“They were like strangers to me.”
Hans
Erikson “ran away to sea” at the age of 14 years and never saw his parents
again. “They were like strangers to me,” he wrote in his memoir, The Rhythm of the Shoe. But I don’t
believe him. There is evidence to show that he corresponded with them and
received news about them, long after he sailed down the Göta River and out into
the grey Atlantic never to return. His childhood was one of material privilege
and emotional angst and in so many ways it made him the tragic man he became.
Once away from Sweden, he writes that he never wanted to return. And yet he
doggedly held to his Swedish citizenship right to the bitter end, never really
considering himself a native of the new land that had adopted him, warts and
all.
Erikson’s
father, Harald Axel Grebst, was born in Gothenburg on 24 November 1876, just
over a year after his half-brother, Willy. Their father, Axel Olof Andersson, a
sea captain, was prominent in Gothenburg commercial life as the Consul to Cuba,
a position his son would subsequently assume as well as becoming Consul to
Costa Rica. Harald Grebst represented Sweden at the International Commercial
Congress held in Philadelphia from 12 October to 1 November 1899. It was billed
as “a Conference of All Nations for the extension of Commercial Intercourse”
and all the Australian colonies sent representatives. His biography in the
Congress proceedings reads as follows:
Mr.
Grebst was born on November 24, 1876, in Gothenburg, Sweden. After passing the
elementary school in Gothenburg, he went to Germany, where for five years he
attended a private school in Dresden, Saxony. On his return to Gothenburg, he
spent two years in the Commercial School of that city, and since 1896 has been
connected with his father's firm, Andersson & Lindberg, of the same place.
This firm imports from and exports to Sweden all kinds of metal. Coal, oil and
machinery for ship-building purposes, as well as the greatest part of pig iron
imported into Sweden, are carried by steamers belonging to them. Timber, which
is sawed at their own saw mills in Gothenburg, is exported by them to Great
Britain, France and Belgium.
The other half of Andersson & Lindberg was Charles Felix Lindberg who died in 1909. He left the firm some years before his death. His estate was said to be worth 2.2 million kronor and he made many generous donations to the city of Gothenburg. Grateful city officials erected a monument over his grave.
Meanwhile,
Harald Grebst became known as a wheeling and dealing entrepreneur and a risk
taker. In 1904, he imported from France the first ever electric car in Sweden.
It was a Kriegerdroska with a Landaulette coach made by the Compagnie Parisienne des Voitures
Electriques. He later sold it to George Seaton, one of Gothenburg’s
wealthiest citizens, and it can now be seen in the City Museum along with some
driving jackets circa 1900 believed to have once been his.
Harald
Grebst married Wally Amalia Klatzö (born in 1871). Erikson, who was born in
Gothenburg on 13 January 1906, wrote in his memoirs that he had a sister nine
years older than him (born 1897?) and a half-sister twenty years older (from
his mother’s previous marriage: she must have been a mere 15 years old when she
gave birth to this child). At age 22, the half-sister married an Italian prince
and was rarely seen in Sweden again. It seems from all this that Harald and
Wally Grebst should have been married around 1897. However, the intriguing diary
of a Norwegian whaler, Alexander Lange, who was in the
Falkland Islands on Friday 22 December 1905 states:
At
last the mail boat arrived. I went overboard and on the way out in the small
steamboat, I met several of the passengers, one of whom was a Swedish gentleman
by the name of Grebst, from Gothenborg and his wife, an American lady. They
were on their honeymoon and he was traveling, he said as a correspondent for
the Goteborg Commerce and Shipping Newspaper and would be in South America for
2 or 3 years. He has been reporting the Russo-Japanese war and spoke much of
Mukden and Port Arthur. He gave his address as Consul Harald Grebst,
Gothenborg, but perhaps that is his father. He himself was a man of about 30
years, a really pleasant and forthright man.[1]
This “Harald Grebst” helped Lange by interpreting for him, speaking French to a Spanish-speaking local from Punta Arenas who was keen to have the Norwegian start up a whaling venture with him. There is no mention of the honeymooners having a daughter with them or of the fact that Mrs Grebst was heavily pregnant with Hans Erikson at the time – he was born in Gothenburg on 13 January 1906, some three weeks later. Indeed, it seems highly unlikely to me that the Grebsts would sail from the Falkland Islands all the way back to Gothenburg just in time for the birth. Harald told Lange he intended to stay in South America for two or three years. I am suspicious about this odd situation and two possibilities present themselves. The first is that Harald’s companion was not his wife but a mistress and that Wally Amalia Grebst was back in Gothenburg with her young daughter preparing for her son’s birth. The second is that the honeymooning couple was, in fact, Willy Grebst and his American wife and there was either an innocent misunderstanding about identity or Willy saw some advantage in falsely passing himself off to Lange as his brother the Consul.
