The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

A small mistake with lifelong consequences

2021-10-11T08:14:17.462Z


Because of a small spelling mistake in the birth certificate, Friedhelm Dilck from Erdweg (79) has for decades had to live with the fact that he has to sign with "Fridhelm" in all everyday transactions. A midwife and a registry office in the former GDR are to blame for this.


Because of a small spelling mistake in the birth certificate, Friedhelm Dilck from Erdweg (79) has for decades had to live with the fact that he has to sign with "Fridhelm" in all everyday transactions.

A midwife and a registry office in the former GDR are to blame for this.

Erdweg

- Was it the work-related stress or just sloppiness? What is certain is that Friedhelm Dilck's life has been mixed up in the past few years because of a single letter. A simple “e” has cost the 79-year-old former miner, undertaker and funeral orator a lot of time and nerves for decades.

The story begins in 1942 in the Dilck house in the small Saarland town of Holz, municipality of Heusweiler, where Erna Dilck gave birth to a sturdy boy in the middle of World War II and the midwife later recorded the birth in writing.

The boy should be called "Friedhelm", that's what his parents wanted.

But the birth and registry assistant writes "Fridhelm" in the certificate.

“You don't notice that after the birth,” the then newborn apologizes for his parents, who did not intervene at the time.

And actually no one cares.

Nobody in his environment would think of saying the first "i" in their name briefly.

And in the other documents - for example in school reports - it says "Friedhelm".

At the age of 18 he went to the GDR

However, the now 79-year-old does not have an easy life. The father dies in the last days of the terrible war, the mother is overwhelmed by herself. Friedhelm eventually grew up in homes and had to toil in a quarry at times. In 1959, at the age of just under 18, he went to the GDR because he was considered to be of legal age at the age of 18 and not at 21 as in the FRG, as he says. And because the workers 'and peasants' state had promised good work, as he thought at the time.

After a few mistakes - the GDR security authorities tend to be skeptical, to say the least, of young guys from the FRG who cross the east-west border - he ends up as GDR citizen Friedhelm Dilck in Hartmannsdorf near Chemnitz. He falls in love with Waldtraut, wants to go to the registry office with her in 1963 - and suddenly has big problems because of the little "e". For the purpose of marriage, the local registry office requires a birth certificate from the groom.

Because he did not take any papers with him when he spontaneously crossed the border, Friedhelm Dilck had his mother send him the birth certificate, the very same certificate that the overtaxed or sloppy midwife had once filled out and which is emblazoned in the first name column "Fridhelm".

From then on and to this day, Friedhelm Dilck is regarded as "Fridhelm" by all authorities with whom he has to deal.

He must have all the papers rewritten on the spot.

For all actions in which he has to give or write his first name, he must use "Fridhelm" from now on.

Apart from the fact that "Fridhelm" sounds phonetically "impossible", so Dilck, "and I see that as discrimination, I don't know a single person who is written Fridhelm".

Friedhelm had to stay Fridhelm

Even when the Dilcks move to Oberroth in 2008 and later to Erdweg to be near their daughter Sandra, who lives in Stetten, nothing changes. Friedhelm must remain "Fridhelm". Appearances at the Dachau district office and the Heusweiler community fizzled out. Waldtraut and Friedhelm Dilck finally come to terms with the situation. But now, in the autumn of their lives, they are faced with fear. The couple got an urn grave at the Schwabhauser Friedhof, in which they would like to be buried at some point. But what does it say on the grave slab? “I only have one wish that Friedhelm is on the label,” says Friedhelm Dilck. He is very concerned that here too the authorities insist on "Fridhelm".

"The Schwabhausen cemetery administration will not cause Mr. Dilck any problems if he wants to use the spelling of his name as he lives it," says Adriane Wunderlich, head of the main office and registrar of the community of Schwabhausen.

The name can be written as the grave owner orders from the stonemason.

As far as an official name change is concerned, Sina Török, press spokeswoman for the Dachau district office, has a tip ready: Dilck must apply for the "e" at the Schwabhausen registry office responsible for Erdweg and "bring an official document that proves that he is called Friedhelm".

For example a school report or a driver's license.

“Grave slab is enough,” say the two Dilcks.

After all, all relatives and friends continue to drag out the first "i" in Friedhelm.

“And nobody says Fridde either,” says Friedhelm Dilck.

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2021-10-11

You may like

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.