For our Autumn Issue, Harrison Hunkin travelled from one end of the globe to the other for this story on a family transport business that has survived for almost one hundred years and now has a presence in both hemispheres.
The Monjean family have been in German transport since the days of horse and cart. Now four generations on, Detlef and Corinne Monjean’s son Max has decided to enter the family business … in Murray Bridge, South Australia.
Northern Hemisphere
It’s still pitch-black at 6:20am in the morning in Düren, a North Rhine town known for two things, really. One – being nearly blown off the map during the Second World War; and two – being close to Cologne, the home of Kölsch beer.
He started out transporting milk. Then he ventured into black coal for electricity from the local mine nearby.
A windy seven degrees leaves me shivering and wishing I was still tucked up in bed. But I’d have missed Detlef and Corinne Monjean and their green electric-converted Citroen 2cv, the array of German beers I consumed the night prior, or Rolf, their truck driver, waiting for us proudly by an Iveco S-Way.
The Monjeans run a 96-year-old family transport business, and Rolf their driver, is on his way to Belgium, a trip we’d be hitching a ride with.
He’s hauling fertiliser in the pneumatic tanker in tow, a staple of the Monjean transport operation for years. Conversation has resorted to laughter and hand signals early, as my primary school German lessons are pushed to the limit. Smiles and thumbs up are a universal language.
The Monjeans run a 96-year-old family transport business, and Rolf their driver, is on his way to Belgium, a trip we’d be hitching a ride with. Images: Alastair Brook
Two days earlier, when photographer Alastair and I arrived, Detlef and Corinne did three things. The first was to take us to breakfast. The Germans love bread! They welcomed two strangers from Australia into their home and excitedly gave us the tour around their transport depot.
Instantly, a swell of nostalgia hits me on arrival – the Monjeans are similar in age to my parents, with a similar depot footprint and fleet size, and similar looking pneumatic tankers. Fond memories of my family’s business erupt.
This is a truly family-run trucking business, in it for the love of the game, un-bastardised by the bean counters and penny pinchers seen everywhere in Australia nowadays.
This is a truly family-run trucking business, in it for the love of the game, un-bastardised by the bean counters and penny pinchers seen everywhere in Australia nowadays.
Here, at Monjean HQ, the white-haired, spectacled Detlef and the ever-smiling Corinne show me their world. A world that began in 1932 with Detlef’s grandfather, who was one of the first milk transporters to own a truck. He shows me a black-and-white photo from his computer, his grandfather standing proudly next to his rig – a Mercedes by the looks.
“He started out transporting milk. Most transported milk by horse and cart in those days. Then he ventured into black coal for electricity from the local mine nearby,” he explains. “In the morning, milk, later in the day, coal, and then we got a second truck,” he adds.
I look out upon the yard from the main office. The lot is entirely filled with parked up red-and-white-themed prime movers, a sign which usually means trouble in our business.
Since Detlef and his brother Michael took over the family business, they’ve expanded from three trucks to a fleet of more than 35 vehicles. Images: Alastair Brook
Is this an issue? I query Detlef. A quick shake of the head was his response. In Germany, most trucks don’t operate on Sundays unless it’s fresh produce, a rule that’s been in place since the ‘50s and is a way of life here; a reason to protect the peace and quiet on Sundays and public holidays and to keep the road network free of heavy truck traffic to increase road safety. Productivity isn’t an issue, he assures me.
When war broke out, Detlef’s family were required to turn in their trucks to the authorities, but in a twist of fate, his grandfather on arrival to Cologne to handover his truck, was excused and forced to keep his truck and work delivering across Europe.
“When he arrived, they told him – okay, you can keep your trucks, but you must go with your truck to France and then later, he was sent to Russia,” Detlef says, unnecessarily apologising for his English. I’ve picked up the gist, I tell him.
When he arrived, they told him – okay, you can keep your trucks, but you must go with your truck to France and then later, later, he was sent to Russia.
Post-WW2 Monjean grew, particularly with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the opportunities a unified Germany provided. Grins baked into Detlef and Corinne’s faces as they reminisce to me about the symbolic day the wall fell.
“We heard on the radio that the wall was falling down, and we knew we had to be there,” Corinne says.
“It was truly unbelievable. We were interested in meeting people from the other side, as were people from the East to meet people from the West. No one really knew what to do,” she continues.
ROADBOSS hitched a ride with Monjean’s driver Rolf on his way to Belgium hauling fertiliser in a pneumatic tipping tanker behind an Iveco S-Way. Images: Alastair Brook
“The news still hadn’t filtered through … there was so much confusion, such an unbelievable moment.”
It was during this time that Detlef and his brother Michael took over from their father and rapidly grew their fleet from three older trucks to a fleet of over 10 – amazingly, two major historical events their business has seen and weathered. Now their fleet consists of 35 prime movers in Germany, and one very lost Australian Scania.
Despite the persistent stereotype, it turns out Germans can be quite humorous. Take the Monjeans, for example – they dislike German cars. For nearly a century, the world has seen Deutschland as the jewel of the automobile industry, they instead prefer … French cars. Funny.
There’s a saying: the more power you have, the more responsibility you have, and that is the only approach when it comes to a truck.
They also told me there is a word that’s 79 letters long and has 25 syllables. Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft. Funny.
And their son Max is the fourth generation to join the 94-year-old family transport business … interestingly though, not in the motherland, but from the comforts of his adopted home of Murray Bridge in South Australia. Funny.
This is the first part of a story that was published in the Autum Issue of ROADBOSS magazine. We’ll publish part two in next month’s EDM.