 |
| Source: Wikipedia |
Check out Villa Dalfrid at this link:
Political tensions in Europe were now rising. Britain and Germany were engaged in a naval arms race that was making the Swedes nervous. This was particularly so in Gothenburg, a port city that relied heavily on the free passage of merchant shipping. In 1913, Harald Grebst was listed as one of the founders of the Gothenburg Voluntary Motorboat Fleet [Göteborgs Frivilliga Motorbåtsflottilj], a private, nationalistic effort hoping to somehow bolster the country’s defence of its neutrality in the face of war. That same year, Harald published a book entitled Sweden’s Merchant Fleet [Sveriges Handelsflotta] describing the merchant vessels that were soon to face the fury of World War 1. With the outbreak of war, neutral Swedes were divided into pro-German and pro-British factions. Both Harald and Willy Grebst having been educated in Germany, it is not surprising that they were pro-German. Willy Grebst dealt with the subject in his novel, Bread:
At three o’clock in the morning, Viktor again
stood outside the restaurant. Through the banqueting room’s open window, he saw
the glitter and magnificence inside. The music rang out into the park’s
stillness. Now and again the people joined in with the melody. The couples
whirled past without pause. Down in the food hall, white clad waiters hurried
to and fro with their trays full of food and drink.
“Don’t mind me,” Viktor said to a private
chauffeur waiting with his car at the entrance. “Thousands of crowns of posh
food going into mouths that aren’t hungry.”
The chauffeur turned away.
“Haven’t you eaten?” snorted Viktor. “Or have
you sold your soul at the same time as your body? Are you a worker?”
“I look after my place and don’t give a damn
about things that don’t concern me.”
“Ah go to hell with your stinking cart.”
“With this stinking cart, me and mine make a
living. And because of this stinking cart and thousands of others, thousands of
workers in the workshops make a living. Go to hell yourself if you want. Leave
me in peace. I’m looking after myself.”
Viktor wanted to answer with heated, hateful
words. But his attention was caught by a pair of gentlemen coming out of the
restaurant. They were wearing fur and top hats. White scarves shone under their
collars. Shiny dress shoes glistened in the light. They were conducting a
high-sounding conversation.
“It’s the Germans’ fault,” Viktor heard one of
them call out. “It’s their fault that people are starving and freezing. They
sink our grain cargoes and our coal. Nothing that crosses their path escapes
its fate. It’s the damn Germans we have to thank for all the trouble and mischief
in the land.”
The other was very quiet. “You are completely
one-eyed. It was the English who started the arms race at sea. Despite our
export ban, the whole time they accused us unjustly of sending necessities to
Germany. This although they knew through their spies that our export laws are
observed to the strictest levels. The Germans only continued what the English
had started. The one is a logical consequence of the other. You have to be fair
and see the thing from their point of view.”
“You defend the submarine war!” The first
speaker became more and more heated. “Something more inhuman the world has
never seen.”
