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August 25, 1969 : Hamburg

Satsvarupa: When Prabhupada and Purusottama arrived in Hamburg, Shivananda, Krishna Dasa, and two other boys were at the airport to greet them. The temple was on Eppendorfer Weg, in a business area, next to a hair salon. The storefront, with its plate glass window painted blue except for an oval in the center, and "Radha Krishna Temple" painted over the window, could have been in New York or San Francisco except for the sign, "Internationale Gesellschaft Fur Krishna Bewusstsein-V."

The apartment Shivananda had rented for Prabhupada was two small rooms on the fifteenth floor of a modern building across the street from the storefront. Shivananda and a few others came before Prabhupada in his room, and Shivananda apologized that Krishna consciousness was so small in Hamburg. They had heard how devotees in Los Angeles were going out, sometimes fifty at a time, chanting and dancing in the streets and distributing hundreds of Back to Godheads. But in Hamburg Shivananda and another boy had gone out chanting only a few times, with little success.

They had no speaking engagements for Prabhupada, Shivananda said, and they weren't sure if many people would attend the temple lectures, although they had advertised around town with posters. Prabhupada smiled and sat back. "That's all right." And he began talking with Uttamasloka about his progress in translating Bhagavad-gita As It Is into German.



Reference: Prabhupada-Lila - Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami