November was a hard month on me. I was in seventh grade at the Canadian School and had a music class from hell. Mr. Elliot, I have no doubt was a wonderful teacher and a gifted musician but he was unable to understand that there are people in this world whom have no sense of rhythm and can not play a musical instrument! He literally drove me to a nervous breakdown.
At the same time, father found out that Heisenberg was living in Munich and was very agitated to have learned this. When the doctor wrote my school a request for a few days off for me to just get away and recover, father threw me in the car and took me to Munich for a long holiday.
It was fun and I naturally assumed that father had gone to see his old professor, when he disappeared for so many hours one day. Coincidentally, Mr. Elliot did have a nervous breakdown and we ran into each other at the same hotel!
Fast forward to 1984 and I received a letter from my grandmother, it had been written in 1968! Unfortunately, I already knew she had died in 1974 - I had seen a letter in German laying on the table at my father's house announcing her death. So, I now knew for sure that father had lied to me for the length of his life about his family. So, I decided to run his family down and solve the mystery of my father.
At the end of three years, I now knew that father was not whom he claimed to be; I had his real birth certificate and a good piece of his real life's history.
I also discovered that the real man, whose name father had taken back in Wöbbelin - had work on the Italian train system following his release from Wöbbelin and retired to Munich in July of 1967. He had been murdered the very weekend I was in Munich with my father recovering.
Yet another coincidence in father's life? Or did father permanently silence the one man whom could unravel father's real identity ... ?
When you hide behind a wall of lies, well, there is no way you can be thought innocent. Luckily for father, there was nothing ever to tie him and that man together - only in this day and age, with the abundance of information can such a coincidence be ferreted out.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
Narcissus
The first time I read father's autobiography, I was struck at how father was a complete and total narcissus! The entire 1,100 pages completely revolved around him. I scored about three lines, my sister - the golden girl - managed half a page, but one of his step sons about three pages, any of his eight wives - almost not even a mention. The rest a highly fictional story.
Since my last post, I have now reread father's tome a second time and I have been struck, yet again, at what a complete narcissus father was! Not like it should now be a surprise, only it is, due to the level of narcissism we are discussing here! We are discussing mental illness levels. So, if father was a narcissus, then I thought I would read up on this subject on the internet.....
I did not know that narcissism is a variant of being a sociopath. Sociopath I understand very well, I was diagnosed as such at 17 by the US military - whom then wanted me rather badly. But, my father? I also learned that psychopathy is a genetic disorder. Great.
Now I am seeing his family in a new light. Either of his parents passed this trait on to him.
Now I can understand the man whom could walk away from his family in Switzerland to support Hitler, the man whom could be married eight times thinking he was in love and often with more than one bride at a time. Social convention meant nothing to him. I could understand how he could have worked on atomic and hydrogen weapons with no flick of regret or doubt. How his work on the V-3 (A-9) rocket and its purposed mass destruction was completely without understanding. The Reich was his god, Hitler its prophet, my father its worshiper.
And yet this man had seen the slaughter of the tens of thousands at Dora, as the SS cleaned up all of the scientific workers - leaving very few for the Russians to capture. It touched him enough that he converted to Judaism at the end of war. It touched him enough that even to the end, he was seeking if there was a God or not - but he could never equate his life with the existence of the kind of god he sought.
I still have to wonder at some of what I know about my father. Not the least of which is why did he write an autobiography that would be largely a work of fiction ..... ?
Since my last post, I have now reread father's tome a second time and I have been struck, yet again, at what a complete narcissus father was! Not like it should now be a surprise, only it is, due to the level of narcissism we are discussing here! We are discussing mental illness levels. So, if father was a narcissus, then I thought I would read up on this subject on the internet.....
I did not know that narcissism is a variant of being a sociopath. Sociopath I understand very well, I was diagnosed as such at 17 by the US military - whom then wanted me rather badly. But, my father? I also learned that psychopathy is a genetic disorder. Great.
Now I am seeing his family in a new light. Either of his parents passed this trait on to him.
Now I can understand the man whom could walk away from his family in Switzerland to support Hitler, the man whom could be married eight times thinking he was in love and often with more than one bride at a time. Social convention meant nothing to him. I could understand how he could have worked on atomic and hydrogen weapons with no flick of regret or doubt. How his work on the V-3 (A-9) rocket and its purposed mass destruction was completely without understanding. The Reich was his god, Hitler its prophet, my father its worshiper.
And yet this man had seen the slaughter of the tens of thousands at Dora, as the SS cleaned up all of the scientific workers - leaving very few for the Russians to capture. It touched him enough that he converted to Judaism at the end of war. It touched him enough that even to the end, he was seeking if there was a God or not - but he could never equate his life with the existence of the kind of god he sought.
