All Stop!

The Animals Must Drink And

Little Hermann Has To Pee.

On April 29th, 1945, a column, consisting of a bunch of highly secret prototype aircrafts and groups of German refugees left Rechlin-Lärz, a small village located at lake Müritz, north of Berlin, home of the main test site of the Nazi Luftwaffe.

While for the refugees Rechlin-Lärz was nothing more than another stop-over on their long way to hopefully safer parts of the crumbling Third Reich, for the drivers of the military trucks as well as for the now jobless engineers and test pilots, this retreat marked the end of all their dreams and ambitions.

The Russians only a day or so away from Rechlin-Lärz they knew that none of the unique aircrafts they are now trying to hide rather senselessly from the enemy will ever be airborne, none of the build-in jet-, rocket- and pulso-engines will ever send its roaring sound over the quiet waters of lake Müritz. It was all over. And their nationalsocialist lives had come to an end.

Among the refugees there was a young mother from West Prussia.

Many weeks earlier, the thunder of Russian guns could be heard day and night, she hastily packed a few of her belongings into the farm wagon of a wealthy neighbour who was gone already since a week, hitched one of the five poor horses he had also left behind and started her seemingly endless flight to the west, constantly threatened by attacking Russian aircrafts and by the cold. It was indeed one of the toughest winters in decades and while little Hermann, then two and a half years old plus Linus, the family dog, survived miraculously, hundreds of thousands of less fortunate people died.

“Little Hermann”, artist and airplane designer/builder Hermann von Schneidemühl who many decades later would produce the aircrafts and flying devices which can be seen in this art installation.