Burkhard Schröder

Personal

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  Travels

  "The most dangerous worldview is that of those who have never looked at the world." (Alexander von Humboldt)
  
  In the summer of 1979, after completing my state examination, I faced a choice: Should I pursue an academic career — for example, a teaching position in Old German philology — or should I first go out and see the world? Despite all advice to the contrary, I traveled for more than six months through South America — back then still a real adventure: without travel guides, without the internet, without a mobile phone. What was the reason? Perhaps the influence of Karl May's novels, *The Legacy of the Incas* or *In the Cordilleras*? Thirty years later, I read a letter from the conquistador Philipp von Hutten, who wrote to his father on March 31, 1539: *"God knows, it was not the greed for money that moved me to undertake this journey, but solely a particular longing I have carried for a long time. I also feel that I would not have died in peace had I not first seen the Indies [South America]."*
  
  At that time, I had to question myself and everything I believed in. Without those journeys, I would not be the person I am today. Since then, South America has become my second home. I have spent half a year there on three occasions. In 1998, I explored Venezuela for three months to conduct research for my historical novel *The Conquistadors*.
  
  Countries I have visited:
  Mexico (1979, 1981),
  Belize (1979, 1981),
  Guatemala (1979, 1981),
  Honduras (1979, 1981),
  Nicaragua (1981),
  Costa Rica (1981),
  Panama (1981/82),
  Cuba (1984),
  Venezuela (1998),
  Colombia (1979, 1982, 1998),
  Ecuador (1979),
  Peru (1979, 1980, 1984),
  Bolivia (1980, 1984),
  Brazil (1980, 1982),
  Guyana (1980, 1982),
  Trinidad and Tobago (1980, 1982),
  Grenada (1982),
  Barbados (1980, 1982).
  On my blog, I publish, among other things, photos from my travels since 1979 — in total, there are more than 2,000 of them.

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  Genealogy

  In June 1920, my grandfather Hugo (my father's father) wrote in his diary after the coal mine where he had worked in the Ruhr area was shut down: *"Forced labor must be performed. Coerced into it by the scoundrels who rule arbitrarily. Countermeasures have been initiated, born from unjust treatment."* My father told me that my grandfather had been a communist at the time. However, in 1933, my grandfather joined a strictly religious Christian sect.
  
  Why? Why did I never ask him what he experienced in the spring of 1920 when he, a young farm boy from West Prussia, came to the Ruhr area in search of work — at the very time when the Red Ruhr Army had occupied Dortmund, where thousands of workers were later executed by the Reichswehr? There are mysteries you want to solve because the topic was present in your life as a child.
  
  My great uncle Helmut was so severely frightened by a lightning strike as a child that he suffered a permanent disability — a form of epilepsy. The Nazis murdered him as part of their so-called "euthanasia" program.
  
  My great-grandfather's farm near Bromberg (today Bydgoszcz, Poland) was set on fire shortly before the end of World War II. My great-grandmother died from her injuries. Who was responsible? For many years, the family story was that "the Poles" had done it. Today, I know it was actually the local NSDAP "farmers' leader" who committed the crime.
  
  At some point, I sat in the Secret State Archives of Prussian Cultural Heritage in Berlin-Dahlem, carefully unfolding a crackling scroll — a map from 1780, proof that one of my ancestors had owned a farm there, right by the banks of the Vistula River (now a suburb of Bydgoszcz). The research felt — and still feels — like a treasure hunt. I have traveled to Poland several times to uncover what still lies hidden in the shadows of the past.
  
  Both of my grandfathers, probably without knowing it, shaped the way I think politically today. If the Americans had entered the Ruhr area just two days later, my grandfather Peter (my mother's father) would have been executed by the Gestapo for secretly giving food to Russian prisoners of war.
  
  For me, "Nazis" were always the villains. I knew that even as a child. Whenever I find the time, I blog about genealogy.

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  Gamedesign

  The 3D world of Second Life rarely appears in German media. I have been active there since 2007, both as a roleplayer and as a game designer: I create virtual "playgrounds" where avatars can gather. You don't earn much money doing this — players in Second Life who rent a "sim" (a virtual environment) so that they and others can spend time there usually pay only a few hundred dollars for work that can take weeks to complete. For my latest city, it even took me more than a month — 16,000 polygons had to be modeled and equipped with textures and scripts. It's not something you can learn from a manual — it’s all about learning by doing.
  
  Since 2009, I have also been the editor of a "newspaper" — The Voice of Gor — which exists exclusively in Second Life, in English, with its own photo blog. There, I publish information for roleplayers within a fantasy environment.
  The virtual paper has several thousand readers and is the only news exchange on the topic—and probably even the only regularly published newspaper in Second Life. By spring 2024, more than 360 issues had been published.

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  Bodily exercise

  Until a few years ago, I regularly practiced the martial art Krav Maga — a practical method for quickly and effectively ending physical attacks against oneself. During the six years in which I worked (in a different profession) as a bodyguard for medical staff in the emergency department of a hospital located in one of Berlin's so-called "problem areas," this skill often came in handy: Almost daily, there were attempts to forcefully enter the emergency room, aggressive psychiatric patients, intoxicated visitors, drug addicts, and attacks on doctors and nurses. The motto of Krav Maga is: *"We do bad things to bad people."*
  
  These days, whenever the weather permits and my three professions allow it, I paddle my kayak through the rivers and waterways of Berlin — a wonderful and healthy hobby that, unfortunately, I rarely find the time for.