“I don’t defend it. I’m only trying to explain
it. Let us repeat what has happened. England started by capturing our boats.
They took our grain cargoes and consumed them themselves. They took our
saltpetre to make gunpowder. When the Germans at last noticed that the English
‘inspections’ of our steamers led to one confiscation after another, they
declared the whole area around England under blockade. Any boats going to the
enemy’s harbours would be sunk, they said. That’s it.”
“But the English insisted that they go there.”
“There lies the English extreme guilt. Their
pride didn’t want to let them indirectly admit that they are no longer rulers
of the sea. Had they exempted the neutral ships from compulsory visits to the
English inspection harbours, they would have thereby admitted that it was the
Germans and not themselves who had command of the ocean. Had the English really
been the magnanimous people they like to be seen as, they would have realised
their inability to protect the neutral tonnage within the war zone and let it
well alone. But their confounded pride wouldn’t let them. And for that we are
now the meat in the sandwich. The Germans would be stupid not to match the
English. And because of that it has become their miserable lot to execute the
violent deed that the English incited.”
“How you talk! Your words only prove that you
are more German than Swedish.”
“And you are not Swedish but English. It
explains why you fawned to that poor swaying English Consul General up there.
But I understand you and pity you. To need to belittle yourself in this way for
the sake of some damn license. Shame on you!”
“You don’t support Germany but you get licenses
from there …”
“Hold on …”
The altercation became an open squabble. Both
men accused each other back and forth. In the end, they parted in deep anger.
They swept through the door and disappeared.
“Bloody profiteering toffs,” Viktor mumbled after
them. “They’re the sort who are draining the country of groceries.” That it was
a question of imports and not exports Viktor couldn’t grasp.[3]
During the war, Harald Grebst was what the Swedes then called a “goulash” [gulasch], meaning a spiv or profiteer. And it got him into trouble. In October 1915, he was investigated by detectives in Malmö over his involvement in handling a cargo of 1,100 tons of American banned exports on board the Juno bound for Germany.[4] Two Germans fled the country before the Police could contact them. One of the Germans had been staying in the same hotel as Grebst. It was no surprise therefore when in April 1918, the United States War Trade Board placed Grebst on the Enemy Trading List meaning that Americans were not to do business with him.[5] The listing was as follows: Grebst, Harold, Stores Badhuegatan 8, Gothenburg. This was obviously a misreading of Stora Badhusgatan, one street back from the banks of the Göta River at Inom Vallgraven, central Gothenburg where Grebst no doubt had his offices.
All the Scandinavian countries managed to remain
neutral during World War 1. That would not be the case in the next conflagration.
If Harald and Willy Grebst were told that their son and nephew was destined to
fight against Germany on the side of the British in a coming war, I suspect
they would have been incredulous, even highly offended. But that is eventually
what happened. In the meantime, life went on and the Swedes concentrated on
their own domestic issues. One such issue that inflamed temperaments was the
temperance movement. Banning alcohol to preserve law and order had been a hot
topic in Sweden since the days of Gustav Vasa. Now the prohibitionists were
back and had secured a referendum to be held on 27 August 1922: “yes” or “no”
to prohibition. Backed by the Gothenburg breweries, Consul Harald Grebst led an
anti-prohibition lobby group called propagandacentralen
N.E.J. “Nej” is, of course, the Swedish word for “no.” They were supported
by the famous Småland artist-cartoonist, Albert Engström, who produced a timeless
“No” poster showing himself behind a plate of cooked crayfish and pointing to a
bottle of schnapps. “Crayfish demand to be served with alcohol. You must
abstain from crayfish if you do not vote NO on 27 August.” Cute rhetoric, if a
little weak. Given that the Swedes love their annual crayfish-eating holiday,
Engström hit his target. The “no” vote won the referendum by a tiny margin.[6]
Harald Grebst’s standing within the commercial elite of Gothenburg was no doubt
enhanced by the victory.
