Seaman's Union

Father left Monika in Hamburg and traveled to Bremerhaven by  horse drawn freight wagon to apply for openings on any form of shipping.   He was to discover an entirely new world - one of politics.

Bremerhaven was quite a mess.

First off, he was young, too young for the rank he claimed to hold.  Fear of being arrested and turned over to the Americans for execution held him back from making a pain of himself at the Union.  He needed a job, not arrested, nor dead.

Father would not talk much about his time between leaving Hamburg and shipping out on his first voyage.  He did not have enough money with him, nor could he get funds from his bank in Hamburg.  He like many other would be post-war German sailors, lived on and off of the streets.  Picking up random day labor jobs - for nothing more than food or a blanket if you were lucky.

Apparently, one of the captains took pity on him and hired him as a personal steward boy.  And father was off to sea and on to bigger changes than he had so far encountered in his life!

Hamburg - A Little History

I have mentioned the firebombing of Hamburg several times so far.  So, now seems to be a point to stop and show what my father was surrounded by.

Hamburg during the firebombing.

Photo taken soon after the fire.

 

Population returning to the remains of Hamburg.

42,000 were reported dead from the fire, 37,000 injured, over 1,000,000 left homeless, half of all buildings destroyed in the city.  This was the price borne by the population of Hamburg.  Net result?  War materials productions was stopped for one week and capacity reduced by 10%.  No, it was not manufacturing targeted, the British purposefully bombed the compact housing areas of the ordinary worker - for maximum damage and death tolls (well documented in even Britain's archives).

When people challenge me, as a Hutterite, as to my pacifism - I have to point no further than to Dresden and Hamburg, not to even mention other cities whom were also on the receiving side of the Allied cause of firebombing "strategic" targets.....

Physical Labor

Few Americans realize that World War II did not really end until 1957, with the surrender of the last SS unit operating as a terrorist group in the Austrian and Bavarian Alps, against American targets.  Up north, it was 1946 now and another story.  The war was over and the rebuilding of Germany was to commence.  The only fighting was verbal between the British, Canadian and Americans - and then again, collectively against the Russians on the east bank of the Elbe River.
Fritz and Irma had been wealthy before the war.  He was an architect and a decent investor.  However, the banks were gone, the Deutschmark devalued and any bank balances decreased by 90% automatically.  They were wiped out, but at least they still had something to pull from in an economy where cash ruled - as few had it.  And luckily for them, there was a real need for architects.

Drilling a new well, father center.

Father was able to get a job as a day laborer for basically starvation wages, especially considering that he now had a wife to support.  Hamburg had been flattened and the entire infrastructure had to be replaced.  You also must realize that by the time of father's capture he was more dead than alive.  The regular meals from working on the farms had helped him to recover somewhat, however he had little muscle to rely on and he really had need of them!

Ditches needed to be dug for sewers, water supply and gas pipelines - there was little machinery to do the jobs.  Roads rebuilt, factories restored, apartment complexes built, everything everywhere had to be replaced.  So the work was there but the economics were not.  There was nowhere to live other than the street and a day's labor provide little enough food for one - much less two.  Then there was the question of being able to find food for sale in the first place.  And father was stuck as he had no real skills for this labor market.

Something had to change and father had few resources in his favor.  He held a mathematics doctorate, however the university was gone and little need for instructors anywhere.  He could go over to the Americans under the Operation Paperclip offer to German scientists, but he still believed he would be executed, if he did.  The British and Canadians had no use for him, nor did the Germans for that matter.  His education had left him fluent in French, 5 forms of German and English.  So on weekends he was able to hold down a job as a waiter.  Notice in the photo that he is 6'1" tall and weighed all of 96 pounds at the time!  Interestingly, at the table is Uncle Fritz; I assume the dress is attached to his wife Irma.

In the local paper one day he saw an advertisement for seaman needed immediately for shipping out of Bremerhaven.  And so he had to take a chance and identify himself as a Captain in the now defunct German Navy, in hopes of at least being able to feed his wife.  As I mentioned earlier, how he acquired his commission, much less in the Navy, is beyond my knowledge.  Yet, he had managed it during the war and as a teenager to boot.

His hope was a posting on a North Sea freighter.....

Monika

I know very little about Monika.  I know she was Jewish and had been a prisoner at the Wöbbelin labor camp outside of Hamburg.  Her presence here means she had been originally held in the Auschwitz complex, and was one of the 10,000 women transferred to Wöbbelin.  Seems there had been a female uprising at Auschwitz, with one of the oven buildings destroyed by smuggled munitions being dumped into it.  Those whom could be identified as complicit with the bombing were executed, others scattered to various camps.  Further, her presence in Auschwitz, meant she was originally from a conquered territory.  Dutch, French, or even a Sudetenland Jew are all possibilities.  Since she stayed in Germany after the war, I will go with her being a Sudetenland German Jew.

