Stuttgart

Interesting facts