He’s great at helping – he’d rather not be helped that afternoon.
After the photo session and the interview with BZ, Heribert Rosenberg (86) wants to quickly dismantle an old frame that is in front of the community center of his residential complex in Tempelhof. He has lived here since the death of his second wife five years ago and regularly does small manual work. Today the frame is to be scrapped. With the screwdriver he climbs up a small aluminum ladder. When I want to give him a hand – a bit worried about the shaky construction – he just growls: “Never mind, I’ll manage that.”
Heribert Rosenberg doesn’t need help, he prefers to help himself. Here in the residential park, but above all as a paramedic and disaster relief worker for seven decades. That’s how long the former postman is out Charlottenburg Member of the Order of Malta Aid. He has been in action since 1956 and is still active: an unbelievable 70 years of voluntary work.
He is celebrating his anniversary at a time when the commitment is visible everywhere. Since war in Ukraine and the great migration to the west, the focus is on volunteers: at the main train station, in the emergency shelters or as private providers of housing. “It’s great how the refugees are being helped,” says Heribert Rosenberg. A few days ago he brought blankets, food and diapers to a family in Pankow in his car. “If help is needed somewhere, then I just have to do something,” he says.
In love with volunteering
It all started in April 70 years ago. “My parents were Catholic,” he says. “I was with the George Scouts and wanted to climb a group higher. I needed a first aid course for that. I have that with me catholic Did medical service.” Because there was a girl who interested him, he stayed there. “She said if I sign up, she’ll go out with me.” He grins mischievously, making him look like the young man from back then.
In love with both ears, he became a member of the “Johanniter-Samariter-Bund – Catholic Medical Service in Greater Berlin”. One year later, in 1953, he became part of the newly founded Malteser relief service. “As a result, I’ve been active with the Malteser for longer than they have existed,” says Rosenberg and laughs again.
To this day, the devout Christian goes to church regularly, and the Catholic Malteser is his life from now on. “I’m in it with all my heart,” he says. “I never needed money. I just enjoy helping others. And you also get a thank you.”
First use in Hungary
In 1952 he was active in the medical service at the Catholic Day in Berlin, and in 1956 he was abroad for the first time. The Malteser care for the injured in the Hungarian uprising. “First we were deployed in Budapest for a week, then they kicked us out of there and we patrolled the Austro-Hungarian border in an ambulance,” he recalls.
There they picked up refugees and brought them to shelters. “I still remember a special event well,” he says, “a woman was heavily pregnant. She went into labor from the excitement and then, as a young man, I helped with the delivery in our ambulance and delivered the worm, a girl.”
Eleven years earlier, as a child, he himself had fled. “I was born in East Prussia, but my father worked in Berlin. When the Russians got closer and closer to us, we were supposed to go to Saxony, but I preferred to go to my dad in Berlin. Despite the air raids.” He experienced the Russian invasion in Berlin. “A soldier threw me a bread from the tank,” he says.
“I experienced as a child how bad the war is”
Today he remembers these images when he sees the images of the war against Ukraine on the news. “I couldn’t have imagined that we would have to experience that again,” he says. “As a child, I experienced how bad the war is and the time in a bombed-out city. I just don’t get it.”
He filed the memories of his assignments in a red folder: photos and newspaper articles from honors, assignments and meetings. In the 1950s and 1960s he helped with gymnastics festivals, major events and disasters. He is active in the Elbe flood in Hamburg, as well as in 1997 in the Oder flood. Since already as operations manager. From 1984 to 2005 he was an honorary diocesan consultant for civil protection in Berlin.
He met his wife at the Malteser
“No one has ever died in my hands,” he says firmly. “We always saved everyone.”
His medals hang framed on the wall behind him. Underneath that Federal Cross of Merit and the highest order of chivalry in Malta. “At the time, I needed official approval to accept it at all,” he says. “Malta is a different country.”
Of course, he met his first wife at the Malteser. In 1959 they married and had two children. His daughter (60) comes to visit Heribert Rosenberg once a week. The children do not volunteer. “They saw with me how much that takes a toll on me,” he says.
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In 1960 he was on his way to Munich for the World Congress with five ambulances. “But the GDR border guards didn’t let us through at Dreilinden. They said we shouldn’t drive through the GDR with the blue lights flashing. We should dismantle them.” Heribert Rosenberg helps himself with a trick. “We covered the lights with bags and leukoplast and that’s how we crossed the border. It went away after a few meters, but everyone was happy.” He grins again.
To date is the longest serving volunteers always in use on Wednesdays. “I drive to the Malteser headquarters in Charlottenburg once a week,” he says, “but now I prefer to work at my desk. The strength isn’t there anymore after all.” He is currently checking the logbooks of the ambulances, for example looking for illegally issued speeding tickets. “Sometimes we get them even though the blue light was on, so you have to appeal.”
He doesn’t want to retire just yet. “As long as the strength is there, I’ll stay active,” he says. And then it’s off into the garden: the old pavilion frame is waiting.