Introduction by Andrew Hemmings

In December 2023, Eddie Wulff, long time Newport resident, joined the Newport Seafarers Walk which started at the Mission to Seafarers. I was delighted when he explained that his grandmother Mabel Wulff worked at the Mission before the First World War. I was astonished when he outlined his grandmother's story. This has been so eloquently described by Madeleine Resühr in the book Two Countries-Two Wars.

Mission for Seaman, Newport

Mabel Wulff B.E.M. was born Mabel Amelia Phillips in Newport, Wales on 3 September 1887, the daughter of merchant seaman, Frederick George Phillips and his wife Alice, née Burnell. Mabel grew up in Newport and, after she left school, worked at the Mission for Seamen. There she met and fell in love with a young German sailor, Max Wilhelm Ludwig Wulff. Rumour has it that Max, who was born in Hamburg on 9 January 1881, had fallen out with his father Franz and joined the merchant navy which fortuitously brought him to Newport and the Welsh girl he would marry.

Franz Wulff was a wood turner and umbrella maker with a shop at Gänsemarkt 9, right in the centre of town, not far from where Max would later live with Mabel and their two sons. Little did they know when they got engaged that the course of European history would map out a very different life for them to the one they had envisaged, probably a quiet, fairly uneventful life in south Wales. When they met, Max had left the navy and was running a café on Alexandra Road, with a view of the River Usk. The original building still stands, Alexandra Road looks much the same - apart from the traffic - as it did over 100 years ago. The Mission to Seamen, now called The Mission to Seafarers, Flying Angel Club, is just down the road. The young couple were married on 7 January 1909, leaving from the café for the parish church in a horse-drawn carriage.

Sons; First World War & Internment

The Wulff ’s first son, Edward Frederick, was born on 14 August 1911 – Max had by then given up the café and was working as a ship’s cook – and their second son, Leonard William, arrived on 23 September 1913. By the time Leonard was born, Max had once again changed his place of work and was now occupied with keeping the shipping lanes free as a barge man on a mud dredger. Unfortunately for the young family, the First World War broke out in August 1914, turning their world upside down.

Max, like thousands of other German civilians, was interned as an enemy alien. During the 18th and 19th centuries, a large number of German migrants had come to Britain from all walks of life, from simple workers to merchant bankers. By 1914 the German community totalled nearly 60,000. During World War I almost all of them – especially men of fighting age - were sent to internment camps. Most of these men did not see their families again until the end of the war. Although they were generally treated fairly and according to the international laws of the Hague Convention, they suffered severely from boredom and loneliness, a syndrome known later as “barbed-wire disease”. Max Wulff spent the war in the internment camps in Lancaster and Knockaloe, Isle of Man. To alleviate the boredom, many men took up pastimes such as painting or wood and bone carving. Max was no exception. He sent Mabel – whom he affectionately called May – a beautifully carved animal bone for her birthday in September 1915. Max may well have learned the art of bone carving from his father, as elegantly carved wood or bone umbrella handles were very popular around 1900.

After the war, German internees were repatriated, even if they had families in Great Britain. Max was therefore not allowed to return to Newport, but was accompanied with many others to the Dutch border by the Red Cross and made to return to his home country. He went back to Hamburg where he found work on the docks.

Mabel and the boys left Wales for Hamburg in 1921/22 to join their husband and father. It must have been quite a wrench for Mabel to leave home, move to a big city in a foreign country, knowing nobody except her husband, speaking no German. But she proved all her life that she had courage and resourcefulness in abundance.

As it happened, there was an English Church in Hamburg, an imposing neo-classical building on Zeughausmarkt overlooking the harbour which had been built between 1836 and 1838. Understandably the church had been closed during the First World War, but had fortunately suffered no damage and reopened in the early 1920s. The newly formed congregation and their Chaplain, Rev. C.A.J. Nibbs, were looking for a reliable caretaker and Mabel fitted the bill perfectly. She took up her position there in 1924, while Max continued to work in the port. The Wulffs lived in a small flat at the east end of the church, the flat that was, in fact, to remain the couple’s home for over forty years, and the boys went to school nearby.

