Mr. Martin, you recently returned a book to the Mönchengladbach City Library after almost 60 years.

Today you live in Villeneuve-lès-Avignon in southern France.

What is your connection to Germany?

Sebastian Eder

Editor in the society department at FAZ.NET.

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I even have a connection to your newspaper: In the winter semester of 1965/1966 and in the summer semester of 1966 I was studying German at the University of Heidelberg.

Since the FAZ have subscribed - at a reduced rate.

And in mid-August 1968 I spent a week in Prague, that was the time of the Prague Spring.

There you could buy “Le Monde” and the FAZ at the kiosk, I remember that to this day.

And my favorite journalist is Michaela Wiegel, your current France correspondent.

That's our pleasure!

Let's get to the reason for the call: What were you doing in Mönchengladbach, where you borrowed the book 60 years ago?

In 1963 and 1964 I was a soldier in the French armed forces in Germany.

Before that I was a student of German and English.

That's why I was interested in German and English.

So I became an English interpreter and secretary to the French liaison officer at Rheindahlen headquarters, where various British and NATO forces were stationed.

The Rheindahlen headquarters was in the west of Mönchengladbach, so I lived there for a year and a half.

But I was only allowed to walk in civilian clothes because I was in British territory.

They then borrowed a book by Friedrich Engels with three writings: "The Development of Socialism from Utopia to Science", "The German Peasants' War" and "Social Issues from Russia".

What interested you?

The Peasants' War.

I was very interested in Martin Luther at the time.

As a Germanist and Protestant.

Luther's attitude during the Peasants' Wars was a problem for me.

I therefore wanted to deal with Engels' position on this.

As a secretary and translator I had enough time and met a lecturer from Bonn who recommended this book to me.

And then I went to the library and they actually had the book.

I read it with great interest.

And then it disappeared under a mountain of documents that one piles up in the course of life.

When did you find it again?

I have lived in Villeneuve-lès-Avignon since 1975.

When I turned 80 a few months ago, I set out to go through three large piles of papers that had accumulated on my desk and in boxes.

Engels' book then appeared under these stacks. It was very small, DIN A 5 and about one centimeter thick.

All the good memories of that time came up again.

At that time I only worked six hours a day and two days off a week, so I also gave German and English lessons for English people on the side.

I had a lot of fun doing that.

I was more of a student than a soldier.

Did you get a fright because you hadn't returned the book for so long?

Yes, of course.

When I'm old, you want to fix everything you've done wrong as much as possible.

Even if it's just little things.

And for a long time I denied the people of Mönchengladbach the opportunity to borrow this book.

I am very sorry about that.

So I sent the book back and included a letter of apology.

That cost me more than eight euros, I had to go to the post office extra.

The stamp shows a building from Villeneuve-lès-Avignon.

Worried you might have to pay a fine?

No, I only figured that out after reading articles about the return of the book.

But the head of the library was very nice and didn't ask for any fees.

He sent me two envelopes, one of which contained the newspaper article.

I had a lot of fun there.

That was very gratifying, I would never have expected that.

Did the book actually reconcile you with Martin Luther?

Luther's attitude to the German Peasants' War of 1525 was not so simple.

Although he sometimes slandered the nobility, he also scolded "the murderous and robbery gangs of peasants".

I understood that Luther simply wasn't well informed and didn't know that the nobles had murdered the peasants.

Something like that interested me as a student.

I later had a teaching position at the University of Avignon on modern German history and German literature.

And over the past 50 years I have been very actively involved in the partnership between Villeneuve-lès-Avignon and Rheinbach near Bonn.

That's why I'm glad that nobody in Germany is mad at me because of the book.