Far out at sea while history is made at home: portrait about Captain Frank-Jürgen Schmidt
He prefers to read John Irving and Thomas Mann instead of crime novels, likes gardening in a village more than living in a big city, and describes himself as a feminist: Captain Frank-Jürgen Schmidt has been sailing for 45 years, 27 of them for Hapag-Lloyd. Below, he speaks about his years as an apprentice, the period when the Berlin Wall fell and Germany reunited, and about finding himself in South Korea twice for 10 weeks each carrying a briefcase instead of commanding a ship.
“I spent my childhood and youth in East Berlin, where there was a naval base with an area where you could practice water sports, such as sailing and rowing. That’s also where my desire to go to sea arose. After all, back then, it was the only way to see the world,” recounts Frank-Jürgen Schmidt. The then-17-year-old East Berliner started his apprenticeship to become an able body seaman in merchant shipping, graduated from his vocational high school, and then went on to study nautical science at the maritime university in Warnemünde/Wustrow, on the Baltic Sea. Schmidt makes no secret of the fact that he joined early on the SED, the communist party that ruled the German Democratic Republic (GDR), also known as East Germany. "I was young, I had ideals, and I thought I could help make the world a better place,” he says.
His first voyages on a training vessels took him straight to Cuba, and he spent his early years as a seaman on vessels sailing along the coasts of Europe. His first really big voyage, which he took on the general cargo ship “Halle” as a freshly minted third officer, took him to the Persian Gulf and then on to India. And, on this voyage, it seemed like everything that could go wrong did go wrong. “Equipment breakdowns, damaged cargo, a dockworker strike in Kuwait, and the still unexplained mining of the sea route in the southern Red Sea – I’d never experienced anything like that before,” Captain Schmidt recalls. “On top of that, in the early 1980s, the Iran-Iraq War was still raging and the ports were under a state of emergency. Then we ran into a very intense southwest monsoon, which ultimately kept us in Calcutta for three weeks.” But instead of finding all this frightening, Captain Schmidt found it exciting. In fact, for him, discovering the world and experiencing foreign cultures was an absolute privilege.
Of course, there were some things about shipping in the GDR that were different after the Wall came down. “There were only Germans on board, and it was forbidden to go on shore alone,” the 62-year-old recounts. Alcohol was also handled differently. It was strictly limited, and each man only received a bottle of schnapps every 10 days. “That meant you already knew beforehand when you wouldn’t be able to get much done with the crew,” the captain recounts. “There are no such restrictions at Hapag-Lloyd, and I’ve never experienced situations like the ones back then on GDR ships.”
When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Schmidt was at sea on the Indian Ocean in the middle of the night. “We sailed from Rostock on October 4 and berthed in Bremen on October 7. There, our local agent gave us a bouquet of flowers to mark the 40th anniversary of the GDR. Then we set sail for India. When I came on watch on November 9, the chief mate greeted me with the words: ‘The wall is open!’ I can still clearly remember my initial reaction. I thought: “Now I can go for a swim in the Wannsee and ride my Trabant around the Siegessäule !’ [Editor’s note: The Wannsee is a lake in southwestern Berlin that was part of West Germany during the Cold War; a Trabant was the typical car in the GDR; and the Siegessäule is a tall Prussian victory monument in what was then West Berlin.] And that’s exactly what I later did.”
The ship and its crew did not get back to East Germany until March 1990. “My wife and son already came to meet me in Bremen. The demonstrations at home in the GDR were already over, and now I only saw people everywhere with Aldi bags instead of posters with political demands,” Schmidt says with an insuppressible smile [Editor’s note: Aldi is a large discount supermarket chain that was not in East Germany]. Schmidt is one of the rare former inhabitants of the GDR that will openly admit that his enthusiasm about his newfound freedom was tinged with other emotions. “You just couldn’t believe how quickly some people changed sides,” he says.
When the DSR (the state-owned shipping company of the GDR) started making its first rounds of layoffs, the then-31-year-old suspected that it might be time to start looking for a new job. And the first place he went was Hapag-Lloyd. “I thought I’d start at the top, and that I could always lower my sights,” he says. His application was initially rejected. But then, a few months later, he received a letter asking him to sign an employment contract. “There hadn’t even been a real interview,” laughs the otherwise rather reserved man.
At Hapag-Lloyd, Schmidt began a new chapter of his life. “Adequate pay and good basic conditions were one thing,” he continues. “But what I liked best was that nobody stigmatized me for being an East German! It fact, it was the opposite, as Hapag-Lloyd was even having trouble finding new employees at the time.” After starting out as a second officer, he also began to study for an engine certificate of competency on top of his nautical one. “At the time, the idea was that, with both certificates, you could take charge not only on the bridge, but also in the engine room. I thought it was really exciting,” Schmidt recounts. “But then, after my studies, when I was second mate on board as well as the only electrician on duty, I realized that all of this was good to know – but it isn’t my cup of tea.”
At the age of 41, Schmidt became the first former East German to be a captain at Hapag-Lloyd. “When you are suddenly the boss on board, you naturally take a closer look at the nautical and weather charts and with a completely different eye, and you are alone with your doubts,” he says. “But I thought it was a good challenge!” As Schmidt sees it, leading a crew isn’t all that complicated. “I obviously also had rare cases when I would have to take drastic measures,” he recalls. “For example, once we had to send a cook home because the food was inedible, and once there was a brawl on board. I broke up the fight by ordering the one who started it to go to bed. It wasn’t until afterward that I realized a knife had been involved. But those kind of situations were the exception.”
When asked about his favorite ports, Schmidt answers enthusiastically: “New Orleans was fantastic. The colorful mixed scene in the French Quarter, the jazz music – just terrific! But Singapore, too, is and will remain a unique port. It’s really impressive how the people there manage to reconcile so many nationalities.”
Other fond memories include the building of two new vessels – the “Tsingtao Express” in 2007 and the “Hamburg Express” in 2012 – that he was able to monitor in person for 10 weeks each time in Ulsan, South Korea. “It is fascinating to see how a ship is built from start to finish, to see how all these parts become a single object,” Schmidt says, proudly noting that the “Hamburg Express” was the biggest container ship in the world under German flag at the time. Living on shore in South Korea for almost three months was something special for him. “I went to work in the morning, checked in with the five-man team to see if everything was being built as it should be, and went home in the evening with my briefcase under my arm,” Schmidt recounts. “A life like that was something completely new to me.”
Captain Schmidt characterizes himself as a rather Nordic, reserved type who prefers to read rather than celebrate in large groups. Working on a cruise ship wouldn’t be his thing seeing that he can’t dance and isn’t very good at small talk. Besides gardening at home near the northern German town of Wittenberge, his great passion continues to be literature. “I like Isabel Allende and John Irving, but I also like the German classics, such as Heinrich and Thomas Mann,” he says. “The Irving novel that fascinated me the most was ‘The Cider House Rules.’ I was impressed that Irving is both a man and a feminist.” Would Captain Schmidt call himself a feminist? “I’m already very much in favor of equality, so I don't have a problem with that,” he says. In fact, he says he has always appreciated having women coworkers on board. “Women react in a more cool-headed way and have a balancing effect,” he says.
Going forward, Schmidt will no longer find balance on the blue seas. Instead, it will be in his green 2,000 sqm garden in an idyllic village with his family. He has been enjoying his retirement since October 19. Three days before his last day at work, his second grandchild was born. So things probably won’t be boring.
© Hapag-Lloyd AG