Dark Clouds in Germany

In the 1920s, the political scene in Germany began to change as the NSDAP (National Socialist Workers’ Party/Nazi Party), which had been established in 1920, became ever more powerful. Once again, the German-British Wulff family was caught in the middle. Edward, the elder son, unsettled by the direction German politics was taking, decided to return to the UK in the early 1930s. He worked in London as a shipping clerk and part-time as a special Constable in the Metropolitan Police Service). Because of his half-German background and the fact that his parents were living in Germany, he found it difficult to enlist in the armed forces when the Second World War broke out. Finally, in 1942, he was able to join the Royal Navy, serving on the HMS Rodney and was promoted rapidly to the rank of Chief Petty Officer. Once the war had started, communication between parents and son was impossible and Max and Mabel had no idea where Edward was. It was ironically the Gestapo, who on one of their many menacing visits to the English Church, informed them that Edward had joined up, even naming the ship he was on.

Their younger son, Leonard, chose not to follow his brother back to England and instead stayed in Germany with his parents and learned a trade. Leonard became an electrician, but because of political developments in the early 1930s, he could not simply work in his occupation in Hamburg. Leonard Wulff found himself in a Reich Labour Service Camp or possibly a Hitler Youth camp, in 1934, He became ill - he presumably contracted meningitis - and sadly died on 23 June of the same year in a Hamburg hospital. Mabel actually told her grandson, Eddie, that Leonard had died in a Boy Scout camp, but that would not have been possible in 1934.

Saving the English Church in Hamburg

The Gestapo paid the Wulffs many visits during the war to question and harass the German-British pair, but fortunately – and surprisingly - never arrested them or interned Mabel. She had proved her mettle and her wiliness on the eve of the war as she was sure the Gestapo would not wait to be invited for tea before turning up at the church. In 1934, the British Legion had established a branch in Hamburg and their flag was kept in the English Church. Mabel, knowing that the Gestapo would not be pleased to see that particular flag on the building or anywhere else for that matter, opened a wooden step at the bottom of the altar and pushed the flag right to the back of the recess before the first visit of the secret police. They came looking for the flag on many occasions, but Mabel pleaded complete innocence and it was never found! After the war, Major-General Sir Richard Howard-Vyse, of the British Legion, visited the city and personally thanked Mabel for her quick thinking and fortitude.

Mabel Wulff was also responsible for saving the altar painting which had been presented to the church on its consecration in 1838 by James Davenport, an English merchant. The painting is an oil-on-canvas copy of Raphael’s ‘Sistine Madonna’. Mabel protected the “sentence boards” which show in gold lettering, on the left of the Madonna the Ten Commandments and on her right the Lord’s Prayer and Apostles’ Creed.

Mabel had taken them down and stored them safely for the duration of the war, well knowing that the church could be hit by bombs as it is in the harbour area, frequently targeted by the RAF. Thanks to the foresight of this most enterprising caretaker, the original reredos can still be admired in the church today. Mabel also had the marble font removed and stored at the beginning of the war.

The English Church is one of the last examples of the neo-classical architecture that graced Hamburg in the 19th century, so for that reason, and in spite of the war and the intense enmity between Great Britain and Germany, it was placed on the heritage list in 1941. This could well have been the reason that Mabel was allowed to remain as caretaker throughout the war, even though she had been born British. Services were of course banned, and the church closed. The building had been appropriated instead by Edeka (a cooperative of colonial goods retailers [grocery stores]) as a warehouse. It was also used to store straw and horse fodder.

