An interesting true report about the lives of the temporary laborers coming to the island "Fehmarn" during the harvest , for occasional employment. With collected songs and special expressions of the so-called "Kunden" or guest laborers from that period.

By Peter Wiepert, Bisdorf, Fehmarn , published in 1959.
Donated by the family of Bruce Wood
English translation by: Else Bügge-Wood, Columbus, OHIO-USA 1999

"Street Hounds" so were the police and the judges addressed during that period, by the ‘Kunden’ or ‘guest workers’ - with a bottle full of "magic water" - this was hard liquor available for -.30 Pennies á Liter, at the store of Julius Scheel in Landkirchen /Fehmarn.

The " Mr. Major" led the "true and genuine "Kunden" [another word for these temporary laborers, also called the "dukes of the highway" or "Kings of the underworld". The "highway dwellers" or "honest boys" and the "honest tip- toeing brothers" from South and North, that is how they gave titles to one another, walking in groups of ‘four in a row’. They were marching and saying things in grotesque language, offering biting and insulting criticism, at times even acting silly, with ideas full of humor and totally without shame, sometimes screaming: "You swine" ‘Sauhaufen’ imitating the "Kaiser’s recruiting manner" in Berlin-Templehof, they called ‘William’s (the Kaiser) paradeplatz’ for the Prussian recruiting soldiers. It was a chaos when they came to the island and for the public a real "Gaudy", a spectacle of entertainment with rare expressions of dialects that the people on the island seldom heard.

‘Heine Kohrs from Sankt Pauli, [a red - light district in Hamburg]’, he was the artist of 1000 acts, with a button box of a harmonica, he sang the fairy tales in song and arias. He told his story in song, when he actually, at one time, furnished the music in a powder- and Chanson-cabaret with a sweetheart who left him cold and dry, then took all his instruments, he worked in a side show and got insured on a high wire.

‘Rudi Weil’ from Offenbach, called himself the ‘charming Phil’ and a fellow from Cologne, brought along the most modern song hits and changed the lyrics into satirical verses. There were many of those type of songs, the most popular ones were becoming famous around 1900 to 1908, ***"Aujuste war ein Frauenzimmer - in einer kleinen Stadt/ Sie hatte von Liebe zunaechst kenen Schimmer, bis eines Abends spat" / "Weiss du Mutterl was mi traeumt hatt?" /"Im Festungshaft der Dreyfuss schmachtet - ihn hat ein bittres Los verbannt." und "Sorgen - Sorgen - alle Tage - nur nach Bier und Brantewein."***Note fr. The translator: Ican sing these songs but not translate them! Harsh satyre! Rebellish against the Prussian regime!***

When "charming Phil" and "Neppes from Collogne" sang, they sang with a drag - also with high tones and when the songs were sad , they sang in a minor key, with a low whiskey voice, it could not even be noticed that they were drunk, it all sounded like once in May, the way they themselves explained it.

The festival of the monarchs was put on romantically and with all kinds of intervals - tragic and comical. There were truly some original characters in the group. ‘Singvogel’ , songbird had once a beautiful alto-voice but lost his talent by drinking too heavy, ‘loud mouth Emil’ was an old sailor, who was tattooed from head to toe, he had more strength in his gab than in his arms. ‘Mushi Cat’ was a small little fellow, his profession was printer from Harburg at the Lahn, he was loaded with fantastic fantasies, when he got drunk he liked to dress up in woman’s attire, imitating and dressing like Madame Pompadour. "Slender Mathilde" - really cute when he dressed up at the end of the harvest, he was a hard worker - full of humor and tried to make all the hired servants in the house as well as on the farm laugh by trying to outrun the horses and the sheep. "Hoppenmarkt’s Atje" - a harbor lion from Hamburg who could drink whiskey like other people drank coffee and he tried to sing Low German songs from ‘Hein Bötel’ but he was too drunk to perform well. "Ludwig the 20^th" was half French and had a drinking body named Toni, the boorish boy from the meadows near Munich, "Black Karle" - an educational council from Posen who could speak 15 European languages and dialects, he was one of the last workers on Fehmarn in 1928, when they found him hanging in a barn, he was a total drunk. When ‘Karle’ went into an "exam" , (like going into his days gone by), he would talk about his studies in different universities, the trouble he had with the authorities and how they mistreated him. But most of his trouble was the bottle, the firewater of the "great Ganges Khan" he would get terribly mixed up when he talked about historical facts and happenings, drank all kinds of hard liquor with added mixtures until he laid flat on the floor while his whole body quivered with tremors and he let out the worse screams as if he was in a delirious. One of his bodies was "Lt. Schnarr" - he had no higher learning and in reality had never been an officer [as he claimed], but rather worked as a window washer and dishwasher in officer’s mess halls. - He came with a torn sack cloth to give "Black Karle" his last rites. He sang rather sad and to a melody by Chopin with these words: ‘Yes, yes - now you’ll drink no whiskey anymore! Yes, yes- now you die on this cold earth’, etc. It sounded so tragic and sad that we children, standing in the background, were turned to tears and shivers.

