Sorry to say, but you missunderstood the problem: openvpn was not supposed to be run in runlevel 2 in my setup. The run level definition must not be ignored.
About screen: I got locked out due to changed routing, not due to a lost terminal connection. The ssh connection was cut off and couldn't be established anymore. I don't see how screen could have helped here. Please reopen and fix. Thanx very much Harri