These were the only women to have been at Wöbbelin.  I know that father met her here.

In my research I have managed to find exactly 5 photos of females whom were held at Wöbbelin; three of them are of the same woman.  Quite photogenic considering what she had gone through and young.  If anything, father was always drawn to light haired, small, young women.  Could this have been Monika?  Absolutely no idea, but given father's taste in women, a darn good candidate.  As you will see for yourself much later in my postings, ALL of father's wives were not so far removed from this young lady's appearance.  Too much coincidence here for me to believe!  I think he kept marrying Monika.

I have mentioned already that father was haunted by what the SS had done at Middelbau-Dora and Nordhausen, and what he saw.  I sincerely doubt father had much interaction with the prisoner population, other than the prisoner scientists.  But, he probably "knew" many whom were working on the A-9/V-3 project.

So, father is fleeing from the advancing Soviet Army and expects to find shelter at the underground complex.  Only, everyone is dead.  Well, the prison population anyways, the Germans were long gone.  People he "knew" and saw daily had been gunned down, some had been hung.  On the road in he had to have traveled, he would have come across the smoldering remains of a barn which had been stuffed with the "final solution" helpers - some 1,016 prisoners whom had helped and were rewarded with the fiery death of a barn burning by their SS keepers and those whom got out were gunned down as well.

At Nordhausen, where the scientist prisoners had been housed, the camp had been deserted.  Hundreds of bodies lay where they had been felled.  And we will look at this later on.

But, point is, these were the Jews.  He saw first hand the Reich's ruthlessness in dealing with the Jewish question.  It was not a matter of killing those whom could help their enemies, which he could have understood.  No, it was killing Jews, because of who they were.  Genocide was a new concept for him to come to terms with as a teenager in the camp.  In all honesty, he never was able to understand how his Fuhrer could have done this - "..... no, this must have been on orders from someone in the General Staff....".  Always protecting the Fuhrer.....

And then he was to meet a Jewish girl, one of the prisoners for her faith, and discovered that maybe Jews were human after all.  And knowing the way in which my father thought, he saw in her his ability to atone for what his chosen country had done.  He married her.

But, first he had to convert to Judaism himself, a Rabbi found - whom were a little scarce by this time and he had to have some form of support.  I like to think of her as sort of a female version of Daniel, standing for her faith even in the ruins of her life.  I will talk about these things later.

And he did convert, did marry and you guessed it - later abandoned Monika.

I only knew her through her letters.  She wrote father weekly, through the entirety of my young life.  She lived in Frankfurt and that was about all I can say.  When the internet became a reality, I spent many hours a year sifting through all of the Monika's living in the Frankfurt area and eventually did find her - about three months after she had died.  She had never remarried, which I found a little interesting - until I realized there had never been a divorce filing!

I also found she had a daughter, my half sister, and was very surprised she had been named for father's mother.  I thought about striking up a long distance relationship with her - but to what end?  What can you say to someone whom shared the same father, and she had been too young to even have a memory of him?  "Hi, I am your half brother and never knew our father either."  Yeah.  I am guessing the daughter was told he had died.  It would have been far more comforting than the truth.

And I know, as a post-war child of Germany myself, there were darn few children and even fewer men in my village.  No reason to assume Frankfurt was any different.  One thing war is good for is leaving a lot of widows and fatherless children behind.

So, if you are reading this and you are of Hebrew extraction, named Martha, had a mother named Monika - email me! 

Wöbbelin

To me, it is almost a sacrilege to even add comments to these pictures of the Wöbbelin Concentration Camp.  As a German, I have been appalled by the actions of my countrymen.  Lots of excuses but no sound reasons for what they did, save for as a group, they abandoned their Lutheran upbringing to cause chaos and destruction on a scale I hope to never encounter again in my lifetime.

I post these in hopes that by knowing what happened, you too will strive to do what you can to see that politicians are never again trusted with sufficient power to ever repeat what was done to Europe from 1933 to 1948.

*****

On May 2, 1945, the 8th Infantry Division and the 82nd Airborne Division encountered Wöbbelin. Living conditions in the camp when the U.S. 8th Infantry and the 82nd Airborne arrived were deplorable. There was little food or water and some prisoners had resorted to cannibalism. When the units arrived, they found about 1,000 inmates dead in the camp. In the aftermath, the U.S. Army ordered the townspeople in Ludwigslust to visit the camp and bury the dead.

