The letters collected on the Fanny & Hermann page end in the summer of 1908 on the French Riviera — a glorious sunset at Menton, the failed attempt to break the bank at Monte Carlo, and the long road back to Genoa. After that, the Riecks returned to Coffs Harbour. They were home for five years.
In 1913 they left again, this time for Hermann’s health. He was in his mid-seventies. They said farewell to Fanny’s family in South Australia, visited old friends in Adelaide, and sailed back to the country they had loved for nearly a decade. They found a cottage in Deisenhofen, a village south of Munich, close to the Alps. They intended to spend the winters in Italy.
The war found them there in August 1914.
What followed — detention, hunger, the blockade, revolution, two fires, and Hermann’s death — Fanny eventually told in her own words. The documents gathered here trace that arc: from the last cheerful letters of 1913, through the brief and optimistic words that reached Australia before correspondence became almost impossible, to Fanny’s own accounts of what those years had been.
Between December 1914 and December 1920, there is silence. No letters reached the paper. One private letter did get through late in 1920 — quoted below — but we do not know the details of those six years beyond what that brief word and Fanny’s later accounts record.
Farewell to Australia — 1913
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Feb. 1913
Hermann writes from Adelaide as he farewells Australia to return to Europe for his health — the 1866 Danube journey — the Balkan Wars — and the coming storm
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Mar. 1913
Hermann writes from Fanny’s home town — old friends in Adelaide — Meyer the tinsmith — Port Pirie & the smelting works — a last look at Australia
Back in Bavaria — 1913
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Dec. 1913
Fanny writes from Weilheim — 9,000 soldiers pass through — field kitchens — aeroplanes descending like enormous birds — the Wangen Apostles
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Dec. 1913
The centenary of the Battle of Leipzig — Barnum’s lions loose in the streets — the English guest and the knock at his door — eight months before the war
The last word — October 1914
Extract from a private letter from Fanny to friends in the Coffs Harbour district, quoted by the Clarence and Richmond Examiner, 31 December 1914. Written from Deisenhofen, near Munich, 23 October 1914 — two months after the outbreak of war.
“Business and everything goes on as usual and there is scarcely any difference in the price of food. We and all foreigners in Germany are treated exceptionally well. No one has been turned out of the country. We are well supplied with fowls, ducks, geese, and the garden is full of vegetables. We miss the ‘Examiner’ very much, and could send much interesting news if we could get letters through.”
1915 – 1921
One private letter reached Australia late in 1920 — quoted on this page. Beyond that, correspondence was almost impossible. What Fanny and Hermann experienced during these years — the deepening hunger, the revolution that came to their village, the two fires, and Hermann’s death in August 1921 — they could not send home at the time. Fanny recorded it all later, once she was back in Australia.
A word through — late 1920
Extract from a private letter from Fanny, quoted by the Coffs Harbour Advocate, 11 December 1920. The letter is undated; written from Germany, probably 1920. Hermann is still alive.
“I have actually had to beg food and warm flannel clothing from Miss Doberer and my friends in South Australia, and recently received a food parcel as a ‘free gift,’ and underclothing from Miss Doberer sent through a committee in London. Since the so-called peace we have all suffered dreadfully from hunger and cold. Our ration for years has been 2oz of meat a week, 3oz butter or fat, 5lbs bread a week and a little flour, rolled oats, barley or maize meal. Meat costs 10s to 12s per lb, bread 2s per lb, sugar (1½lbs per month each) 4s 2d per lb, pork 15s to 21s, veal 13s 6d, wheat £5 to £10 per cwt, oats (fowls food) £4 per cwt, potatoes 25s to 30s per cwt, ducks 45s to 50s, geese 80s to 100s each, milk cows £500 each, horses up to £1000, goats £50, fat hen 40s to 50s, milk sheep £400 each, boots £15 to £20 a pair, cloth suit £50, an enamel potato saucepan 42s. Nothing is cheap; we only manage to get enough to eat by growing vegetables. We have not tasted meat for many months, so we hoe our peas, beans, etc., and both work hard. We have only a few fowls and geese, but are thankful and healthy. We were so pleased to hear about our old home and neighbors. We should have stayed in Australia, and we would not be so hungry.”
After the war — Fanny’s account
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Sept. 1922
Fanny’s first account after returning to Australia — the return to Europe — the war years in Bavaria — hunger — the revolution — the fires — and Hermann’s death
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Oct. 1923
Fanny’s full account written with time to reflect — detention — starvation rations — the Bavarian revolution — the fire of 3 March 1921 — Hermann’s death at Deisenhofen
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Nov. 1923
Fanny leaves Munich alone — farewell to the Rhine — the passport crisis at Aachen at 3 a.m. — white bread on the Channel ferry — eight days in London — the long voyage round the Cape — and Sydney at last
Fanny in Sydney — December 1922
Notice published in the “Secret History of the Day” column, Smith’s Weekly (Sydney), 30 December 1922. Unsigned. Fanny was living in Artarmon, on Sydney’s lower North Shore, at this time — dependent on friends while trying to resolve her financial situation — before eventually returning to Coffs Harbour.
There recently returned to Sydney from Germany an Australian woman, who, as a result of marriage, became a German, and who is now trying to again become an Australian by naturalisation. She is Mrs. Fanny E. Rieck, of Artarmon. Her late husband — he died just after the revolution in Germany — was Hermann Rieck, who came to Australia in 1875 and took up land in the Coff’s Harbour district. In 1913 the couple went to Germany. After the war, the loss of his home and other happenings killed Rieck, and Mrs. Rieck decided to return to Australia. When her property was sold, she had about 240,000 marks. She had to pay 40,000 marks in taxes before she could leave, and her passage from Munich to Australia cost 100,000 marks (£5000 at the pre-war rate of exchange). Before leaving Australia, Rieck purchased an annuity in an American life assurance company with a branch in Sydney. This was calculated to bring in about £3 a week. But when America entered the war it stopped. Now the position is that until Mrs. Rieck has become naturalised she cannot get the annuity again.
Before leaving Australia in 1913, Hermann had purchased a life assurance annuity from an American company, intended to provide Fanny with about £3 a week for life. Hermann had naturalised as an Australian in June 1886, and during the war he and Fanny were treated in Germany as British subjects. After the war, however, the Australian Government treated them as German citizens. This meant Fanny could not access the annuity Hermann had organised until she was renaturalised as an Australian. As of December 1922 that process was still incomplete. The financial figures in this notice are consistent with Fanny’s own account of her departure from Munich, published in The Queenslander, 17 November 1923 (Trove ↗).
A note on these sources
The 1913 letters appeared in the Clarence and Richmond Examiner (Grafton, NSW), the same paper that published the earlier travel series. The 1914 and 1920 items are excerpts from private letters quoted by newspapers; they appear here on this page rather than as separate letter pages, as their brevity and private nature make a full citation treatment inappropriate. The 1922 article appeared in the Daily Examiner (the successor paper to the Clarence and Richmond Examiner); the 1923 articles appeared in the Women’s Department of The Queenslander (Brisbane). All sources are available through Trove, National Library of Australia. Transcriptions follow the project’s methodology where uncertain readings are flagged in transcriber’s notes on each letter page.