Germans bring lost picture house for British soldiers back to life

IN THE German city of Oldenburg, a forgotten piece of British cultural heritage is rising from the ashes.

There is nothing remarkable about Oldenburg’s Globe Theatre from the outside, but it is the last British Armed Forces theatre still standing in Germany, and it is perfectly preserved.

“As soon as I walked in I was amazed,” says John Goodyear, of Birmingham University. “Everything is still there – the decor, even the cinema curtain.”

In the Fifties, tens of thousands of British soldiers were stationed in the country, and theatres were built across the north-east to give them somewhere to watch English-language films. Now, a group of enthusiasts is determined to bring the Globe back to life.

Last year, they raised €275,000 (£246,000) to buy the building from property developers, and this year they succeeded in having it listed as a protected monument in Germany.

“The fact it is British is hugely appealing to the local people,” says Dr Goodyear, who lived in Oldenburg for eight years. “In that northern part of Germany, anything that is British has a sort of magic about it.”

Nicola Hassold-piezunka, a local homeopath who is behind the project to restore the Globe, said: “We are grateful that it was the British military who occupied this part of Germany after the Second World War.”

She stumbled across the Globe at the end of 2016, when she and her husband were buying a flat in the area. The theatre was lying abandoned in the middle of the development.

In just six months they had raised enough funds to buy the building. But Dr Hassold-piezunka and her team want to make it a working theatre again.

They have recruited Dr Goodyear to research its history. He has found three former British soldiers with memories of the theatre, but much of its history remains unknown. He has appealed to any British former soldiers who remember the Globe to contact him.