We also had a pistol- packing Heini ‘Revolver-Heini’ from Basel, in his ignorance he joined the drinking society ‘Die saufende Zunft’ when he got drunk he would climb up into a tree and scream in a ‘little girl baby talk’ and say:" Mommy, I won’t fall out of the tree!" - "Crowing Hannes" was a fellow who loved to do animal imitations, he could cackle like a chicken or crow like a rooster, he could entertain the children and made everybody happy. He also was one of the last ‘Kunden’ or guest workers in 1925. - "Graf Neyda" count Neyda, a true count; after he was involved in a duel made enemies and became a neglected count, who had traveled far in the world - he used to say: ‘I’m still a nobleman’, and knew a thousand gambling- as well as love-stories to tell. -

We also had a pistol packing Heini ‘Revolver-Heini’ from Basel, in his ignorance he joined the drinking society ‘Die saufende Zunft’ when he got drunk he would climb up into a tree and scream in a ‘little girl baby talk’ and say:" Mommy, I won’t fall out of the tree!" - "Crowing Hannes" was a fellow who loved to do animal imitations, he could cackle like a chicken or crow like a rooster, he could entertain the children and make everybody happy. He also was one of the last ‘Kunden’ or guest workers in 1925. - "Graf Neyda" count ‘Neyda’, a true count; after he was involved in a duel, he made enemies and became a fallen and neglected count, who had traveled far in the world - he used to say: ‘I’m still a nobleman’, and knew a thousand gambling- and love-stories to tell. If anyone tried to ridicule him he would force a piece of glass into his eye and in a grotesque fashion make believe as if he was a Coenel. He came from a noble family in southern Germany. As it happened one day that his relatives were vacationing in Heiligenhafen and came to the island Fehmarn for a visit. As they traveled from Burg to Landkirchen, they saw the laborers working in the fields and one lady happened to recognize her half brother working in the field that belonged to Jakob Witte. Even though the count refused to go with his relatives he finally gave it and went with them to Hamburg, where his family took him under their wing and bought him new clothes. He stayed with the family in Hamburg for a short while, and did all the drinking he could; but soon decided to sell the new outfit and returned to Fehmarn asking Jakob Witte for a job on the farm. "Once you get caught up into the drinking society you can never return to normal" so said one of his friends they called him: ‘Thuringer Bratwurst" - and that was the case of ‘count Neyda’.

Then there was a "Franzck" from upper Selesia, with his odd lady from Sweden called: ‘Jonefrue Jonedotter’ she came from Dalarne in Sweden, she could tolerate drinking 6 bottles of whisky with canned black currants and when she was loaded, she sang loudly the "Svenska Barndomsvisar", also Swedish cradlesongs like: "Come my little darling, I want to rock you! I, your Mom, all day, for you are my all, my little one, my beloved dream!"

The other one was "Gretchen Mors" from Hamburg. When somebody made a funny remark toward her, she would reply with the same defensive words"Mors, Mors" that the famous water carrier ‘Hummel, Hummel’ from Hamburg made .

She had two certain places of employment during the harvest, where she pealed potatoes and there she did an outstanding job, but when the craving for hard liquor began, she suddenly left her job. She never started working until she got her fill of drinks. The farmer would say: "Well Gretchen, you’re back, you better take a drink as cure for the worms".

We don’t want to forget the precious and sophisticated impersonator of "Maria Theresa", the men called her the "Imperial Excellence". Her real name was Maria Lenschbach and she came from Teplitz in Bohemia. The woman had lived a hard life on the road as the "Kunden" or guest workers called it when they had lost their way because of alcohol. "Maria Theresa" had left home one day, when she got to know an easy-going southern type Romeo, who himself was on the road, she wasn’t even 17 years old at the time. She just lived with him until he took off going his own way and left her alone. She ended up in side shows and gone through many lands, until she ended up in a Hungarian Variety Show, where she played the roll of the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa, there she became popular. So she played on in her life but after her performance in the white fancy dress she became very desponded and turned to drinking. She would at times get hysterical and cried a lot.

We also had a Friedrich from Essen, who had been a harbor laborer in Bremen. Among the "Monarchs" he was only called "Frederick the Great" ‘Friedrich der Große’ because he was 1,90 m tall. He felt sorry for the wining Mary and helped her all he could. He would approach "Maria Theresa" like a prince would. He would say to her: "Come now, thou Imperial Highness, enter into your domain!" Willingly she came along without a struggle. It was quite a show, to see how "Frederick the Great" took pity on her and attended to her whims when she was full of alcohol. She was a good worker but at times she wandered off into space dreaming. The two made a nice couple, he was really a good man but no one could find out how he ended up with the "Kunden" on the road. If somebody asked him about his life he would turn his head in silence. One day in 1911 they found him dead in bed in the poor house in Hamburg, holding a picture of a young woman in his hand. On the other side of it were these words: "He who doesn’t want a commitment should not arouse feelings or leave fond memories." The thing that you noticed on Friedrich was that he rarely ever drank alcohol and when he saw people embracing one another he would turn away and cry or he got real quiet and strangely withdrawn, while he was otherwise always very friendly and helpful to every person. It must have been a disappointment in his love life when he was younger, that it had such an affect on him and changed his life so drastically.

I should not forget to report that "Frederic the Great" often served as a model for the "Monarch-Artist" ‘Rennbrand’ (named after Rembrandt), this fellow would become artistic when he had been drinking, he did draw pictures of the life of a ‘Monarch on the road’, although he never finished any of it but when he felt like it he would run ‘rennen in German’ all over the place and tell his subject how to stand and at what distance, it was interesting to watch him when he got ready to paint in his drunken ‘Brand in German’ spell [that’s how he got the name "Renn-Brand". He was a man of high spirit and temperament. When they asked him how he could tolerate all the work and never finishing any of, then he replied: "Each animal has his own pleasures" or to each his own! - ‘In German: Jedes Tierchen - sein Pläsierchen’ he was so glad if he only had just a little bit of pleasure.

"Friedrich der Grosse" was the most unique Monarch in the bunch, whom I had the pleasure of meeting him in person; he behaved totally out of the ordinary, asking for drink and food was a hardship for him. There were farmers wife’s, including my mother, who gave him food without him ever asking for it, when he was passing by. He was always very grateful and offered to sweep the place or rake the flower garden for us. My parents often invited him into the parlor for long conversations. He knew how to converse on any subject intelligently, I was very happy just to hang around and listen in, for the "Lange Frie" as he was named in Low German, could tell stories in a most interesting fashion. But he never told anyone about his own life, he seemed to build a wall around himself. All the people that knew him and had worked with him had never learned how "Frederic the Great" ended up among the "Monarchs".

Another specialty among the "Lords of the side streets" was a man they called Ludwig the pious ‘Ludwig der Fromme’ in German. He only drank milk and water. He was born in Mississippi, USA, an illegitimate son of a woman who later married a German merchant. For some reason he ended up in Germany. He had performed in a traveling circus as a ventriloquist, he also knew some Indian tricks. One day he was bitten by a poisonous snake and became partly paralyze and so had lost the ability to speak, he only whispered in a scratchy voice but one could understand him. His life motto was: "We have to accept life as it is handed to us." But fate had been rather cruel to him. I worked with him for two harvest periods in the barn loft on my fathers estate. He spoke perfect Danish and so he became my first lingual instructor. Since he drank no alcohol I served him every morning some licorice candy that he liked to piece on during the day and accepted as honorable payment for the language teachings.

The afore mentioned "Monarchs" famous or more often ill-reputed types of characters with their rascal-like names tell of the years from 1895 - 1910. At times I have learned to know these rare boys and running sisters myself , in other instances I learned to know their names from the archives of the courthouse here on the island Fehmarn from about 1913 - 1914 also researching this files of the police, or the farmers who hired them as well as the seamstress women and so on. About people and the fate of people for that is all part of the living human interest stories and I could tell so much more about these individual "Kunden" or "bums", about their attitude concerning working conditions, about the human livelihood of some people who had fallen prey to alcoholism and so destroyed their own existence and mostly admitted it themselves, they were like a weak tube that would break in any storm, but again and again they would allow themselves to be revived by that blue-like juice called alcohol.

