James Bond's unfinished mission
In a provincial nest in southern Sweden is the only permanent 007 museum in the world. The reason for his existence is as curious as it is touching.
His name is Bond, James Bond. So you know him when he crosses the city in his open sports car and then drives up in a tuxedo at the casino. And that's how he imagines when he receives the visitor. But people of his stroke, you know, sometimes have more than one identity. It's the same with him too. His full name is Nils Gunnar Bond James Schäfer. His city: Kalmar, a southern Swedish provincial nest on the Baltic Sea. His mission: The operation of the world's only stationary museum devoted to nothing and nothing more than 007, Her Majesty's agent.
A "real" James Bond
In fact, Gunnar Schäfer also leads the name James Bond. Since 2007, he is registered in the register of the Swedish population control. He is not even the only one in Sweden; Search engines such as Hitta.se report four individuals with this name. In Sweden, this is relatively easy, because every person is identifiable anyway due to their social security number, even after any name change. Of course, choosing the year for this step was not a coincidence, and neither is it that both his phone number and mobile phone number end at 007. It goes without saying that he owns an Aston Martin with the Swedish registration number 007 JB.
On an industrial estate in Nybro, the neighboring village of Kalmar, Gunnar Schäfer has created a curious realm - and we will continue with his original name. It is, he says, the world's only permanent exhibition of James Bond memorabilia known to him. His latest piece: an original Venetian gondola, as used in the movie "Moonraker". And lots of cars, from the toy format to the original BMW Z3 from "Golden Eye," a light aircraft, Bond's snowmobile from the film "Die Another Day," and the Glastron speedboat from "Live and Let Die," to name just a few of the showpieces call. Soon a hovercraft is to be added; He is already in negotiations with the British owner of a hovercraft museum who wants to disband his collection. "People know each other in the circle of special museums," says Schäfer. "Otherwise you hardly get to such pieces."
Schäfer bought the area years ago for his company, which deals in car parts. But where does his Bond enthusiasm come from? His older brother had taken him as a seven-year-old to the cinema to "Goldfinger", and that has aroused his interest, he says.
Replacement father Fleming
The truth is a bit more involved. Behind his passion lies the fate of a man who is still searching for his father.
This, named Johannes Schäfer and from the Bavarian town of Sulzbach-Rosenberg, was a German marine during the Second World War. At the end of the war Schäfer was stationed in Denmark. He feared for his life and fled to Sweden, swimming in the icy Öresund. In Sweden, he married and built a new life. Gunnar is his youngest son.
Then, in 1959, Schäfer senior went to Germany to visit his mother. And disappeared without a trace. Was he killed? Had he not only been a soldier but also a spy and now lived under a new identity? Gunnar Schäfer does not know it yet. In 1969, his father was officially declared dead.
In the Bond author Ian Fleming the boy found an imaginary father figure - not least because of striking similarities in the CV: Fleming had a vintage similar to his father and served during the war also in the Navy, albeit on the other side. From Fleming's stories, Gunnar had a vision of what his own father's life might have looked like. He really had not known this; he was two years old when Johannes Schäfer disappeared. He has not left more than a common photograph.
To this day, Gunnar Schäfer, with the help of Ian Fleming and his imaginary hero James Bond, tries to fathom his own past and find its roots. "Somehow I feel like James Bond in the movie 'Skyfall' when he returns to the family estate," says Schäfer. "It's an unfinished mission for both of us."