The Hippie Trail

In 1933 Germany became a dictatorship under the Great War veteran Adolf Hitler. He pulled the country out of depression and set it to work, reducing unemployment by undertaking extensive public works and building the first autoroutes in the world. He then resumed conscription and rearmament. All opposition had been eliminated and all power centred in that one man, whose boasted promise was a German Empire that would last ‘a Thousand Years’.

The author was born in 1935. Ten years later millions had died, much of the continent lay in ruins, his country was shamed and the ‘thousand years’ came to a fiery end.

Others experienced worse, but for a ten-year-old with explosions all about him and with the world seeming to be burning the war made a vivid impression. His Westphalian village consisted largely of traditional farms and homesteads built of wattle and daub—often still shared by livestock. Most of the male population had been called up to fight Hitler’s wars and foreigners made up much of the workforce. General Patton’s Third Army lit up the village with phosphor grenades from several mountains away. The world seemed to be coming to an end.

About the Author

Robert Hallmann was born in rural Westphalia, and in his early years he knew little but war. In 1945 he was ten when the American Third Army fired much of the village. His father returned from Russia in 1948. He trained as compositor at a print works in the nearest town and in 1955 took a job in Holland and then in South Wales. A spell in Hertfordshire followed and Dublin. In 1960 he joined an advertising agency in Mayfair, London, as typographer and designer. Two years later he went freelance. Since retirement he has published nine books and contributed to many more.