OnMyWay

The Reeperbahn, St. Paulie District, Hamburg, Germany, 1960. This area of Hamburg--its notorious red light district--was full of unseemly characters and sordid activities, the likes of which these five young men from Liverpool had never seen before.

In the beginning, the fledgling Beatles enjoyed the excitement of finding themselves in the middle of some of the harshest realities they'd ever had to deal with. Not that Liverpool didn't have its own dark alleys and rough seafront pubs, but they were fast becoming aware that this area of post-war Hamburg was particularly tough and dangerous.

Prostitutes of both sexes, even a few in drag , willing and more than able to do the kinds of things that the "nice girls" back home would be appalled at the mere mention of, cruised the streets of the Reeperbahn looking for anyone with the price for a few hours of pleasure. Beer and hard liquor flowed freely, and there were drugs of all kinds available to them for any and every ill or pleasure that they could imagine. Boys will be boys, and Liverpool boys being no different than anywhere else in the world, they found themselves served on a nightly basis with every form of debauchery that their young minds could imagine, and a few they couldn't. But having said all that, the Beatles' real purpose in being here in Hamburg at this particular time was altogether different. They'd come to play music...THEIR kind of music; they'd come to play rock and roll.

When they'd first arrived in Hamburg back in August, they'd been disappointed to find their expectations hopelessly awash with the reality of the horrifically deplorable conditions at the seedy little former strip club, the Indra. Game lads that they were though, the boys played their sets onstage at the Indra to an unenthusiastic crowd of mostly prostitutes and dock workers. As their determination to succeed grew, so did their musical abilities and their reputation. Soon the small smoky club was packed to the rafters most weekends with a diverse crowd looking for some good rock and roll music and lots of cheap beer. From the perspective of the stage, it wasn't unusual to look out into the dark, smoke-filled interior of the club and see fur-coated society types among the leather-jacketed Teds, or the Exis, the existentialist college crowd, along with their regulars of white-uniformed sailors and heavy, oilskin-rigged dock workers.

It was hard work keeping a crowd like that up and rocking until 2 in the morning, playing set after set, hour after hour, until they all thought they'd drop from sheer exhaustion. If it hadn't been for the large variety of "chemical reinforcements" they routinely indulged in, they might have done just that. As fate would have it, their gig at the Indra didn't last long. It was closed down due to noise violations barely a month after they'd started playing there. The Beatles' long music sets of hard, loud rock numbers were starting to draw ever bigger crowds, and sensing a gold mine on his hands, the club's owner, Bruno Koschmider, moved the boys to his bigger, posher club up the street, the Kaiserkeller.

They weren't earning nearly as much money as they'd hoped or been promised when they first signed on for this marathon gig, but the experience that the boys were gaining as musicians was invaluable. Of course, what little money they did make was spent almost as soon as their pay packets were doled out to them every Thursday.

Paul in particular was having a hard time holding onto his money. He tried to send a little home each week to his father and brother back in Liverpool, just to show them that he was making it ok on his own here so far away from home. What little bit was left over for himself usually ended up getting either "misplaced" or spent on beer and ciggies. It just didn't seem to go very far, and Paul found that he was constantly broke by the time Monday morning rolled around. There had to be another way to get some money.

One of the little "truisms" that Paul's dad, Jim McCartney, had taught his sons was always to expect the unexpected. But there was no way that Paul could ever have prepared for the unexpected turn his life was about to take the night he met Derek Markmann in the Kaiserkeller. Derek had come into the club one night not long after the Beatles had started performing there, on the arm of a well-dressed German woman named Frau Scheider.

Frau Scheider, it turned out, had been the wife of some sort of acquisition minister who served with the Nazis during the war. Herr Scheider had somehow managed to come through the war with a fortune intact, but soon afterwards died under somewhat suspicious circumstances. Frau Scheider, still fairly attractive for her advanced age and finding herself free of an overbearing and ill-tempered husband, was now happily spending her husband's fortune during her "golden years" on a kind of lifestyle that fit perfectly into this decadent environment in Hamburg. She was enjoying the company of her much younger, very attractive companion, Derek Markmann.

Derek gave the impression of Aryan perfection. He was tall with sandy blonde hair and steel blue-grey eyes. He sported a clipped, well-groomed moustache on his upper lip, which gave him an air of elegance and sophistication. His clothes were impeccable and obviously expensive. He fussed over Frau Scheider as if she were a beloved old "auntie," holding her chair for her, lighting her cigarette, helping her with her coat. Yet he tenderly held and kissed her hand as they spoke. It would have been difficult not to notice this unlikely couple.