Robin Van Helsum, the Dutchman dubbed 'Forest Boy', who conned Berlin police into thinking he was a juvenile runaway, was inspired to travel to Germany by the teachings of the Zeitgeist movement that aims to destroy market capitalism.
Robin van Helsum climbing a tree Photo: Julian Simmonds
By Damien McElroy, Hengelo, Netherlands
By Damien McElroy, Hengelo, Netherlands
Mr Van Helsum who turned up at a Berlin police station last November claiming that he had lived with his father in the woods until the older man died. At the time psychologists speculated that the disturbed youth who spoke only English and claimed to be 17 had taken inspiration from the plot of the 2011 movie, Hannah.
But friends in his native Hengelo, on the Dutch border with Germany, have revealed that he had been obsessed with the radical Zeitgeist movement before his disappearance from the town.
The alternative action movement was popularised in a series of films critical of market capitalism. Shot between 2007 and last year, a series of films inspired a political movement that holds future generations will view Christianity as a fraud and embrace sustainable ecological policies as the basis of the economy.
Maryn Berfloes, 21, a friend in the prosperous market town on the German border, said Van Helsum took inspiration from the films before deciding to travel to Berlin with another local named Lex.
The protest movement and its founder Peter Joseph have a large following in the German capital. The fantasy forest existence – he said his father had scavenged in the woods and was buried south of Berlin in a shallow grave – could be closely related to the eco-warrior teachings of the Zeitgeist campaigners.
"In my opinion Robin was never positive about how society worked. He had started to develop alternative theories for the economy and society that would not rely on money any more."
"It is important that he come back and faces what he left behind here in Hengelo," said Mr Berfloes. "This is a good place, there are jobs and you can make a good standard of living here. Its not to rich and not too poor.
You can be comfortable but Robin never got it right.
His travelling companion Lex returned from Berlin after apparently suffering a mental breakdown and now lives quietly with his mother. He has cut off all contact with his friends. One acquaintance said Van Helsum had manipulated Lex into travelling to Berlin: "He definitely swept him up in the idea they were going to be revolutionaries."
At the well-ordered row of terraced houses where Ellen Van Helsum, his now widowed stepmother lives, the emotional scars of his teenage rebellion are evident.
Shouting through the letterbox, the gaunt blonde-haired woman says she wants the whole episode to fade into the past. "I'm an educated woman.
I can speak English and German fluently, I don't deserve to be treated as the head of a broken home," she told the Daily Telegraph.
Mohammad Rahim, Van Helsum's former flatmate, was left with a 800 euro back rent debt when his friend fled to Berlin, said the conflict with his now dead father had been an all-consuming factor during his teenage years.
Having been out into care homes by his father, the system represented a sanctuary from a disturbing world.
"Robin was too similar to his father, he chose to fight and argue with him.
He wanted to be a rebel," he said. "In Holland you can get yourself into the care system by rebelling. If you have hassles or a lack of money it's actually not too bad.
"The housing is better and there is a mentor to look out for you, while your parents remain your legal guardian there are structures to protect you.
"Maybe Robin wanted the same in Berlin and so he pretended he was a juvenile."
With a trail of bad debts and a notoriety from plunging the industrial town into the limelight, Van Helsum must be weighting the difficulties of returning from his German refuge.
German police said that Van Helsum would not be forced to return from Germany, while his social workers are amazed he could keep up the pretence of being an English speaking runaway since September.
"It's a real achievement," child psychologist Michael Günter told Focus magazine. "It is not an uncommon phenomenon in young adults, who often escape into a fantasy world when they are going through an adolescent crisis."
