Klaus-Michael Schneider

Klaus-Michael Schneider - Hamburg - Germany

     I was born in 1953 in Westphalia, moved to Hamburg at the eve of new millennium in 1999. I married a second time and we live happily in Hamburg.
     I have been a school teacher, teaching at the A-level, and also for some years I worked as a special teacher for children hospitalized with arthrosis and glass bones (osteogenesis imperfecta). I mainly teach math, but also have taught English to students in southern Germany, something I'm not trained for.
     I had my first encounter with flags in 1959, when I smuggled out of the DDR a Neubecker Cigarettes album (my poor mother almost died in fright). Since then flags for me just appeared on flag tables in lexica.
     In 1985, my ex-mother-in-law donated to me a Whitney Smith book named Zeichen der Menschen und Vólker, it was my first real flag book. Since then I have been always interested in flags, but seldom found good books within the library system. My big break through came via the internet and digital photography. Since then I have been an enthusiastic flag spotter. I found FOTW in 2004, and made my first contribution after an India trip in 2005.

Klaus-Michael Schneider, January 2012

     An explanation of my personal flag is that the three balls surrounding the sword and scales, stand for St. Nicholas, St. Michael, all together my name (am not Catholic). Not only are blue and green my favorite colours, they are also the colours of the Hamburgian St. Nicolas Regiment and the St. Michael Regiment.