The Bonn Hash House Harriers was founded on the 9th of October 1984 by Mike Caldwell & Bob Hammond, who having hashed in Oz, before being posted to the Australian embassy in Bonn, thought it would be a good idea to start a pack in the then German Capital. The Hash was at its height from 1990 til 1995 and was made up of some 150 people drawn from the diplomatic community and German local citizens from Bonn and the surrounding areas. We ran at various locations around Bonn and Bad Godesberg.
In 1994 we hosted the 6th German Nash Hash. We held the Terry Fox run in 1992, 1993, 1997 and again the German Nash Hash in 2006 and 2016.
During the course of the years, various other social activities have taken place, such as BBQ’s, road trips, parties, etc. There where also many opportunities to visit other Hash venues all over Europe and the rest of the world for various celebration runs, often at very low cost down to the hospitality of fellow hashers. Highlights over the years being Brussels, Oslo, Vienna, Hamburg, Hannover, Prague, Interhash in Cyprus 1998, Interhash in Cardiff 2004, Copenhagen, Australian Nash Hash 2005, Zagreb H3 40yr celebration in 2015 and Budapest to name but a few.
Due to the embassies and government leaving Bonn in the mid nineties numbers fell, leaving a hard core of hashers to keep Bonn Hash House Harriers alive (mainly: Mick “Local Yokel“ Caulfield, Silvia “Shit For Brains“ Caulfield, Ingo “He-Man“ Krahforst, Ingo “E.T“ and Dirk “Maradona“ Wanke).
Low numbers of hashers and the defection of Mick “Local Yokel” Caulfield and Silvia “Shit For Brains” Caulfield to Düsseldorf, where they found several people who were interested in hashing but were not willing to travel each week down to Bonn. Therefore, after a couple of runs under the Bonn H3 banner, it was decided to found a Düsseldorf Chapter on 4th of July, 2004.
A Cologne Chapter was also introduced allowing us to run every three weeks in the different areas. The idea was to encourage new hashers, who would be willing to travel up and down the Rhine each week to hash, complementing each other.
Three mismanagements were probably two too many and so after 2005, only a year later, it was decided to have just one mismanagement and combine all the packs under the name “Combined Rhine Area Pack” (C.R.A.P.).
So, basically we just have a new name, yet we are still the Bonn Hash House Harriers (same mismanagement, same old faces, but a larger pack and a greater set of areas where we run). We try to keep the runs evenly shared between the three locations along the Rhine.