Jens Ostrowski researched the fate of German Titanic passengers for many years and met the last survivor of the tragedy.
Munich - The Dortmund author and journalist Jens Ostrowski, 39, tells in his book "The Titanic Was Her Fate: The Story of German Passengers and Crew Members" (49.90 euros) on 176 pages the stories of seven German crew members and 15 German passengers .
Years of research showed that even Munich beer was drunk on the Titanic.
How did you come across the beer from Munich?
It wasn't difficult.
The German passenger Adolphe Saalfeld wrote a letter on April 11, 1912, the day after the Titanic left Southampton, and it disembarked in Queenstown.
In the letter he describes the meals in the first-class dining room - among other things, that he drank a Munich Spaten beer at noon that day, which he apparently enjoyed very much.
That was a first indication that the beer was on board.
Researching the fate of the passengers was much more time-consuming. . .
In addition to intensive archive work, a lot of patience and luck was involved.
Twenty years ago, I entered the names of Titanic Germans in the online telephone directory and simply called everyone with the same last name to see if anyone here could remember a family member on the Titanic.
With some it has succeeded.
In general, I received an incredible amount of support from the descendants of some Titanic passengers.
Today you live in Canada, Australia - or still in the house in Germany where your ancestor lived before he went on the Titanic.
Finding them was great fun and very fruitful for the book.
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Author Jens Ostrowski published a book about the fate of Germany on the Titanic.
© Sagittarius
You have already written a book about Father Peruschitz from Scheyern, who died in the sinking.
I like to remember the research.
As a 17-year-old I spent a week at Scheyern Abbey, was allowed to live in a cell and do archive work.
But I was also able to find descendants in Burgenland, Austria.
In addition to the biography, I am of course primarily interested in what happened to the people on the Titanic.
Peruschitz, who wore his religious robes as a monk, caught the eye of many during the journey.
There are a lot of testimonies from survivors that mention him.
For example, he held a daily service for the third-class emigrants.
Did you learn of details that were not yet known?
A lot.
For the first time, the story is told by steward Peter Ettlinger from Riedenburg, who was suspended on the day of departure - and therefore survived.
Or Alfred Nourney from Cologne: Because he traveled under a false name and pretended to be a baron in order to gain entry into higher circles, he went down in Titanic history as a fraud.
That is known.
But what is new is his life after the catastrophe.
He was a National Socialist and went to school with Rudolf Hess, who later became Hitler's deputy.
Here history connects where you would never have guessed it.
The fact that 600,000 letters from Germany went under with the Titanic, including some from Bavarian post office directorates, is one of the stories that has never been told before.
Where does your extreme soft spot for the Titanic come from?
As a journalist, I have always been fascinated by history.
For me, the Titanic becomes more tangible when you tell its story to people whose names were Müller or Meyer, who came from well-known cities like Munich or Cologne, and who wrote their documents in German.
Right from the start I was interested in how Germans could land on this ship of all places and how they experienced and suffered the catastrophe.
Did you have contact with Titanic survivors?
I was lucky.
In 2007 I visited the last survivor Millvina Dean in Southampton with the Titanic historian Günter Bäbler for an interview.
She was ten weeks old when it went down and of course couldn't remember the night herself.
But she told us the story of her family impressively.
Her father died in the disaster.
Millvina died two years after the interview.
How long did you research for the book?
My first request to the Federal Archives was in 1998. After long breaks in research, it finally appeared in December.
Interview: Lisa Fischer
In his book
, Jens Ostrowski published, among other things, the stories of the three Bavarian fates on the Titanic.