 

200 Found Dead in 1 Barracks

The Dead and the Dying Found Together

Compulsory Viewing

On May 7, 1945, the 82nd Airborne Division conducted funeral services for 200 inmates in the town of Ludwigslust. Attending the ceremony were citizens of Ludwigslust, captured German officers, and several hundred members of the airborne division. The U.S. Army chaplain at the service delivered a eulogy stating that:

    "The crimes here committed in the name of the German people and by their acquiescence were minor compared to those to be found in concentration camps elsewhere in Germany. Here there were no gas chambers, no crematoria; these men of Holland, Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and France were simply allowed to starve to death. Within four miles of your comfortable homes 4,000 men were forced to live like animals, deprived even of the food you would give to your dogs. In three weeks 1,000 of these men were starved to death; 800 of them were buried in pits in the nearby woods. These 200 who lie before us in these graves were found piled four and five feet high in one building and lying with the sick and dying in other buildings."

The Funeral Service

The 200 Graves

The death register at Neuengamme indicates that about 40,000 prisoners died in the camp by April 10, 1945. Perhaps as many as 15,000 more died in the camp in the following week and during the course of the evacuation. In all, more than 50,000 prisoners, almost half of all those imprisoned in the camp complex during its existence, died.

Beds made of barbed wire, rags and straw

Forced labor

The Survivors.....

This is the heritage, the legacy, left to those of us whom are the next generation of Germans.  Yeah, try growing up as a child in a country destroyed by war, a heritage of racism and an occupation force willing to make your life miserable because your forefathers deserved execution.   Yeah, as a child, it was galling.

Uncle Fritz' Story

Fritz returned from the North Africa POW camp and so was well documented by the British already.  He had been a SS colonel under Field Marshall Rommel.  Somewhere, I have a photo of him with Rommel, standing by a half track vehicle watching a tank battle from the first El Alamein battle.  Fritz actually had two claims to fame from his North African campaign, both involving El Alamein.

First, he had come up with an idea of using trucks at night to shift dead tanks around.  The German Army had run out of diesel so many of the tanks were inoperable.  By shifting the tanks it kept the Allies guessing at actual tank strength and held back the British and American forces long enough for Germany to remove some of their men and supplies.  (Supporting his idea, the Italians had come up with the idea of hauling a wheeled axle around at night so that there would be tracks in the shifting sands to make it look like there was much more activity going on at night!

Second, he had cautioned General Stumme, not to execute Rommel's complete orders - which would have led not only to a slaughter of the Allied advance but harsh reprisals against the Germans in their retreat for the survivors.  Fritz had been planning the retreat and surrender for months and indeed the Germans had been shifting important operations back to their base in Tunisia.

And, why you ask would an SS Colonel be thinking this way?  Seems not all SS were completely evil nor equal in their politics.....

Fritz was from Hamburg.  Under the German confederation, Hamburg was a Free State.  Yes, it was a member of the German community, but it was free from the national politics, interests, etc of the German State.  Once Hitler had seized power, one of his first moves was against the Free States, of which there were many.  Hence, the residents of Hamburg believed themselves to be prisoners of war and unwilling participants to the war.  And so, Fritz, was not only smart enough to know that in a battle, where you are out numbered two to one by your  enemy, your supply lines are hundreds of miles long, and you have NO fuel - you are going to lose.  He also hated the Nazi's.

The first Battle of El Alamein had already proven the Germans had no hope of capturing the fuel fields.  The continued build up of the Allied Forces only shifted the inevitable further into the realm of an Allied victory.

He told me it was his greatest joy to surrender and end his part in supporting Germany's war, as well as, saving as many lives as he could - on both sides.  However, it was his greatest sorrow to hear of the firebombing of Hamburg (an innocent captive city to the Nazi's, per him) and not knowing if his family survived or not.

I had always held a belief in Rommel as being perhaps one of the greatest German leaders, certainly of WWII in any event.  And Fritz agreed to a point.  But, his breaking point came when Rommel's complete orders for the taking of El Alamein included the command to fight to the death for each and every soldier.  Rommel expected the North African Army to commit suicide rather than retreat.  For that, Fritz lost all respect for Rommel and held that Stumme's willingness to stare facts in the face and listen to reason made him by far the greater German.

I remember commenting to Friz that he ought to have been awarded medals by the Americans and Brits for his effort, if he had told them the role he played.  The man actually turned white, broke out in a sweat and commented that he would have been killed, had something like that even have been suggested!  And a year later I was to find why and exactly how powerful the post-war SS organization still was.

In any event, the fact that Fritz was documented - allowed for the release of his wife, her release allowed for my father's, and his release allowed for Monika's.  And this little group of refugees were returned to the cindered remains of Hamburg.