Whilst there is much public information about Harald
Grebst, the same cannot be said for his wife, Wally Amalia Grebst nee Klatzö.
She lies in the Östra begravningsplatsen in a grave beside Willy Grebst’s
mausoleum and from that source I know she was born in 1871. I have seen an
image of a document offered for sale over the internet: Share Certificate
number 312 evidencing the ownership by Mrs Wally Grebst of one share in
Andersson & Lindberg Aktiebolag valued at 500 kronor. The certificate is
dated 5 April 1918. And there are snippets written about her input in naming
Villa Dalfrid and selecting some of its furnishings. But apart from that, I
know very little about her.
She is, of course, mentioned by Hans Erikson in The Rhythm of the Shoe without being
named. I found those references to be a little unsettling. Erikson seemed to
resent his mother, the A-list socialite who had little time for him. He was
cared for by two nurses whom he grew to love. He even stoops to mentioning that
he was revolted by the sight of his mother with her corsets off (she looked
like she had two stomachs) and by her false fringe![7]
1920 was a landmark year for the Grebst family. Apart from Willy’s lingering death, Harald and Wally Grebst became estranged. As Erikson describes it in his memoirs, Harald took up with a mistress, a famous blonde actress, whom he introduced to his disapproving son. Erikson saw her as ”wishy-washy” and tired-looking. This is no doubt the mind of a petulant male adolescent at work here. His father’s mistress was Stina Louise Nordström, then 23 years old, a writer, theatre reviewer and actress. 1920 saw the publication of her one and only book, Rhyme and Review [Rim och recension] by Bonniers. She and Harald Grebst would ultimately marry in 1923. Nevertheless, back in 1920, Erikson continues the story thus:
Then came the
fateful day when my father called me into his study and spoke to me man to man,
which misguided parents seem to delight in. He told me that he and my mother
had decided to get a divorce. He was going to live in Paris with his mistress
and my mother was going to stay in Sweden. As they both loved me very much, he
said, they both wanted me to stay with them. But they had decided to let the
choice be mine. I went to bed that night and sobbed my heart out. I hated them
both and made up my mind to run away to sea. That would punish them.[8]
Hans Erikson, aged 14 years (not 12 as he says in his memoirs), did go to sea. I suspect it was more organised than the expression running away to sea suggests. He had just been expelled from one of Sweden’s most elite private schools. His estranged parents had demanded he choose between them. I imagine he told them he would rather go to sea than make that choice and that his father, with all his vast shipping connections, made the necessary arrangements. Erikson then left Sweden secure in the knowledge that he would one day inherit the proceeds of Uncle Willy’s vast estate. I have always wondered who, if anyone, was there on the quayside the day Hans Erikson sailed from his native land, never to return. Who shed a tear? His mother, father and sister? His nurses and friends? On 22 May 2011, the same day I visited the Art Museum in Gothenburg to see the Isaac Grünewald paintings Willy Grebst so loathed, I also visited Saltholmen and watched cargo ships making their way out to sea. I couldn’t help but wonder what was going through Erikson’s teenage mind as the rocky Swedish coastline disappeared from sight. Forever. A cold Arctic wind was blowing in from the North Sea making me shudder. Less than a month earlier, I had stood on the coastline of another continent and another ocean, the place where Erikson chose to come ashore and die, and a hot tropical wind had warmed my cheeks.
When Erikson turned 21 in January 1927, there was nothing
left in Uncle Willy’s estate. Harald Grebst had squandered it on one of his
deals gone wrong. Erikson received the bitter news in a letter from his father
a few weeks before his birthday. It was a terrible blow to his plans. The year
dragged on. Svenska Dagbladet has the
following entry in its 1927 Yearbook for 21 November:
En
känd parissvensk Konsul Harald Grebst skjuter sin hustru, den som
skådespelerska och journalist under signature X-tian bekanta Stina Grebst född
Nordström, och därefter sig själv i makarnas hem i Paris. Anledningen är
ekonomiska svårigheter.
