General Chat

Recently I was reminded that that my uncle was a survivor of a group of British children lost on an organised camping trip in the Black Forest during the 1930s just prior to the war, I believe that five of his group were lost due to exposure.
I seem to recall my father saying that searching for the children had been hampered by the security concerns of the German authorities.
I thought it would be quite easy to find something about it on the net, but don’t seem to be having much luck, has anyone out there heard of this incident please?

Best wishes,
Mayfield.

I have never heard of this, I'm sorry to say.
I know the Black Forest.
I was brought up in Germany.... not the 1930's... ;-0)
It is a story I would now like to read about.
Deanna X

There are a couple of articles in the Times about it. 5 boys from Strand School Brixton died (1936)

You may be able to view the Times online via your local library. If not, then you can join Lancashire Libraries (you don't have to live in Lancashire!) which gives access to the Times.

Thank you Ann. I will have a try too.
Good luck Mayfield.
Deanna X

Thank you annielaurie,
I will check that out with the Times, as you say it was Brixton I will also see if any of the local papers have anything. I think the South London Press would cover Brixton.
Best wishes to you both,
Mayfield

Wow!
Thanks for that SomersetGirl, that's great.
That should keep me busy for a while!
It's much appreciated.

All the best,
Mayfield.

Thank you again SomersetGirl, I looked up the references you gave and was finally able to find out what happened, such a sad tale. I don’t know if you went into the references you gave me and read them yourself, but I thought perhaps you and others who have read this might be interested in a brief account of the events.

It seems that the suggestion that the German government were involved in hampering the search was unfounded.  No doubt family gossip added over the years as the Germans would have not been too popular after 1939!

According to a report on April 19 1936

27 children from the Strand School Brixton led by a master left the Petershof hotel at 9 o/c on the previous Friday in good weather, to ascend the Schauinsland, about 4,200ft. It should have taken about 3 hours to reach the summit and then on to Todtnuberg youth hostel by the evening. 

They ran into fog and wandered about for several hours, at about 3o/c they ran into a blizzard and were up to their waists in snow, by 4 o/c they were about a mile from the summit but exposed to the full force of the storm.  The teacher decided to make for the village of Hofsgrund. 

Over the next few hours several boys collapsed, the older ones carried their packs and helped them along, the teacher carrying the youngest boy for over a mile, finally the teacher stayed with four of the weakest boys and sent the others on to find help.  They finally reached the village at 8 p/m guided by the sound of the church bells.

The villagers formed search parties and twice made their way with sledges at great risk to themselves to the exhausted boys, it was not until 11.30 pm that the last were brought to the village inn. Six boys, whose ages ranged between 12 and 15, were unconscious and given artificial respiration for several hours sadly only one recovered. Locals said it was the worst storm for 40 years.

Best wishes,
Mayfield.

What a sad story, I wonder if there are any descendants on here of the poor lads who died.

Dear Mayfield,
I'm researching the 1936 Black Forest Tragedy you posted about saying your uncle had been involved. I very much hope you're still a contributor to GenesReunited and if so would like to chat to you about this some more.
Many thanks,
Best wishes,
KatCo

Mayfield is still active on the site, but in case the 'my threads' isn't working, send a personal message by clicking on their name. Unless they are away from the internet, you'll probably get a quick reply!

Hi Catherine,
I will send you a PM later, I'm in the middle of decorating the bathroom at present and so will be mostly crawling under the bath or handbasin trying to get them up and running ASAP today!
Mayfield :-D

Just thought it might be of interest to revive this post for anyone who wondered what happened.
A while ago I was contacted by a journalist from the Guardian about the anniversary of the disaster for information.

Fortunately she was able to access my uncles diary, which was of help to her and an article about the anniversary and filling in some of the blanks about the disaster has been published today.

It is quite a long one but well worth a read if you are interested.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/06/fatal-hike-became-nazi-propaganda-coup

An amazing story, but very sad. :-(

Yes Andysmum, can you imagine what would happen to that teacher these days?

As Andysmum said - an amazing story - a group of lads led by one useless teacher !
Interesting comments under the article - one from someone who went to the school in, I think the 1970's, who said he never knew about the tragedy, and there was no memorial or mention of at all, whilst he attended the school.

How tragic, lives lost due to the arrogance of that teacher.

The local people did what all decent people would do, tried to help the lads. I am so glad they succeeded in rescueing some of them.

Lizx

How tragic and sad, that would never happen today can you image the uproar?

an amazing story.

Horrible to think that the useless teacher escaped without any comeback.

Thank you for the link, Mayfield

What a tragic story

I think that lessons may have been learnt from the tragedy as I remember when I was at Secondary School our Easter trips to the Lake District.

Usually, there would be a coachload of us so probably about 30 boys.
There were also usually three or four teachers with the party. Activities were scaled for 'easy' types of walks or 'difficult' ones (Usually involving some serious hill/mountain walking.

You were not allowed to do the difficult activities unless your equipment (hiking boots, clothing etc) was of a certain standard and then only after attending a series of talks on survival techniques.

As boys we used to consider that this was all a bit over the top, but having read the article I can understand why it was necessary.