The Internment Population

The internment population of the Wöbbelin repatronization camp, outside of Hamburg, had to have been very interesting.  First, you had refugees from the complete destruction of Hamburg via its firebombing.  Then you had captured soldiers.  And, finally, there were people like father whom were caught fleeing the Russian advance.

For those of you whom do not know of what life was like during the Cold War:

• There was no internet nor its abundant supply of information available
• Most of the documents captured by the Soviets were held until just recently.
• Britain and Canada sealed their repatronization files and are still not available.
• The Red Cross lost most of its European documents in the bombings.
• Even the Lutheran Church's records were sparse beyond just names of people and towns.

So, it was very hard to mine the information about father, except for what he was willing to talk about.  And, talk he did but on things he should have had NO knowledge of.

Which brings us to the point that he must have been able to gain a great deal of knowledge during his internment years from first hand witnesses.

Case in point is knowledge of Breslau.  This an old German city in what is now Wroclaw, Poland.  Father decided that this was the city of his birth - since he was able to learn of the destruction of both the University and the city hall (along with all records).  This allowed him to begin to fabricate a new identity.  You have to remember he was still convinced that he would be turned over to the Americans and executed.  And Poland did not exist back then.  So, safety for him - with a story which could never be verified.

Someone in either the British or the Canadian camp had to have been from Breslau.  Someone whom was released early on and someone whose identity father then stole.  This will come up again much later and you will find what happened about as appalling as I.

Also amongst this crowd were some number of SS troops whom were in hiding.  Unknown to most Americans, SS troops were executed without trial by the Americans under the direct orders of then General Eisenhower.  Were it not for the eventual Canadian protests before the League of Nations, no SS staff would have ever survived their capture.  I am not arguing what Eisenhower did was "wrong" - the SS were a brutal group whom took life lightly and had dedicated their lives to the Fuhrer - in fact, many did not surrender and continued the fight into 1957!  But, it would still be nice to have a trial so guilt could first be established, and then execute them.  More on this later as well.

So father learned all of the SS trivia, all of the songs, all of the stories of what had been going on.  Some of this had a great impact on father - he had after all stumbled upon the remains of his old posting involving Nordhausen and Mittelbau-Dora/Buchenwald concentration camps.  He learned about the cold winters outside of Leningrad and the building by building siege and battles.  And what worked or did not work in German armament during those long Russian winters.   All of this began to form the background of his new identity.

He also learned, from those fleeing from the east, the existence of the Soviet execution squads whom were patrolling and executing those found in the area to the east of the Elbe River.  I really do not believe he had encountered these patrols since his three friends never told similar stories.  So, again, gaining information to help with his new identity.

And all of this knowledge not only laid a groundwork to hide his true identity but also was to become his own truth.  As later in life he could no longer remember which story he had told to whom or even what was actually true ...

There was one other population group in the camp, they had been there since before the British had liberated the camp - they were the Jews whom had been rounded up from elsewhere in Germany.  One of them was to soon be his bride.....

Internment

Internment was not at just one camp for the little group of teenagers, they were split up - each sent to a separate camp in the Hamburg region.  I know that it would be six years before the four of them would be together again.  And even then, conversations were still very guarded and switching between the various German dialects was performed based upon whom was near - for the rest of their lives!

Wöbbelin, when liberated.

Father was sent to Wöbbelin, a part of the Neuengamme complex, an ex-Nazi concentration camp. For father, camp life was very hard.  He was in poor health by the time of his surrender and were it not for the care of a "foster mother" probably would not have made it.  Her name was Irma and I was to know her as one of my aunts.  I will write more on her and her family later on, an interesting rabbit trail.

There was little food provided for those in the repatronization camps.  I doubt there was much in the way of food for the troops guarding them either!  So, there was great incentive for those able to, to work.  The local farmers were contacted by the British to see if any of them would be willing to hire the inmates during the day.  Father was sent to a potato farm to work in the fields with three others.

Father cutting firewood in the Buchholz area.

He was transported each day with another inmate of some stature, Curt Jurgens (in English).  Jurgens had a daily radio program he did and the potato farm was on the way to the radio station.  Father was angry that Jurgens did not have to labor and was given better rations than everyone else.  Jurgens also was not housed with the rest of the inmates.  So, it seems there was a bit of a class warfare problem the British, in their typical fashion, managed to create.

Of course, being a prisoner, and given a little freedom, you will seek other opportunities.  Father was a very good swimmer and loved to dive.  The farm owners of the area all capitalized on this and used him (when the British guards were not around) to retrieve their firearms they had sunk in septic tanks, sewers, ponds and lakes back during the firearms confiscation of 1936.  And they paid him very well.  Farther quickly managed to amass several thousand in new German Marks this way!  With some of those diving tales, I am amazed he survived or was not covered in some form of weird hideous skin disease!

