If Not France...(nor UK).... Where would you settle and Why?

I too would opt to settle in Germany, because I feel a strong affinity with the German people since childhood (I had a same-age German penfriend who survived the war in Berlin and was a member of the Hitler Youth movement). I am much more proficient In German than in French, for reasons I don’t understand. I’ve been told often by Germans that I speak their language with a pronounced Bavarian accent, although I’ve only spent a few weeks in Germany during my lifetime, and learned the language at school from a former Army Intelligence Officer. I sometimes think I might have been German ‘in a former life’ :face_with_monocle:

I would choose either Nurnberg or Freiburg-Im-Breisgau as my domicile.

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I love Freiburg but would probably opt for Rottenburg op der Tauber given the chance.
Interestingly I once sailed to Perros Guirec in Brittany and while I was there I was invited over for a drink on another boat a friend had sailed over on. The boat’s owner was a retired Army Intelligence Officer who told us that one of the most difficult things that he’d done in his career was to explain why he’d been a member of Hitler Youth in his teens. He and a friend had travelled through Germany in the ‘30s and joining the Hitler Youth was seen as being like joining the YHA. Nothing sinister at the time.

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My dear pen-friend, Horst Kuehnemann, used to laugh about the grisly songs they were taught in the Hitlerjugend, and when he visited my home in 1950 we used to lie in our beds and giggle at them like the silly juvenile ninnies we both were. I still remember some of the words, and the Horst Wessellied. Horst’s early life was utterly tragic, though, and he lost his father and mother before he was 10. He lived a stone’s throw from the Kurfuerstendamm in central Berlin and witnessed the arrival of the Soviet army.

Beautiful Franconia!
I taught at a school in GB which was a big centre for the scout movement and vegetarianism, the boys travelled extensively in Europe in the 30s… so lots of lovely vintage photos of them in Germany, singsongs around the campfire, gymnastic displays, swimming competitions, all with the Hitlerjugend.

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My dear late friend Heinz Meyer (you may know him, he was an actor, in Loriot and all sorts of things) lived in Königsberg and was enrolled in what passed for an army in the last stages of the war to resist the Red Army, aged 12.

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My favourite German song lyrics come from a song sung at Karneval.
Allies hat eine Ende nur die Wurst hat zwei.


Basically, everything has (comes to) an end only sausages have two.
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I never thought for one minute I would ever leave England…my maternal roots are Scottish…I find myself in Brittany which I love but my loved ones are still on England…I was a guest of a friend in Germany…my German is possibly worse than my French even though my breakdown cover is with ADAC…standing outside his commercial premises watching the world go by I somehow became engaged in conversation with a passerby…My friend who owned the shop hurriedly pulled me back inside…”he is blaming you for the war…” he said…My sister lives in Canada…been there over 25 years…where would I actively choose to live given the opportunity…??? If not in the same village as my mom then possibly Southern Ireland…

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I’d be quite tempted by Malta. The Maltese are delightful. The little towns can be so pleasantly scruffy. The Maltese enthusiasm for enormous fireworks is ear-splittingly enjoyable. The corruption seems to be government endorsed (anyone for a Maltese /EU passport just put the money on the table). It’s just about far enough away from the Out Islands of the Former United Kingdom. As far as I can see there is no DUP presence on the island and no mountains to attract the Mays.

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For me it would have to be southern Ireland. I don’t think I could ever feel truly at home anywhere I couldn’t communicate comfortably, and I only speak English and French fluently, and at this stage of my life I don’t have the will to learn another language. I’ve always had a soft spot for Ireland, there’s just something about the land and the culture that fills me with positive energy when I’m there (I could say the same about parts of France, it’s why I moved here). Co. Cork would probably be first choice.

If I’d been younger, maybe Germany - there’s a lot that I like about it but I think settling in and adapting would be hard work. Definitely not Italy because I had a bad experience there. Malta, well I worked for a Maltese-owned family business once and I’m not sure delightful would be word I’d choose, I got on fine with them as colleagues but it seemed to be a very macho, male-dominated culture, mind you this is going back 30 to 40 years so I suppose things have moved on…

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I’m not yet fluent in French…I can get by and the more I try to learn the more confused I get and find myself talking in present tense only and reverting to the French I learned at school…I felt more confident with what I already knew compared to what I’m trying to learn…I love Brittany…I recognise the different dialects and accents which is something I always adored about the uk…the rich diversity in accents…I find it lovable and humorous…Our love of France and Éire Ireland might be to do with the Celtic connection…??? When my kids were over we visited Carnac…torrential rain…looking at the “standing stones” and visiting the museum…we walked along the beach hardly able to take a breath due to the biting winds and torrential rain…we gathered pocketfuls of shells and beautiful to us stones…I loved Carnac…before making the decision to live in Brittany it was a toss up between Brittany and Southern Ireland and funds and available property at the time dictated my decision…but should circumstances alter then I’d move to Southern Ireland in a heartbeat…it’s very much to do with the “feeling” of the land…like a distant yearning felt beneath our feet and in our hearts…plus…much as I could make fun of my own accent and many uk accents I absolutely adore the Southern Irish accent…I have the same acoustic cymatic linguistic feelings with Scotland…x :slight_smile:

By coincidence my father met a Horst Kuehnermann while cycling through France (around Dijon) in the early1950s - Horst did visit England by bicycle and went as far north as the western isles. I wonder if it was the same man ?

No intention of leaving here, but just to say I loved life in the Baixo Alentajo, Portugal :slightly_smiling_face:

Very intriguing coincidence, Nick, thanks for flagging it up. When Horst visited us in England he and I were in our teens, that was in the early 50s and it was his first venture outside Berlin which was still an encircled city.

His visiting gifts to me were a superb bicycle dynamo that fitted on the front wheel of my Raleigh and lit a very snazzy chromium-plated headlamp. I was the envy of all my friends. He also gave me a triangular pennant in red, with the Berliner Baer rampant and the city name. That adorned the bike too, until someone pinched it.

I have Googled HK and tried notices in local newspapers where he may have lived, but never made contact and his on-line presence is very meagre, so I think he may have died early. He would be 82 or 83 now. He had no siblings and both his parents were casualties of WW2. I shall always miss him.,we were close friends brought together by that tragic war.