A thread through the diary
Wherever Willi went, there was a girl. Following that one storyline through the diary turns up a sweetheart in almost every town - and a young man who tends to admire from a distance, hold himself back, and watch it all come to nothing. Here they are, in order.
"I was also taken into the company of ladies, although until then I had wanted nothing to do with them."
The bashful apprentice is first drawn into mixed company - Lina Schweizer, Hilde Stuetz, Anna Glatz and the rest. Page 08
"On my eighteenth birthday I began a relationship with Else Stoll, whom I had got to know while I was on my own - my first romance."
His first real sweetheart, begun on his eighteenth birthday - and broken off before he left for Stuttgart, "though she still wrote to me a few more times". Page 14 · Page 15
"There were so many girls that one could easily have the prettiest of them - Marthe Ehrlich, Lotte, Valli Helm, and so on."
A rowdy season in Saxony, long on names and short on attachments. Page 20
"Her name was Grete Werner, of Adlerstrasse 2."
A Dusseldorf girlfriend, left behind with the city when he sets off abroad. Page 33
"On 1 August I met a dear, nice girl; I called on her until 1 September, when she moved away. It came to nothing much."
A month of Alpine courtship, undone when she moves away. Page 41
"She had only the one fault: she had rather too serious intentions towards me, and so it came to nothing."
Scared off, rather endearingly, by a girl who liked him too much. Page 42
"Being alone with one girl was much nicer ... I had a good time, even though I could not speak to the girl."
A shore day in Naples with a girl he shared no language with - romance by gesture alone. Page 45
"For the first time in my life I was in love - though I could not have her ... I told her that I loved her, but that I did not mean to have her."
The one he calls his first love: admired, confessed to, and then quietly let go. Page 50
For all the sweethearts of the road, the wanderer did settle down in the end: family records show Willi married Doris Blundell in Melbourne in 1936.