Father remained in the camp for a year.  His release was only due to the release of Irma - when her husband came to claim her.  He had been in an African POW Camp since the surrender of Rommel's army.  I am not sure how well Fritz welcomed the idea of having a teenager, but he was a life long uncle to me and must have accepted the situation with grace and dignity.

A British Interrogation

I have shamelessly borrowed the following testimony of a British Interrogation at the Neuengamme Displaced Person's Camp, from www.dpcamps.org.  My father's new home at Wöbbelin, was part of the Neuengamme Prison complex.

For those of you whom are unfamiliar with this subject, American and British forces were ill prepared for what they encountered when they came upon the first concentration camps in Germany.  Their repulsion and anger should be considered only normal to any human being.  What happened in these camps is without excuse - both before and after the war.....

*****

Subject: British screening centre, the internment camp Neuengamme

I translated this a while back it is worth noting. ANTOH schlega.a@kabelmail.de

Heinz Harenberg, und Rudolf Heinz Beher –

“German Army Cossacks - II Battalion Bergmann“ - A translation from: ‚Freiwilige vom Kaukasus’

One day in a British screening centre, the camp administration announced the dismissal of everyone owning an heavy goods driving licence, and were from the Hamburg area. They were needed to clear away debris, etc. Accordingly, our comrade reported himself for the task and was summoned to the camp management.

Jews wearing the British uniform sat waiting for him in the office. He was asked for his Service and Identification book (Soldbuch). An officer spoke good German, and leafed through a thick book. 

Suddenly this Officer pulled a whistle out of his pocket and blew in it loudly. Two soldiers with machineguns (Sten’s) at the ready stormed into the room.

Then everything happened very quickly. Hands up! 

He was taken to be jailed in the nearby village fire station.

There he was met by another two British Army Officers, and a physician.

Our comrade, a corporal, wearing the tropical uniform, already a prisoner seem to make them curious. When the door closed and they were alone, one of the Officers took our friend aside and wanted to know why and how he, a corporal was arrested.

After explaining ‘Bergmann’ etc. This Officer gave our man a tip; to immediately destroy his service book and say at the next interrogation that he was found without identification papers in the camp, and this was the reason for his imprisonment.

After three hours passed, a German Paymaster, two SS Officers, and a Captain, were locked up with him. 

That afternoon, the door of the fire station opened, and four British Soldiers with Sten guns were standing outside. They commanded: “Hands up, and come outside!”  

The men were told to sit in the back of a Land Rover, and were driven away.

Where? They couldn’t tell? A tarpaulin cover blocked their sight, and three British Soldiers pointing their Sten’s, accompanied them. In the midst of an open road the vehicle stopped.

Then they were commanded to surrender all their valuables and money they had on them.

One of the SS Officer’s resisted the order with a determined No! 

He was told to dismount. And all feared for the worst.

This Officer was relived of all his valuables with force.

The journey continued, and through a gab in the tarpaulin they could see they were in city of Hamburg, but damn it, the vehicle didn’t stop. It drove on. They wondered where they were going? Where they being taken to the Russians? What a frightening thought. 
Conversation was strictly forbidden, and a depressing atmosphere arose.

An hour's drive later they stopped.

Shrill commands of unintelligible speech, and a spotlight glared on the vehicle as they dismounted. All around them they saw Barbed wire.

Rifle butts rammed their backs, driving them on like cattle, then singled out for interrogation. 

ing could be seen. Only a bright spotlight, and the questions came in broken German.

Where? Which unit? In which countries did you serve?

Suddenly a sharp pain was felt in our comrades back, and again the same questions were repeated.

His answer was always the same, “I was found in the prison camp with no identification papers. My last unit was Kraftfahrabteilung 10 Hamburg.” (Transport Company 10, Hamburg.) 

Then more blows. Then a roar, "You SS pig! You’ll hang!" 

Afterwards, solitary confinement. A dark room with a concrete floor, and wearing only light tropical uniform.

Every hour or so, he was dragged back out in the spotlight. The same questions, with the same answers. Again and again, solitary confinement, and darkness.

Approximately 3-4 days the same torture continued, and nothing to eat.

Although the torturers did not believe our comrade, finally they gave up and went away.

He was taken into the POW community. Thousands of soldiers and civilians in huge wooden huts with concrete floors.

Neuengamme

Now they could talk, but only softly so no supervisor could hear them. He found out that he was now in the former Neuengamme concentration camp, close to Hamburg.

Every day there was food. A few pieces of turnip swimming in hot water, served in mess tins. with a fist sized piece of bread, half of it mouldy. At morning roll call, which always lasted about three hours until they were all accounted for, they were told that mould was healthy for them.

