All Those TDYs

Father was gone so much of the time from 1962 on, that one is forced to consider what it was the government had him up to!  You can look at world events, look backwards in history later on, as well as, note interesting occurrences. In this case, occurrences may have more of a clue than usual and we knew almost instantly what was up once the German State Police raided the village!

I was in training to be a long distance runner, so every morning I was out the door at 5 am for a cross-country training practice at mother's insistance.  Make no mistake, this was not my idea.  But, there was a little shoemaker about half way through my run and I would spend several minutes with him every morning to keep my time average high for mother's records.  He was a very nice man.  Lets call him Hans.

Hans was in this later sixties, sort of a broken man I would call him.  He knew almost nothing of the village history and carefully avoided all wartime discussions.  He made himself more interesting than he should have been.

One Saturday morning, even before the cows were up, I ran past Hans' and noticed the shop in disarray, with no Hans.  I ran for the Police.  Not the friendliest people in town but they were honest and reliable.   The Sargent was ash white when I told him Hans was missing.  Within minutes, before I could even get out the door - there were several calls concerning missing citizens.  The Sargent understood what I could not fathom.  I jogged back past the shop and now the State Police were there and I was instantly detained for being "of interest".

One of the patrolmen sat and told me about how they were hunting Nazi war criminals and Hans had been one of those being sought.  I then repeated how I had reported Hans' absence to the local police and had over heard of missing people all over the Pfaltz....  The officer swore, ran for the door and quickly sped away.

I quietly re-entered Hans' little shop and remembered the humor and fun we had enjoyed.  I have always had the utmost respect for my elders, because they were interesting and I saw value in their knowledge.  I saw Hans had dropped a vest pocket wallet, which I picked up.  I burned the photos and papers inside, to his memory and perhaps protection.  I kept his SS Identification, dated August 1944, issued in Odessa.

Father moved us from the village to military housing following this.  There are no coincidences in life, one did not have to search far to find a similar SS Id Card carefully hidden amongst my father's papers.  This I followed up with also collecting my uncle Fritz's as well.  The three of them I imagine make quite a unique collection.  I have yet to see even one, even in photographs on the internet.  Hmmmmmm.....

However, this post is not about outlawed SS organizations, it is about the SS funding rocket research with the Egyptians in order to hasten the removal of the Jewish State in 1962 through 1967.  Egypt finally went with the Russian Scud missile as its offensive deterrent to the Jewish "aggression".  Nasser was nothing if not a scum bag himself.

As for father?  That is a pretty easy one: he and his fellow team from the V-3 (A-9) were all in on the project.  They all had the backgrounds, were all German and the three also had the nuclear background - because a missile has to deliver something!  Was the US Military Intelligence involved?  Was father and his friends all on contract to the Mossad?  Military to CIA to Mossad?  Certainly, enough of their co-workers met with horrible deaths back in Germany.  Makes you wonder about their absences and whom exactly was fingering German Nationals and European suppliers.....  Someone was feeding the Mossad and father was a Jewish convert after all.  To further add to the discussion, he received his second Bronze Star just after the missiles failed to launch in 1967 War.

Spies Like Us

55,000 in this Protest

Now in the world of politics, Hungary was to stage a rebellion against its Soviet occupiers.  The previous year Austria had gained it freedom, from the Soviet Union, and Hungary, a country long associated with Austria, wanted its freedom as well.  The Soviets thought otherwise.

Much of the blame for the two uprising in Hungary and later in Czechoslovakia can be blamed directly on Radio Free Europe - they openly encouraged citizens of those two countries to rise up in revolt, even promising US aid - which was never to come.  It was just a political ploy to give the Soviets a headache - and those games killed a great many innocent people whom trusted the radio voices.

No Russian Sense of Humor

Now, if Hungary was in revolt, the US Military Intelligence community really wanted a chance to get their hands on some of the Eastern Bloc Scientists and find out where the Soviet Union had gone with its nuclear capabilities.  But, in order to do so, one would have to find someone whom had a first hand knowledge of the subject and spoke the languages.  Getting an idea where this one is going?

Back in Iceland, father had been blinded in an explosion.  No real idea what he could have been doing that time!  He was blinded for a while but when as his sight returned he had to wear glasses to correct for the permanent damage.  He really hated those glasses but seeing is a nice activity.  He was issued a pair of normal everyday PINK military framed glasses.  I never could understand why the US military would only issue pink frames - like it was most men's favorite color?  Gees!  They were horrid.

Father in Budapest.

A few years ago I was researching a completely separate subject and I stumbled upon the first photograph in this post - 55,000 Hungarians in peaceful demonstration.  But, something puzzled me concerning the photo and I could not put my finger on it.  So I blew up the photo.  There, flanked by two of his lifelong friends and almost as long co-workers, was father in his US Military issued glasses!  I actually kept the camel hair full length coat from his estate, he never left home without it - unless he was wearing its grey twin.

So, although officially in Iceland for several more months, he was also on the world stage playing spy.  And if you think of it, what are the odds you are going to be where you are not supposed to be - and end up getting photographed in the wrong place, at the wrong time, by a photo-journalist?  Makes you wonder. 

It also was the first hint that maybe there was a great deal I did not know about father.....