About this town and about this part of my life I could write a book. I lived there from the age of 5 (1937) until I started to work and live in the Park Hotel in Linz (1953), but still kept coming back "home" until 1955 when I left Austria for my new home Canada in May of 1955.
Braunau is an absolutely beautiful town which has kept its charm from 'long ago', but is not averse to new trends and ideas.
The river, Inn, invited us from early days to becoming good paddlers in kayaks and proficient swimmers,
and the river forest ( the Au ) growing for miles along the river shores, bacame an El Dorado for all of us.
From the age of 9 until almost 13 I marched, first with a fanfare and then with a big drum, up and down the main square as a member of the music group, called "Fanfarengruppe der Hitlerjugend, Braunau am Inn".
With me marched my good friends Karli (later Charly) Reicheneder and Fredi Aigner along with about 25 other enthusiastic musicians. Charley became an absolutely first class Clarinet and Tenor Sax player, making musik his life's work and Freddy Aigner became one of Austria's foremost drummers, ending up as the percussionist of the Symphonie Orchestra of Innsbruck. As you can see, I was in fine company.
Years later, in 1948 Charly invited me to join his Jazz band, "the Melodies" as their bassist and I was proud to become a member of this wonderful organisation.
All of this and much more was "Braunau" for me. The place where I grew from a child to a boy, to a teen-ager and finally to a young man.
So, let me show you a few pictures which I took during my last one day visit:
Stadtplatz 22, the house of my youth
and behind, the 100 meter high steeple of
the Catholic church.
The Hotel Post, owned and operated by an old friend:
Hans Lettner.
this is now our home when we visit G.O.B.
The Main Square .. Der Stadtplatz during Market Day.
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