The Electric Fence

Those who collapsed from weakness, or showed signs of a cold, were placed between two narrow electrified barbed wire fences. Those who fell, died. 

In the evenings they were locked up in the barracks by 6 pm.

Large bins were placed around the rooms where they had to do their necessities. It didn’t take long for them to fill and spill over. Then they had to lie in the faeces, all through the night. A savage stench of sewer soon filled the rooms.

Again and again, they were taken for interrogation. And, again and again, they were returned to the stinking mass piles. 

During the day they were allowed only to walk in the yard surrounded by barb wire, though only in silence,. 

Those who cracked up, ran against the wire and were immediately fried. Prisoners were constantly shoving barrows, wheeling away the corpses. 

Our comrades neighbour, a young raw recruit from Munich had only seen four weeks of service, 190 cm tall, caught tuberculosis in his lung and died.

Cripples with one arm, or one leg, the elderly, soldiers of every genre, they was all there, packed together. 

Our comrade was subdued to this drama for about four and a half months, then it was all over.

He was dismissed without a penny. But before leaving he had to sign an agreement that he would not testify about his experience in the screening centre, Camp "Neuengamme.”

Finally he found his freedom. But there is always the fear of re-incarceration, and with this comes a great silence.

Prisioner of War

Fühlsbüttel

It was south of Hamburg, in the Elbe River, where a British patrol intercepted father and his co-workers.  The little team was first taken to Fühlsbüttel, an ex-concentration camp.  Father and his team were not held as POW's for very long.  It did not take much interrogation for them to figure out that what they had on their hands were some very hungry teenagers, all of superior intelligence and scared beyond belief of the Americans.

From what I can piece together, they managed not to divulge their roles or knowledge of German weaponry.  And thinking about it, why would some scrawny youths have even been suspected of having designed the most terrifying weapons of the war!  Theirs was the tale of college students fleeing the bombing of Dresden and their long walk to Hamburg.  With the destruction of Dresden, so went the University records and naturally they knew they could bluff anyone on that account.

The British, satisfied they were dealing with non-combatants, transferred the youth to an various ex-concentration camps in the region outside of Hamburg.  These camps were used for the repatronization of undocumented Germans, which of course father and the team were considered.  Father was sent to a camp named Wöbbelin and from this camp, came some very interesting changes in my father's life.....

The War Years

Here father's life becomes rather murky.  I know my father's graduate studies in mathematics were through the University of Hamburg, as his doctorate before war's end was from there.  I know he worked on the theoretical mathematics for Heisenberg's atomic bomb project - as most of his post war life was based on this.  I know he also spent some amount of time on the V-3 (A-9) rocket program - as Werner Von Braun was a family friend and I knew him well.  Plus, three of father's team, from the war, were to be life-long friends of his.

Father was no longer associated with Heisenberg, by the time the German atomic stockpile had been captured - along with some staff.  In fact, father believed Heisenberg dead!  It was the greatest shock for him to learn that Heisenberg was indeed still alive and teaching in Munich many decades later!  And interestingly, father never contacted him that I am aware of, which you might think he would have done, being his old professor and all!

Father also managed to miss the capture of the V-2 rocket program by the American's, when an advance group of was rushed to Nordhausen to beat the Russians there (Operation Crossbow).  Also absent from Nordhausen, at the time, were the three others, whom with father, were to later be captured as a group.  But, I am getting ahead of myself.  So, although they had experience with the V-2, this group was more versed in the V-3 (A-9) program and I grew up with the tales of the ultimate rocket (the A-9) and their befuddlement as to what could have happened to it.

(Side Note:
The V-3 (A-9) had been mounted on a barge and was towed at night around Denmark, through the English Channel and was to be launched off the Irish coast - with the east coast of North America the target.  Think Washington DC or New York City the hoped for target.  The sub towing the barge, the barge and the rocket simply disappeared into history.  In the early 1990's I ran across a pilot's journal entry, whom was returning to England with a hung bomb.  They managed to "kick" it loose over what they calculated was the English Channel for safety reasons.  What followed was a massive explosion.  There was no reported loss of Allied shipping, in or around Le Havre.  So, could that bomb have hit the only V-3 (A-9) and been its demise?  Interesting thought.....)

Father, and his group, had been in Dresden at the time on leave - just in time to enjoy the American and British firebombing on day one and then strafing of civilians on day two.  No matter how you try to argue it, the Allies set out to annihilate one of Germany's oldest and largely unprotected cities.  (I will not get on my soapbox and spare you my Dresden rant.)  Net result was somewhere between 135,000 and 190,000 civilians dead according to the Red Cross, about 60,000 of them refuges, having fled from the advancing Soviet Army.  That burning pile in the background is one of the hundreds of piles of burning bodies.