I still have to wonder at some of what I know about my father. Not the least of which is why did he write an autobiography that would be largely a work of fiction ..... ?
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Another Broken Arrow
Over the weekend I was thinking about the fun Broken Arrows brought to this young man. Lots of trucks, cranes, missiles, military types all over and I was always a sucker for anything destructive!
And I remembered of a little incident outside of Portland, Oregon. I can not even begin to remember the year or even where in Portland we were - so I had to be mighty young!
Now one of the ways to go to the Portland zoo, back before they build a superhighway straight into there was to drive southwest through Portland and then take this little road that went through a small tunnel. As we reached the tunnel, an Air Force jeep came through and blocked off the roadway. No big deal - that meant the day was about to get more exciting.
My father got out, identified himself and asked what was up. Before the poor MP could even answer - there came this horrendous crash and shriek of metal from the tunnel. Yeah, something big had just made a mess. Dad and the MP took off running - and hey, no one to stop me - I went to! And, what a sight I saw!
Seems a tractor trailer was hauling a missile back towards Portland and had impacted the warhead with the top of the tunnel. The missile was now ejected out of its cradle and lay half on, half off the cradle. The nose cone was mashed horribly. Father let lose a series of oaths you would not have believed!
Dad grabbed the radio, ran for the Portland side of the tunnel and radioed into the Base for a decontamination team, full geared inspectors, a suit for him and two cranes to be brought in from the south. What an exciting day!
Of course, I got to go through decontamination and you know I really do not like stripping in public. Just a modesty issue I have never overcome.
In due course of the day, they found the warhead (which was supposed to have been removed prior to transport!) was intact; very little radiation was evident in the area - other than the roof of the tunnel and ground below; and it took close to a week to extract that puppy from the tunnel and reload onto another carrier - this time with the warhead safely removed!
I never got to see if I glowed in the dark or not. Oh yeah, good times!
And I remembered of a little incident outside of Portland, Oregon. I can not even begin to remember the year or even where in Portland we were - so I had to be mighty young!
Now one of the ways to go to the Portland zoo, back before they build a superhighway straight into there was to drive southwest through Portland and then take this little road that went through a small tunnel. As we reached the tunnel, an Air Force jeep came through and blocked off the roadway. No big deal - that meant the day was about to get more exciting.
My father got out, identified himself and asked what was up. Before the poor MP could even answer - there came this horrendous crash and shriek of metal from the tunnel. Yeah, something big had just made a mess. Dad and the MP took off running - and hey, no one to stop me - I went to! And, what a sight I saw!
Seems a tractor trailer was hauling a missile back towards Portland and had impacted the warhead with the top of the tunnel. The missile was now ejected out of its cradle and lay half on, half off the cradle. The nose cone was mashed horribly. Father let lose a series of oaths you would not have believed!
Dad grabbed the radio, ran for the Portland side of the tunnel and radioed into the Base for a decontamination team, full geared inspectors, a suit for him and two cranes to be brought in from the south. What an exciting day!
Of course, I got to go through decontamination and you know I really do not like stripping in public. Just a modesty issue I have never overcome.
In due course of the day, they found the warhead (which was supposed to have been removed prior to transport!) was intact; very little radiation was evident in the area - other than the roof of the tunnel and ground below; and it took close to a week to extract that puppy from the tunnel and reload onto another carrier - this time with the warhead safely removed!
I never got to see if I glowed in the dark or not. Oh yeah, good times!
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Broken Arrow
The night after our being detained by Catalonian Separatists, we headed off again in the cooler night air, continuing on towards Madrid.
Again in a mountainous area, at a bend in the road, you guessed it - another roadblock! Just as the night before, an uniformed officer asked for our papers. Only this guy was really nervous - so nervous that father was actual getting concerned for our safety! Father tried to get a conversation going but the guy just got on his radio and talked so rapidly no one knew what he was saying.
Several minutes later, a military jeep drives up with some - what I am guessing were Spanish MPs. One of them was quite fluent in English and from the car I caught the gist of the conversations - they had managed to drive too close to the shoulder of the road with a tractor trailer hauling a nuke and rolled it.
Father then identified himself, more talking on the radio and they were off - father to inspect said nuke and to supervise the correct reloading to the carrier on the trailer.
Once completed, father returned and we drove on with lots of smiles and hand waving by those still working on the mess they had made.
It was the first time I had ever seen one of the newer missiles and I was impressed. No idea as to which one it was but it was cool to see something you heard about but no one had any pictures of.....
Again in a mountainous area, at a bend in the road, you guessed it - another roadblock! Just as the night before, an uniformed officer asked for our papers. Only this guy was really nervous - so nervous that father was actual getting concerned for our safety! Father tried to get a conversation going but the guy just got on his radio and talked so rapidly no one knew what he was saying.
