Rolf’s father was a truck driver and was on the road from Monday to Friday. When he came home, the first thing he asked was the mother whether the six children had behaved. If not, he got a hard time. During the holidays, however, he took turns taking the children on trips, getting a taste of the wind, exploring other countries, sleeping in the truck. At school, they proudly reported that their father drove a very large Mercedes, better than any Porsche. Their father knew the most about cars anyway.
He earned his first money by standing in front of a car wash with a bucket of water and sponges and polishing dirty rims to a high shine, for one mark per car. At 18, Rolf got his driver’s license and the first thing he bought was a wrecked NSU. Rolf and his friends spent every free minute working on their cars.
Her favorite sport: taking the bend on the motorway at the Schöneberg junction towards Steglitz so sharply that the car was only driving on two wheels. The goal: to put a car on its roof at least once. Rolf finally managed it with a 2CV. Because that got boring too, Rolf took part in car races on the Avus: roaring engines, adrenaline, the smell of gasoline, cheering spectators.
In his first life, Rolf drove sick people, drinks, and cement mixers around. This was a revelation for Rolf until he got his taxi license. He loved cruising through the city in his car, he loved being there for other people, talking to them.
The father had died early, and the mother now looked after the children alone. If the boys were naughty, they had to stand up in front of the little woman and receive their punishment. Rolf, on the other hand, was big and strong, he boxed and made a name for himself. When he still lived at home, his mother allowed his sister to go to the disco for the first time – if Rolf was there. He would give his sister a kiss or two on the cheek in the disco, and then no one dared to go near her anymore.
Rolf was a red sock, donated money to Salvador Allende, went to demonstrations against nuclear power and dragnet searches, signed a petition against the isolation of RAF prisoners. He was always on the streets on November 9th – in memory of the victims of the pogrom night of 1938. He was against Bush and the war in Afghanistan, chained himself to the tracks to protest against Castor transports. He had a subscription to “Spiegel” and had collected all issues since 1970. If a member of parliament got into his taxi, he knew who he was and what he stood for.
No real freedom
“I accept other opinions, they are just often wrong,” he liked to say. Once, when he was already chairman of the taxi guild and was debating with politicians in talk shows, one of them is said to have said: “The next time you come, I won’t come.” Rolf was old school with his passengers. He held the door open, carried the suitcases from the front door to the car, and wasn’t afraid to pick up drunks from the last bar in Neukölln. A “taz” report on taxi drivers says this: Rolf has been driving Feja Helga to dialysis for three years. She looks at him. “I’m glad I have you.” “Oh, it’s good, Helga,” says Rolf. “At the weekend I’ll make you something with apple and streusel,” says Helga. They turn into her street. “I’ll drive you right to the front door, that’s clear,” says Feja and maneuvers his taxi through the narrow streets. He takes her hand: “Have a nice weekend, my little one.”
In the mid-80s, Rolf met his first wife and had two boys with her. They separated and Rolf was awarded custody and now, as a self-employed taxi driver in his early 30s, he had to look after his two boys alone. “I passed my state exam on the day he died. I think that says what our father achieved,” says one of them.
He was a strict father and he worked a lot. The boys soon had to cook, clean and shop. But Rolf somehow managed to always be in the right place at the right time. He asked the teachers at school how things were going. He stood in a taxi outside the school to see if the boys got there. He drove them to football training in a taxi. But at the weekend they went to see him at his games because Rolf was a referee. He refereed up to the top league. In Neukölln, where he lived, he coached various children’s teams.
A school friend of his son came from Lebanon. When his family was allowed to move from the refugee home into their first apartment, Rolf organized the furniture. When his son worked with a severely disabled person, he drove them both from A to B. When the war broke out in Ukraine, he picked up Ukrainians at the border and brought them to Berlin.
He couldn’t imagine anything else than driving a taxi. The car, starting and stopping whenever he wanted. Although it wasn’t real freedom, Rolf knew that too. The pay was so low that you needed a wife to be able to afford the business – that was a common saying among taxi drivers. Rolf loved not knowing who he would be talking to next. But he also loved playing skat on the hood of the car with his colleagues at Tegel Airport, for pennies.
What Rolf didn’t like so much were the new taxi services like Uber. He could get angry when he saw all the new cars that were stealing customers from taxis without a taxi license, meter or inspection. He often met with politicians, and the guild chairman wore a shirt, but always a leather vest over it, a flat cap on his head and a large moustache under his nose. He also spoke at demonstrations or stormed events and made a fuss for taxi drivers and their future.
Rolf retiring? Nobody could have imagined it. Shortly before it happened, he died of a heart attack.