The harvest on the island was mostly done in piece-work even to this day is done like that. The pay was according to the labor, that the helpers performed during mowing and later by bringing in the sheafs. The mower received 1905 100, a rider 70 and a sheaf binder 80 Reichsmark. The guest workers were rarely ever hired as mowers, for they were too weak from drinking too much, this was mostly done by day-workers from Holstein, they had their assured employment.

When a farmer started to harvest and was looking to hire Monarchs he would go to the local joints [they were in all the areas] and would talk to the proprietor and let him know what he was looking for. He knew all the good and the bad workers, the slow pokes, the hard core, the thieves, the false ones. But he also knew the bad farms and the good ones, he could single out the farmers, their wives [called the hens] as well as the food that they served in their kitchen. It was important to know wether the farmer was a good client and how much he would get out of the deal. Then he would fetch the guest laborer and let him meet with the farmer, both would bicker about the pay (it didn’t always take long to reach a decision, but at times it would take longer); if the farmer and the guest worker came to an agreement, the worker would receive a complimentary tip of -.50 pennies (This was called ‘Die Seelenschmiere’ in German, it meant greasing the palm. The innkeeper would afterward serve ‘een Schnitt’ Low German for a glass beer and a ‘Wachtmeister’

a very tasty hard liquor [which would cost about 0.30 pennies in the year of 1900], in the laborer’s quarters ‘die Monarchen Stube’. The innkeeper himself received 1.00 Mark tip for the mediation, the "Monarchen" called it the ‘Schindergroschen’ German a payment for oppressing a poor sap. So the farmer had to order a drink so he would be in good standing with the innkeeper ‘called the Fetzer in slang’, should he need his service again.

At noon or next morning, mostly on a Thursday the [rented] or hired harvester would start his job on the farm, ‘Bauernhof’. At that time it was a matter of fact that the farmers wife serve a ‘Schnaps’ hard liquor, if it should all turn out alright - if it all went well and the ‘kochemer Gubitze’ [Kunde] or hired hand could not stand on one leg, and the farmer’s wife, also called ‘Det Raben-Aas’ meaning stingy in a very derogatory manner, she would give him a second treat. In the middle church district was a woman who liked to impress the laborers with many drinks and often added plain well-water to the drink, naturally the laborers found that out and went to the farmer in person, telling him very openly "It’s no good here and I can’t stay with these conditions prevailing, we can’t stand getting poisoned here, then we would rather change places. The farmer knew the dark sides of his "Henne" name for a wife, went into the pantry and reached for a bottle of very good Schnaps, the 2 complainers were to empty it in one swallow, each laborer one halve of the bottle and all went well afterward, "lechen d’basch" this is a Yiddish expression, meaning bread with honey (peace and other good things).

The harvesting days on Fehmarn were long and tedious , the farmer or the head manager ‘The Meisterknecht’ went into the sleeping chambers ‘Kamer’ and yelled out: ‘Los, all Mann rut!’ this was Low German for:"Up and adams, everybody out of the bed!", all men got up! At 4: oo AM they were all on the field to start mowing. In the evening the sheaves were set up in rows, til late in the dark of night. When the ‘Einfahren’ began, at the end of the harvest, bringing in the grain in horse and wagon; they would often work through halve of the night.

This work was very hard for most of the hired "Monarchen", for they had no strength in their body from consuming all that alcohol. But they didn’t want to give in and stood their man. They didn’t like to be called weaklings, or be ridiculed by their fellow men. Many a man who had been in the war or soldiers, they couldn’t tolerate the heavy and fatty food that was served on the island Fehmarn. Often in the first few days their stomach revolted when they ate the rich bacon and ham soup with hard dumplings and prunes, or the thick grits served with bacon, sweet beer and black whole-grain bread. But ‘Not und Dod’ pain and the fear of dying had to be cured with hard liquor , at 3:30 - 7:00 - 9:00 AM and 4:00 and 7:00 PM they served Köm and Schnaps to all the laborers. At times the wife or the farmers daughter would help serving the drinks, to keep them happy. All workers could drink as much dark beer as they liked.

In the big hall of the farmers home, or next to the farm-hand’s sleeping quarters always stood a keg of beer, holding about 20 to 50 liter, depending on how many hired laborers the farmer had. The ‘Ausnehmer’ was the person who followed behind the mowing worker with a special rake to form the sheaves. He could take a drink of beer anytime he felt like it, a special ladle, called the "Lechel" was on hand for the field workers. That way nobody had to dye of thirst. Some of the men drank so much til they literally got sick with a diarrhea or also called the harvest decease. It was usually cured with a drink from the devil, a large wine glass of Schnaps with some pulverized coal and pepper corns. It was no simple procedure to get such a drink down, but rather a brutality. Well, it had to go down because the Monarch was too young to die.