Entrance to Mittlebau complex.

The Russians, by this time, had advanced to within a dozen miles of the east bank of the Elbe River and would be in Dresden within the week.  Their forward observers reported back on what the British and Americans were doing.  Stalin immediately filed a complaint with the League of Nations concerning the wonton destruction of a target his army had fought so hard to attain. Father, like so many of the residences, fled on foot north, his hope was to reach Peenemünde or at least Mittlebau, the underground assembly plant for the V-1 and V-2 rockets.

Mittlebau-Dora

Dodging the fighting, Soviet patrols, etc  - they did eventually reach Mittlebau and the horror of the Reich was to be firmly etched into each of their conscience.  The SS had been very effective in executing the entire workforce.  Tens of thousands of fresh bodies lay where they had been shot, hung, etc. But, at the time he and his team thought this the revenge tactics of the Americans!

And, at some point father was to travel past a burning barn.  I can still remember verbatim his description of it and his horror at what was later described as 1,016 Jews whom had been packed in there and burned alive.  The SS final solution for the Jews whom had aided the SS in the final solution in the Mittelbau tunnels!

Nordhausen

At Nordhausen they found the camp deserted, save for the prison labor, many dead and starving.  In Peenemünde they learned of the capture of the scientists by the Americans - remember, their last encounter with American's did not go so well in Dresden.  American execution was their only belief at this point.

Faced with the Soviet Army to the East and South, the Americans also South and West, father made a command decision - seek the British or Canadians and surrender.  They eventually did surrender to the British, finding a patrol on the Elbe River near Hamburg after nine months of walking and hiding from the Russians.

Father exited the war with the rank of a Naval Captain.  I have such a hard time understanding this, as you will understand later.  Here also is the intriguing question of where did his Naval experience come in?  Why was he flown to Spitsbergen at one point?  And, what on earth were the German's doing up there?  Father had nothing to do with submarines and Spitsbergen was a U-Boat base.  Could something to do with the V-3 (A-9) rocket have been executed in Spitsbergen?  Could the rocket have barged not from Nordhausen but Spitsbergen?  There is absolutely no data to show why he would have been there save for the atomic program or the V-3 (A-9).  Another of father's mysteries I must wonder at .....

National Socalism

Father was born Swiss, his father Swiss-German (Hapsburg) and his mother Swiss-Austria/Hungary (Kyburg) parents.  So just like every other little kid on the block - he was a Swiss National in a German speaking family.  The area he grew up in was decidedly German.

Albert Plattner, center.  1937

But, unlike every other kid on the block, father was a member of the Hitler Jugend - the Nazi Youth  Movement, also known as the Kinderkorps.  Apparently, this was quite a sore point between him and his father, whom was not a German sympathizer in Germany's international problems. He had marched for Bismark and learned the futility of war in The Great War.

Father never would discuss  with me why he left home and his sisters told me that he simply ran away from home one night.  End of story.  No one knew anything else.  However, father in his highly fictional tome on his life - said that he left home when he and his father got into a fight over his political leaning and his father struck him for the first time!  (I think I shocked my aunts when I told them that should have happened years earlier in my opinion!)

It would not be hard to see how it all fell together.  Father was a closet Nazi, Germany was triumphant over the world, his math professors probably had told him of the need for his mind working with Heisenberg on Germany's ultimate weapon, and he was gone.  After, of course, a brief "discussion" with his father.

Nothing was known by his sisters or brother, of him being a Nazi; apparently this was one encounter and bit of news the father kept to himself.  What a burden that poor man must have bore to his grave!  His beloved son had run away from home to conquer the world.....

In the declining years of his life, I decided to address the issue with father on his persistent beliefs in National Socialism and directly attacked its principals and Adolf Hitler.  Oh man!  You would not have believed the reaction from that man!  He could still sing the glories of Adolf Hitler - 60 years after Hitler was dead and the Reich fallen!  According to him, any German failure was all because of those "damned meddling Americans".....

Of course, given the choice, he did surrender to the West rather than to Russia.

Narcissism

Father left an 1,100 page tome about his life for my sister and I.  It was an amazing work of fiction where his family held almost no role what so ever!  I was appalled that father could think all of his children and wives so foolish as to not remember events and intrigues.

Although it did give me some insight into him - like how he actually thought and viewed life.  Father was completely and totally self-centered.  A complete Narcissus!  I have to admit I never really understood him until I read that book and saw how he fiddled with facts and data to fit his world view.

Everything he observed, did, or was done to, was judged in accordance with how it affected him and only him.

It leaves one quite speechless.  Well at least me, because I do not view life this way at all, so it is very foreign for me to understand that some people really do think this way.

