Kalb history revisited by two Fürth residents

• The original article in German can be found here.
• A translated version to English can be seen here via Google Translate.
• The Facebook group described below can be joined here.

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Facebook group for Fürth “Kalb Housing Area”

Former residents of the US settlement reminisce

FÜRTH – Here was the laundry! And since the playground! And do you remember the old Lady Emily? A Facebook group for “Kalb housing area” in the southern part of Fürth, which once housed about 4,800 Americans, found more than 600 members in no time. Most come from the United States.

Once the Americans left things were different. Like cotton candy- the blue and pink were gone, only in bland white. “I asked my mother why and she said that the Americans are gone,” says Stephanie Spindler (31). She must have been nine, she estimates, about Americans she had never really thought.

Today things are different. Spindler, who grew up in Nuremberg, moved with their two children four years ago to Fürth, in the Kalb area, by working here as an educator. She has read into the history of this district and had at some point come up with the idea of a Kalb Area Facebook page. “I wondered who the people were that once called this area home,” she writes on the website.

On December 26, the site went online, five days later, she had 500 members. “That was amazing,” says Marco Frömter (39), a friend of Stephanie Spindler. New Year’s Eve the two spent approving member requests. The laptop ran next to the New Years spread.

Frömter grew up in the southern part of the city in the 80s, when two worlds met here. His parents had many American friends, he was playing with the neighborhood kids from the Kalb housing area and loved to shop in the “PX”. America was only a few steps away.

The most striking memory of the time? “The feeling you’re going through a barrier and are in a different world from A to B. As a child, it was very intense,” he says. To date, Frömter, himself a former German soldier was fascinated by this chapter German-American history. It is no coincidence that he is Chairman of the German American Men’s Club of Middle Franconia, maintain contacts in the Germans and Americans formerly stationed in the region.

Frömter knew there were Facebook groups for Johnson Barracks in Fürth, Monteith Barracks, Merrell Barracks in Nuremberg or Ferris Barracks in Erlangen. He encouraged Spindler: An on-line community for Kalb was missing. However such a rush for membership he had not expected.

The site has become a virtual class meetings. 90 percent of users are Americans who communicate almost exclusively in English, and each photo that is uploaded, is celebrated. “Is this Fronmüller street?” Asks a woman to one of the pictures. They lived in the third building of the school in the direction PX. “Yes, it is,” says the photographer, a current Fürth resident. “Home sweet home” notes another user. Is that the old “Launderette” the old laundry?, someone asks under a different photo and receives the response: This has become an Ecumenical center.

The users quick scrolled through photo albums. You can see old class photos, a young cheerleader in the former Nurnberg American High School (now the Hans Böckler school) as she gets a new coat of paint in the 60s, an old cinema program for the “community theater”. At that time, the music film “Hair” was playing – the admission: $ 1.50.

Brings back memories: the nice “Mr Pincher” gave away the ice; to this “old lady Emily” who liked to dye her hair blue; to first jobs, ski trips (“I am the Girl with the crutch – my leg was broken,” writes another), the prom in the school cafeteria and endless other memories.

There are sweet memories. The Americans are raving about happy days in Fürth – “Wow, Look at what the Germans have made of our old homes,” writes a woman. In the group there are also people who are currently from the southern part of the city, said Spindler. One, Andreas Cruise, and Mr. Frömter enabled a photo tour in the old High School now the Hans Böckler school. The photos are already online. And of course, were all liked.

Stephanie Spindler hopes to further members can contribute their photos to the group “US Army Family Housing Kalb Furth”.

CLAUDIA Ziob