When evening came, many farm hands were so tired and worn out, that they fell asleep behind the sheaves, never bothered to go home and the next morning the labor started all over again, without mercy. - One "Monarch" who had been in the war of 1870 with "The Mars la tour" said to my uncle: "That war wasn’t halve as bad as the harvest on the island Fehmarn, this is more crazy work than that war was.

I don’t want to write about the traditions and the work being done during the harvest but rather tell about the plight and every-day life of the Monarchs. On rainy days there was no work on Fehmarn. They all laid around hibernating like bears in the barns or the quarters, getting plenty of rest. If it rained til afternoon or even the next day, the "Lords of the road" got very nervous, they would find errands to do in the next village and , of course, they would need a payment in advance from the farmer. On the first Sunday in the harvest the farmer didn’t work, they called that the 3,oo Mark or Dollar Sunday, because the workers received 3,oo Marks in advance, which they spent in the next joint on drinks. When they returned, they would try to get more money from the farmer, but were mostly turned down. Especially when it looked like the weather was clearing. This was followed up by a lot of complaining and at time arguments as well as brawls. In and around the inns, where they had their quarters, there would be fist-fights among the "Kunden" workers and if the police came they calmed down quickly and turned to aggravate the officers with insults like: "who tells us what to do"?

The best for all concerned was, when the weather was good, not only for the farmers but also for all the "Monarchs" and hired helpers, so the harvest was done in one ordeal and over with, at least in that way there wasn’t too much commotion.

When the harvest was over, there would be a great celebration in the "Döns"

a big hallway in the farm-house. They would be serving the "Schöddelmeih", a meal made of wine-soup with rice and different meat. Lots of alcohol was served and beer, and there would be some dancing, maybe not as much as in Holstein, [the mainland] since the guest worker often drank too much and would throw up all over the place. The people from the island were careful not to get too friendly with them, for you never knew what they were up to.

Next morning the harvest-pay was handed out. The farmer’s wife handed each guest laborer a loaf of sweet bread backed with apples or juice and called in Low German ‘ornstuten’ , for the road. The "Monarch" usually gave it to their washer-woman, (a laborers wife from the island who was hired to do the laundry and the mending the clothing for those people; at the same time these ladies would be paid. - Of course, there were parties held among the brothers in local beer parlors or in the quarters where they slept. You could expect that trouble was just around the corner. Some of them were gambling sharks, pocket thieves and so on, they would entice a gambling spree, or play with marked cards, or even invite people to free drinks, all kinds of tricks conceivable were being employed to rid them of their hard earned money. All kinds of games, like "black jack", some games played with dice; and when the men had enough to drink they also had more courage to gamble. Some of the gambling sharks, also had their women who would help entice the men to drink and gamble; til they had gambled away their shirt and pants, also their Knapp-sack and even their identification papers. Those people would be arrested and of course none of the gambling-sharks and bad women could be found, the men ended up in the clink, the local jail, called the louse-house or even condemned to hard confinement.

Poor and torn stood the carefree, street-roaming "Monarch" at the harbor of "Fehmarnsund " to catch the ferry-boat for the mainland "Grossenbrode" in Holstein, while cursing and complaining (in many dialects and foreign languages), about the island Fehmarn. They never wanted to see the island of robbers ever again. -

Many of the boozers had to go to the ‘Welfare administrator’ and beg for the

"Free fare of -.23 pennies" for the ride on the ferry-boat across the sound to the mainland. This was promised them when they signed up and first landed on the island Fehmarn.

Those "Monarchs" that left the island as soon as they received their pay would mostly end up in the next big city in Holstein and loose their money in cheap bars, night clubs and on foxy, money-hungry women, where they were worse off than the men who were robbed by gambling in Fehmarn.

Some of them after they had been caught in fist fight ended up in jail or solitary confinement. Street women would also turn them in for a little fee, others in turn would march to Dithmarschen in Holstein to find a job helping in the harvest and found the same conditions as they did on Fehmarn, traveling from village to village, where the farmers served plenty of hard liquor; but the labor was hard and sleep was little.

When all of them cursed the island Fehmarn on their way out, next year they were back and start again. They called the island the "KNUUST" [a heel of a loaf of bread]. This island was part of their tragedy.

The "Monarchen" poet: Eduard Friebe from Sagan in Schlesien, with the nick-name "the lark" wrote this poem in 1904 about the island.