A
well-known Paris Swede, Consul Harald Grebst, shoots his wife, the actress and
journalist going under the name X-tian but known to be Stina Grebst nee
Nordström, and then himself in the couple’s home in Paris. The reason is
economic difficulties.
Erikson was notified by the Swedish Foreign Office in 1928.
Wally Amalia Grebst remained in Sweden and married
Baron Carl Gustaf von Otter (1873-1931). The von Otter family features
prominently in Swedish affairs and particularly in the history of the Swedish
navy in Gothenburg and Karlskrona, the main naval port. Wally Grebst’s new
husband was the son of Admiral Carl Gustaf von Otter (1827-1900) who was the
older brother of Baron Fredrik von Otter, Sweden’s Prime Minister from 1900 to
1902. Admiral von Otter was also grandfather to Göran von Otter and great
grandfather to the famous Swedish opera singer, Anne Sofie von Otter. It is
perhaps a comment on the status of Wally Grebst as a high-flying socialite that
she was able to marry into such an illustrious family.
I cannot resist telling the story of Göran von Otter
in this blog that primarily deals with the pro-German Grebsts. He was a Swedish
diplomat posted to Berlin during World War 2. On 20 August 1942, he was on a
train traveling from Warsaw to Berlin when he was approached by Kurt Gerstein,
an SS officer returning from the Treblinka concentration camp. Gerstein was in a
state of distress at having witnessed the gassing of several hundred Jews at
Belzec. He described everything he had seen and asked the Swedish diplomat to
inform his government so that something could perhaps been done about this
appalling slaughter. Von Otter did report the matter but the Swedish government
sat on the information. After the war, von Otter tried to find Gerstein but the
German had committed suicide on 25 July 1945 in Paris. I wonder what would have
happened if, in 1942, Gerstein had boarded the train compartment only to find
it occupied, not by Göran von Otter, but Willy Grebst and Barthold Lundén?
Would they have had any sympathy at
all for the distressed SS officer?
“Major Baron C. G. von Otter” and “Wally von Otter nee
Grebst” lie together in the Östra begravningsplatsen a few paces uphill from
the mausoleum of Willy Grebst. Menja Grebst lies in the same grave but the date
beside her name is not clear: 19 VI 19__. I can only assume that Menja Grebst
is Hans Erikson’s sister, nine years his senior.
In The Rhythm of
the Shoe, Hans Erikson correctly states that his mother died in 1942.
However, World War 2 stopped him from receiving the news until years after the
event. He was still trying to send her telegrams as late as February 1945. As an
“alien,” he required official permission from the Comptroller-General of the
Department of Trade and Customs to send telegrams overseas. With the assistance
of the Red Cross, he ultimately obtained permission to send a telegram
addressed to Baroness Wally Amalia von Otter at Margaretaplatsen E,
Walsingborg, Sweden. I expect this was a typographical error and that the von
Otters were living at Margaretaplatsen in Helsingborg. In any event, Erikson’s
message was telling: NO WORD IN EIGHTEEN MONTHS IN SPITE OF ATTEMPTS BY LETTER
AIRMAIL AND CABLE. That was the message: a complaint. His mother had been dead
and buried for years. What the telegram does demonstrate is that he had been in
contact with his mother, the woman he loved and hated. She was not such a stranger
to him after all.
[1] Susan Adie & Bjørn L Basberg, “The First Antarctic
Whaling Season of Admiralen
(1905-1906): The Diary of Alexander Lange” (2009) 45 Polar Record 247.
[2] “Villa Dalfrid: En av Sveriges bäst bevarade jugendmiljöer” per
http://www.hembygd.se/askim/files/2012/04/1983-2.pdf
[3] Willy Andersson Grebst, Bröd:
tvärsnitt genom samhället våren (1917) pp 36-39, translated by A.
Thelander.
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