Several minutes later, a military jeep drives up with some - what I am guessing were Spanish MPs. One of them was quite fluent in English and from the car I caught the gist of the conversations - they had managed to drive too close to the shoulder of the road with a tractor trailer hauling a nuke and rolled it.
Father then identified himself, more talking on the radio and they were off - father to inspect said nuke and to supervise the correct reloading to the carrier on the trailer.
Once completed, father returned and we drove on with lots of smiles and hand waving by those still working on the mess they had made.
It was the first time I had ever seen one of the newer missiles and I was impressed. No idea as to which one it was but it was cool to see something you heard about but no one had any pictures of.....
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Held In Catalonia
In 1966 father decided we needed to spend the summer camping our way through Spain, Portugal and of course - Gibraltar. Summer was perhaps a poor choice since the heat was unbelievable - hitting 121 on several occasions! I can remember watching the tar on the roads bubbling when we would stop for a lunch or stretching.
So, we drove and camped our way south through France, through Andorra and then down into Spain.
It was late at night when we entered Spain. As we wound down the narrow gravel road from Andorra and the heights of the Pyrenees Mountains, we were forced to stop at a roadblock. A uniformed officer approached, asked for our papers, was delighted to practice his English and then spent some time on a walkie-talkie. Returning the papers, he explained that the road would be closed for a few hours due to highway construction. So, we were stuck.
About thirty minutes later a group of women approached, walking up the road, set up a table and motioned us to come join them. A large pot was set out, along with plates and bowls. They were providing a meal! We marveled at Spanish hospitality! The soup was good but the bread was first class! Dad and the officer talked quite a bit - father in Spanish, the officer in English. Though we could not know it, father was about to use a whole lot more Spanish in an official capacity!
Once done, the ladies packed up all of their stuff and trotted back down the road and around a bend we could not see beyond. A short time later the officer returned again and told us that we could now pass the construction zone but to be very careful as workers were still on the roadway and to stay far right. So we started down and around the bend.
What we were to pass by was miles of what looked like concrete water pipe. Workers, hundreds of them, were busy drilling holes in the pipe. It made no sense, but having no real knowledge of construction, who knows what they were doing! We continued on through the night, eventually reaching a campground by early morning, where we set up and went to bed.
About mid-day we were awaken by the local police whom told us they were interviewing all travelers and wanted to know if we had come from the north the night before. We said we had and then father told them all about the road construction the night before, the great soup and bread, and then being allowed to continue on after a while.
We then learned that Catalonian Separatists had bee sabotaging the new water pipe construction project. Ah, that explains all of the holes in the pipe - they were making it unusable! Then across many questions we were to learn about Franco's problems in Catalonia, the guerrilla movement and the policeman's concerns over Communist activities in the area. Of course, as we were to find, Franco's freedom was so heavily socialist and the people so preyed upon by the government - no wonder people were involved in what father called Monkey Warfare.....
So, we drove and camped our way south through France, through Andorra and then down into Spain.
It was late at night when we entered Spain. As we wound down the narrow gravel road from Andorra and the heights of the Pyrenees Mountains, we were forced to stop at a roadblock. A uniformed officer approached, asked for our papers, was delighted to practice his English and then spent some time on a walkie-talkie. Returning the papers, he explained that the road would be closed for a few hours due to highway construction. So, we were stuck.
About thirty minutes later a group of women approached, walking up the road, set up a table and motioned us to come join them. A large pot was set out, along with plates and bowls. They were providing a meal! We marveled at Spanish hospitality! The soup was good but the bread was first class! Dad and the officer talked quite a bit - father in Spanish, the officer in English. Though we could not know it, father was about to use a whole lot more Spanish in an official capacity!
Once done, the ladies packed up all of their stuff and trotted back down the road and around a bend we could not see beyond. A short time later the officer returned again and told us that we could now pass the construction zone but to be very careful as workers were still on the roadway and to stay far right. So we started down and around the bend.
What we were to pass by was miles of what looked like concrete water pipe. Workers, hundreds of them, were busy drilling holes in the pipe. It made no sense, but having no real knowledge of construction, who knows what they were doing! We continued on through the night, eventually reaching a campground by early morning, where we set up and went to bed.
About mid-day we were awaken by the local police whom told us they were interviewing all travelers and wanted to know if we had come from the north the night before. We said we had and then father told them all about the road construction the night before, the great soup and bread, and then being allowed to continue on after a while.
We then learned that Catalonian Separatists had bee sabotaging the new water pipe construction project. Ah, that explains all of the holes in the pipe - they were making it unusable! Then across many questions we were to learn about Franco's problems in Catalonia, the guerrilla movement and the policeman's concerns over Communist activities in the area. Of course, as we were to find, Franco's freedom was so heavily socialist and the people so preyed upon by the government - no wonder people were involved in what father called Monkey Warfare.....
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