During Operation Gomorrah in the summer of 1943, the Royal Air Force flew a series of bombing raids on Hamburg, dropping incendiary bombs which caused enormous destruction and a veritable fire storm which resulted in the loss of over 40,000 civilian lives. Several of these bombs also fell on the church but Mabel rushed out of the flat and into the church to put out the fires that would otherwise have destroyed the building completely. If it had not been for her courageous intervention, it is very unlikely that the English Church in Hamburg would have survived the Second World War. As a result of these firebombs and the partial destruction of the church, the straw was removed. The city of Hamburg was in ruins and thousands of people had been made homeless, but Mabel managed to provide shelter for at least 60 of them in the church for several months until the Gestapo got wind of the situation and turned them out.

In 1944-45 high-explosive bombs were dropped on the church during further Allied bombing raids, destroying the roof, ceiling, floor and the furnishings. Just days before Germany capitulated, the last bombs fell. At last, on 3 May 1945, the fighting was over and British troops entered Hamburg. The bridges over the Elbe had not been bombed, so the Royal Army was able to roll into the ruined and stunned city in their tanks. Not a shot was fired, although the occupying troops kept a very watchful eye on the surroundings and any movement that might betray a sniper.

Nevertheless, for the vast majority of citizens, it was with an overwhelming feeling of relief when they comprehended that the devastating war was at last over. One person in particular was naturally especially pleased to see British soldiers in Hamburg – Mabel Wulff. For six years she had been waiting, hoping and praying for this day and had just the thing to welcome her fellow countrymen to the city. She hung a large Union Jack out of an upstairs window of the flat she and Max had continued to occupy in spite of the damage to the church and waved cheerily to a patrol marching by below. By a happy coincidence, some of the first soldiers to come by the church happened to be South Wales Borderers troops. Mabel called down, “Hello boys. It’s so good to see you. If I had any tea, I’d make you a cuppa”. A surprised sergeant from Brecon (not far from Mabel’s hometown) immediately recognised her accent and called back: “Don’t worry love, we’ve got plenty!” Mabel put the kettle on and they all had one of the best cups of tea in their lives to celebrate.

The best news for Mabel and Max at the end of the war was, of course, that their son, Edward had survived.

Restoration and Honours

Fortunately, it was found that the badly damaged church could be restored. Royal Engineers and local craftsmen worked together from 1945-47 to rebuild what had been destroyed. Mabel may not have turned into a carpenter or bricklayer overnight, but she knew the church inside out and was able to give the builders useful advice - and she was naturally on hand to help tidy and clean up her church after the work was done!

The English Church in Hamburg was rededicated on 12 September 1947 by William Selwyn, the Bishop of Fulham and named the Anglican Church of St Thomas à Becket, after the patron saint of the Merchant Adventurers who, in the 17th century, had been given the right to establish the first Church of England in Hamburg.

Mabel Wulff ’s dedication, courage and fearless protection of the church thankfully had not gone unnoticed. In 1956 she was awarded the British Empire Medal for her meritorious service to the Crown during the war and travelled to the British Embassy in Bonn (at that time, the capital of the Federal Republic of Germany) to receive her medal. 

Mabel stayed on as caretaker of the church she loved and had looked after so proudly and resolutely until she was well into her seventies. In 1964, a vote of thanks to her for 40 years of service is recorded in the minutes of the AGM. The eldest son, Edward Wulff died in 1962, followed just two years later by his father Max on 28 September 1964.

Mabel was then 77 years old and, having now lost both her sons and her husband, she decided to retire back to Newport where her daughter-in-law Doris and grandchildren Eddie and Sylvia and their families were living. This courageous and legendary church caretaker died at the age of 90 on 22 April 1978 in the town where she had been born.

In September 2019 Eddie travelled to Hamburg with his wife, Hilary and their daughter Gill for a very special event. Eddie unveiled a memorial plaque to his grandmother in a moving ceremony. A fitting tribute to a remarkable woman.

Acknowledgements and thanks to

Madeleine Resühr , author of Two Countries-Two Wars, published privately. Books can be bought directly at [email protected]

Eddie Wulff and family for providing photographs and documents

Edward Watts MBE DL, Chair of the Mission to Seafarers, Newport for his support and encouragement