When he was traveling, we all forgot where we were —not just us kids but also the other teachers in the staff room. They sometimes came some fifteen minutes late into the classroom and they’d simply say: “We could not arrive earlier, our colleague Ivanovius was talking…” He somewhat reminded one of the teacher in “Blauer Engel”. In a pub with female personnel he once ran into one of his more mature students, invited him to sit at his table and paid for his drinks. Lehr (a schoolmate, tall as a tree) told me later the following story:
“So who was there? Our Professor! I wanted to leave quickly, but he had already seen me and said, ‘Listen, my son, of course, is any business where your teacher goes a totally classy one, but if I see you here again you’ll be expelled from the school. Now, though, for tonight you’re my guest, since, of course, you stepped in here – I am sure – just because you forgot your house key and you needed shelter from the rain.’”
When as a captain he led his company up the hill in midtown, he slipped and fell with his fat belly. The girls, who were just coming out of his school, laughed. “My fair ladies,” he shouted, “I hope you will get fat as respectably as I have!”
When, as an old man and probably syphilitic, he took leave from his students, he said, “I hope with my life I’ve given you a compelling example of how not to live your life.” A few years later I saw him sitting in the Kleistpark, in the autumn sun, surrounded by the falling leaves, together with the white-haired Professor Mollmann. He held my hand and said, “How beautiful, how wonderful is this colorful sunny autumn—the last of my life!”
He died early the following year. Every time spring arrives and I open the windows, I am reminded, fifty years later, of his favorite line: “Open the windows, open the hearts, quickly, quickly…”[1]
[1] “Die Fenster auf, die Herzen auf! Geschwinde! Geschwinde!”, from the poem “Frühlingseinzug” (‘the arrival of the spring’) by Wilhelm Müller (1794 - 1827).