The Winding Road to Gainful Employment

The tradition of the itinerant tradesmen dates back more than 100 years, and although they don't tramp the continent in droves, these young men and women in old-fashioned dress are still a part of Germany's, and indeed Europe's, employment landscape.

There are currently some 1,000 German journeymen, or Wandergesellen, on the road somewhere in the world. Clad in the customary flared black trousers, white shirts, black hats, and cord vests, they walk and hitchhike around the globe for a period of at least three years and one day, picking up a bundle of life experience and temporary employment as builders, stonemasons, carpenters, roofers and the like along the way.

"It's a chance to learn many different ways of doing the same job. If you just stay in one place, you only learn one way to work. And it's also a chance to develop personally," former journeyman Guido Stier said.

Old traditions die hard

As is often the case with something so deeply steeped in tradition, the path to becoming a Wandergeselle goes hand-in-hand with a set of antiquated customs and rituals. The rules vary from fraternity to fraternity -- with some allowing women in their ranks while others are brotherhoods in the literal sense -- but most typically the roamers must be under 30, unmarried, and swear on oath that they will not go within 50 km of their hometown for their three years and a day. Not unlike the freemasons, the whole movement is shrouded in some mystery.

"The enigma surrounding journeymen stems from our history of being persecuted. When the fraternities sprung up in the wake of the late 19th century workers' movements, the authorities were opposed to them because they were suddenly a force to be reckoned with. From the very beginning they didn't make their statutes public, and the tradition just continued," Dirk Schulze, chairman of the Fraternity of Bricklayers and Stonemasons, said.

Escaping the rat-race

But whatever the enigma, the secret handshakes and the brotherhood songs which bind those in the pack together, the tradition continues to offer young men and women the chance to experience life away from the mainstream consumerism of modern Germany.

"You have nothing but the clothes on your back and some tools and underwear in your bundle. You have to get by on the minimum, and although some situations are very difficult, you learn that there's always a way to continue," Stier said.

He believes that was the most valuable lesson he learned during his three years, which took him all over Europe before he saved enough money to book flights to Nepal and then South Africa. Contrary to popular belief, the roaming tradesmen expect a little more for their work than a bed of straw and bowl of soup at the end of the day.

"Wherever we find work, we do it for the same rates as local tradesmen. It wouldn't be fair to roll up somewhere and offer to work for nothing but board and lodging, that would be stabbing the local workers in the back," he said.

Economic influence

The job of roaming tradesman might not be featured at high school career days, but the fraternities say there is a definite correlation between unemployment rates and the number of youngsters wishing to pack their bags and head for the horizon.

"When the economy is strong, fewer people show up to go roaming, but when it's bad, we see a reverse trend. After the war, there were an awful lot of journeymen on the road, but by the end of the '60s, there were very few," Schulze said.

The situation now is stable, but Schulze would like to see even more youngsters adopting the nomadic lifestyle, and thus helping to keep the tradition alive. He's convinced there's a great deal in it for those willing to take the leap into the unknown, not only in terms of personal development, but also in terms of subsequent employment opportunities.

Yet for all that, he doesn't try to hide the difficulties involved in climbing off the roaming carousel and hanging up the walking boots forever. He warns new recruits that it will take them at least a year to readjust to that stationary life in which they have to forget the itinerant codex "when the neighbors stop saying hello and the dogs stop barking, it's time to move on."