Probably the best cure is for people to learn they are not the center of the known universe - there is a higher power they are accountable to and I fear father will not fare well in that regard.

So, in studying up on narcissism, I was to learn that this is the most common form of psychopathy.  My father was a sociopath?  I had never thought of this before, but it made sense.  It explained his 8 wives and his horrible relationships with us children.  It explained his aversion to the past - he could not remember all of his lies.

And it explained something about me I had never fully understood.

Ponzi Scheme

Being aware of the legal implications of this post I will not go into details - so you will not be tempted to do, as my father figured out how to, scam credit card companies.

Father held a doctorate in mathematics which he received at 16 years of age.  Yes, he was brilliant - his IQ was documented as 195.  I only know this as the government kept really close tabs on us children, with much testing annually.  I know my IQ is only 10 points lower than his, and much higher than my sister's.  However, it was very frustrating because throughout my entire life I never could understand math.  A solid 'F' student in that most horrible of subjects.  It was not until only a few years ago I finally learned my bent was in art, not math.  Sigh.....

With father dead, someone had to go through his financial records.  My sister, whom was an accountant, could not deal with it so it fell to me.  I was stunned by the disaster I found.  Father was brilliant in math - how could he ever have created the disaster I found?

Bank accounts commonly opened and closed, dozens of credit cards and his expenses far out ran his income.  What on earth?!?!?!?!?

It took me three full weeks to understand father had created a credit card ponzi scheme.  (NO I will not tell you how he did it!)  The scheme had 16 layers to it and near as I could tell, he knew exactly what he was doing - it would take another decade before the scheme fell apart and I think he was planning on being dead by then anyway.  It completely blew me away!  Not only the fact that I could understand what he had done, but that someone could have conceived of the idea in the first place - it was brilliant!  I guess my naive honest genes came from my mother's side!

Needless to say, his entire estate was taken to resolve only a small portion of the debt he held.  As far as I know, the ponzi scheme is still running and everyone is happy.  Go figure!

However, I came home and called all of my children, pseudo-children and those I love together and told them I would personally pay for them to attend Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University - so that none of them would ever do as father had done.  Surprisingly, only two of my children, one pseudo-child and one dear friend took me up on my offer.

I attended as well and finally understood how money works - of course it was too late by then for me, I was laid off when I returned home from father's funeral.  Nothing like having your job sent to India, while you join the unemployment line.  Especially, since I finally understood how to correct my finances and in 13 months could have cleared up a lifetime of mismanagement...

The End

I had spent months planning a vacation with my father, it was to have been in May but his hospital called.  He was in ER in a coma.  I had just talked with him, only hours earlier, firming up the plans for the trip.  The doctor's suggestion, be there now.

So, through the greatest of effort I was able to arrive the next night.  My sister would be arriving the following morning.

The next day was Tuesday, and I made it to the hospital.  He was in the Critical Care Unit.  No one could actually tell me what happened other than he just started gushing blood after talking with me.  He wasn't gushing anymore: his monitors told of a failing heart, failing lungs, all of his internal organs were failing.  I left a message for my sister to come immediately to the hospital when she got off the plane.  I really did not think he had much time left.

It would have been so much easier if he could have talked.  Instead, just the sound of a respirator and clicking of an IV machine.  What can you say?  A lifetime of failed communications and denied desires to clear up, but he was not there.  The monitors continued to show the declining condition of his body for the next hour.

My sister arrived and we discussed moving him to a hospice where at least he would be well treated and perhaps even recover (you never know!).  We started to leave to go get an early lunch.

But, the nurse was about 30 seconds behind us, to tell us, he had already passed away.  They were changing his breathing tube when a massive heart attack got him.  What can you say?  At least he did not suffer the passing.....

The rest of the week was a disaster as we planned for a funeral, memorial, contacting business clients and friends.  The hardest for me was to tell his sisters, whom I love dearly, that someone whom had been their antagonist for the duration of their lives, was now gone.

Nothing about father's life was simple.
Nothing about father could be taken at face value.
Nothing about father was the truth.
And into this murky underworld of Cold War Politics, his body "disappeared"!

Had father really died?  I do not know.
Had father been taken to start a new life, with yet another name change?  I do not know.
Had father's body been taken for experimentation?  Given what the US government did to Einstein, maybe.
Had father's work rendered his body dangerous?  Could be.

Step-mother and my sister setting the wreath.

But, no matter how you looked at it, father was not whom we buried.  It sure looked like he had died though.  I was with both my grandmother and her sister when their time came.

As it was, this passing had been anticipated by him and he had taken the greatest of liberties during his final days.  Something I was to learn, not only how he thought, but how mathematics can be a very valuable tool.....