English calamity

During Easter break of 1936, twenty-seven students from Strand School in South London went on a ten-day excursion to the Black Forest, in what was then Nazi Germany. The group's leader and sole adult chaperone, Kenneth Keast, was the school's English, German and physical education teacher.[1] The boys in Keast's travel group were between 12 and 17, with the oldest participant, Douglas Mortifee, assisting as prefect.

Rather than being sanctioned by the school, the trip had instead been privately offered by Keast through School Travel Service, a London travel agency. The group arrived in Freiburg im Breisgau early on the morning of 16 April. The following day, they embarked on the first leg of their hike, which was supposed to take them over the Schauinsland and through the Notschrei mountain pass to a youth hostel in Todtnauberg called "Radschert".

The planned route from Freiburg to Todtnauberg was more than 20 kilometres (12 mi) long and ascended 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) up the Schauinsland. Even under favourable conditions this would have been considered a highly challenging route, but Keast's group was not adequately equipped for the endeavor. Despite the wintry weather, the boys mostly wore summer clothing with light shoes, shorts and no head cover.[1] Instead of using the detailed hiking maps published by the Schwarzwaldverein, Keast only had a map from the travel agency with a scale of 1:100,000, which marked hiking trails but did not provide topographical information.

Four members of the group could not be revived in Hofsgrund and were declared dead. Roy Witham and another pupil were transported by ambulance to the University Medical Center Freiburg. Witham died there ten minutes after arrival, but the other boy recovered quickly. The five deceased students were Francis Bourdillon (12), Peter Ellercamp (13), Stanley Lyons (13), Jack Alexander Eaton (14) and Roy Witham (14).[1]

The last three students to be found, including Eaton, were located just below the ridge. Since it seems unlikely that they could have for some reason climbed back up the mountain in their condition, it is reasonable to assume that they were left there when the group disbanded.

During the investigation in England, Keast stated that the planned route was usually considered as a short day-trip, and that German authorities had described the conditions as the worst snowstorm in forty years. Initially critical, the school management investigated why a group of this size was accompanied abroad by only one adult. Although extreme physical exertion as a part of physical education was normalised at the time, Keast was reproached for not having recognised the emergency situation quickly enough, failing to keep the group together and not paying sufficient attention to the boys who had collapsed. The general lack of preparation for the hike and the inadequate equipment were also strongly criticised.

In Germany, the Nazi Party quickly took political advantage of the situation. The Olympic Games in Berlin were approaching and the German Reich wanted to present itself to the world as a strong but friendly and benevolent state. Thus, the official account adopted Keast's thesis of an unforeseeable weather disaster that had cost the boys their lives despite heroic efforts by their teacher. The vital role played by the villagers of Hofsgrund as well as all indications that suggested misconduct on the part of the teacher fell by the wayside. The lack of any action against Keast by the German authorities was diplomatically motivated: further grievances leveled towards the United Kingdom could have increased tensions, exacerbating the strained diplomatic relations since Hitler's rise to power — which would not have been welcome to either side. In this way Germany was able to present itself as a generous helper in times of need. Keast found this development very convenient, and the British government was also pleased.

From the outset, Keast described the event to the press and authorities as an unforeseeable natural catastrophe. He had expected favourable spring weather, like the day before. He claimed that as soon as the weather deteriorated, he did his utmost to bring the group to safety. As a consequence of the incident, a subsequent school trip to Austria under Keast's leadership was cancelled, but in the end all accusations against him were dropped. He remained active in the teaching profession and died in 1971.[1]

One of the rescued boys, Stanley C. Few, later joined the British Army, but told his superiors that he could not be expected to fight Germans as he credited them with saving his life. He was deployed in Asia.[1]

Jack Alexander Eaton's father did not believe the official account. He travelled to Freiburg several times after the accident, traced the route, interviewed witnesses, reconstructed the events and found confirmation of his suspicions.[1] In a written statement, which he distributed publicly as an appeal to bring Keast to justice, he summarised his investigations and accused Keast of having put the group of students in a hopeless situation out of ambition and recklessness, and of having ignored local advice not to attempt the hike out of disdain for the Germans. His statements were politically undesirable and found little attention, especially since they also blamed the tour operators and school management. Eaton publicly stated that Keast was his son's murderer and pursued him incessantly. The parents of the other victims did not join Eaton's protests.

Outside the Schauinsland region, the disaster was forgotten, until a Freiburg teacher and amateur historian, Bernd Hainmüller, came across it at the beginning of the 21st century while studying the history of the Hitler Youth in Freiburg. Since the depiction in records from the era was obviously politically influenced, he set about reconstructing the events from individual records and oral traditions. He presented his findings in Hofsgrund on 17 April 2016, the eightieth anniversary of the disaster. The findings disproved the official explanation of the disaster as a tragic accident caused by freak weather, and supported Jack Eaton's accusations of willful ignorance and over-confidence on the part of Keast. The astonishment of many that such an inadequately equipped group of schoolchildren had made it over the Schauinsland at all under the circumstances is still remembered in Hofsgrund.

It is still unclear what exactly happened on the "last mile", between the sound of the bells and the Dobelhof, as Hainmüller repeatedly pointed out. According to the rescuers, small groups of collapsed boys were found, each with an older boy as guard. But since there seemed little point in leaving exhausted students lying in the snow with a guard instead of carrying them to shelter, Hainmüller argued that Keast had completely lost control of the group by then, and that the group had broken up into separate squads, each of which tried to reach shelter on their own, leaving the exhausted behind. One of the twenty-one questions posed by Jack Eaton at the time asks which of the boys proved to be "true Englishmen" and helped weaker ones in need. What is certain is that there was secret collusion among Keast, the school management, and the survivors. Even after Keast's death nothing has been revealed about the content of these discussions.

Two daughters of one survivor, Kenneth Osborne, who had kept a diary throughout the trip, were present at Hainmüller's talk and reported that although their father had not often spoken about the tour, the kindness and helpfulness of the farmers had remained in his memory throughout his life. At the age of 12, Osborne may have survived only because he had a borrowed rain cape with him to protect against the wind. All his life, he had cherished a small cast model of a church, which his daughters identified as Freiburg Cathedral only when they visited it. In the following period, Osborne created an extensive archive of all British newspaper reports about the accident that were available to him, a copy of which was given to Bernd Hainmüller.

British correspondent Kate Connolly published a detailed article describing Hainmüller's findings in The Guardian on 6 July 2016.

On 30 September 2017, new information boards were attached to the two existing monuments on the slope, giving a brief outline of the event and the respective historical significance of the site.

Kleines Engländerdenkmal

English text on the Kleines Engländerdenkmal

The Kleines Engländerdenkmal ("Small Englishmen Monument") or Eaton Cross is the name given to the stone memorial cross, about 1 metre (3 ft 3 in) high, that Jack Alexander Eaton's father had erected in May 1937 near the spot where his son was found dead. It bears a German inscription on the slope side and an English inscription on the valley side with the same content. Eaton's intention in erecting it was to express his protest against the official account of the event, which exonerated Keast from any culpability. He wanted the English text to conclude with the line, "Their teacher failed them in the hour of trial", but this was denied him, as it contradicted the official version of the events.[1] The free space on the cross below the English text is clearly visible.

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