"You lonely island in the Baltic Sea.-

If only I never saw you and never knew!

Here I have lost my last yes my very last luck.

Drunk, downhearted and miserably I return.

Labored I have for the hard earned money.

Forlorn and forgotten I travel through this wide, wide world.

As a restless wandering ‘Kunde’ laborer, the grand ‘Monarch’ -

crossing the Fehmarn sound.

No mother, no sweetheart, no whiskey! Alone - only - always alone!

Another poem goes like this:

"What am I, - a miserable "Kunde" -

a discarded person - a Monarch on Fehmarn.

And some day I’ll go to the dogs,

Here or there - then into the casket for the beggar.

Oh, mother, oh, mother! Don’t cry for me!

Y o u r son will not return,

For me, the sun will nevermore be shining!

Soon a fallen "Monarch" - lies dead behind the fence."

Those types of verses you could hear around 1905 - 1910 (written by guest workers themselves) I have collected some. At time the rhyming was a bit off but the words came from the heart. There were certainly many a "Monarch" that, in his quiet moments had plenty of time to reminisce and found no way out, those guys could not recover from their situation and one day, in his desperation, would hang some place in a tree or drowned himself in a pond.

On the other hand, there were some that were educated, had been studying some themes and problems. We knew one fellow from Hannover, called "Pietz", he knew all the bugs that crawled on the earth , even knew their names in Latin. They said that he got his honorary Doctorate in Hannover but one could not find out a thing about him in person.

One sailor who had been a captain on a large ship sailing to Australia. One day he got angry at his captain, got into a big fight and broke the guys neck then threw him over board. He spoke at least 10 languages, was well traveled and a hard worker.

I don’t want to forget mentioning here the man called ‘kleiner Markus an der Vogelheide’ little Mark from the bird’s heath, his true name was: ‘Markus Neuhäuser from Idar-Oberstein’ ; he had been on the road all of his life and preferred to sleep only outdoors on the green "heath" in German called ‘Heide’, instead of living in closed chambers; he traveled through many countries, conversing with all types of people and so also learned the language of the "Kunden", German for ‘vagabond". I wrote down several expressions which in the German language was called ‘Kochemer loschen’, or plain gangster lingo. This I learned from Markus for which I in return bought him many a drink and many a dinners. That’s how I learned about the special ‘Zinken’ "certain markings", that the traveling guest workers used on the island Fehmarn, as to inform them and warn them about the certain farms, where they would get no food or drink, or very little consideration. This fellow ended up in a care center in Neumünster, in Holstein, where I did visit him once more.

The harvest on the island Fehmarn has up to now always been a hard undertaking. Only in the last years has it eased up a bit, since modern machinery has been imported, now the harvest is not such a hardship. Until 1954 to 55 the harvest was still done in the old way and I have put it in verse as follows:

***Not able to translate this verse by "Peter Wiepert" lyrically and without rhyme the whole verse would loose it’s flavor or make sense to a stranger!

After 1930 there were no more traveling guest-workers or bums on the island, at least not like those about whom I have made this report. Now, 1959 to 1960 we do find a few baggers or bums who want to disguise themselves as "Monarchs" - these mostly belong to the people from the big city, where they couldn’t survive the ongoing "rise in the cost of living", or even those who escaped the identification by the legal system and need to hide out in the country.

This is a verse written by a "Monarch" on the island Fehmarn, his name was Franz Möller and after he had a bit too much to drink he called it the last "Monarchen" or those of his kind, after the first World War and left it in the barn of farmer Petersen in Landkirchen, Fehmarn:

The time will come, when the last of the "Monarchs" will dye -

And will be dug under the ground, as well as I.

Nobody will grieve over us, as nobody during our life - sympathized with us.

But the birds in the sky will sit on our sod

and will sing to us our old "Monarchen-song".

"Through the great wide, wide world

we wander - but without any money or wealth -

Do not think of to-day, to-morrow- or the day after -

we wander without care - and without chase or sorrow;

We only know the old travel-, traveling song -

that gives us our constant hope and keeps us strong -

"Travel! Travel! - Wander, Wander, Wandering -

From one place onto another -

Without end, without direction, without seel, -

We go on all the day - like an ongoing "Spiel" [game].

With the sun in the early "Morgenrot" [early dawn], -

Til the stars glimmer - evenings - until the early "TOD". [death]

Always, always wandering! Through the wide, wide world -

Without plan and without advise - just as we like it! "