From Wesselburen to Winnipeg

 

Dad at 18 in 1936

It’s my father’s birthday. Born in Wesselburen, near the North Sea in Schleswig-Holstein back in 1918, he’d be 107 today. He passed away at 75 back in 1993. While he got to witness the collapse of the Berlin Wall, he missed out on most of my kids’ childhoods. And they, missed out on having a fun-loving Opa in their lives.  

I think my dad appreciated fun because of the not-much-fun years. He joined the German Luftwaffe at 18, back in 1936. The small-town boy had witnessed his bedridden father die (possibly from a morphine overdose?) after lingering Great War wounds, the previous year. 

Young Robert was no doubt eager to leave the poverty and depression at home for the excitement and status of being a pilot in Hermann Göring’s Luftwaffe.  I know one perk was that he got to watch the diving competition during the Berlin Olympics back in 1936.  He ended up crashing a plane he was piloting, killing all 17 paratroopers on board.  After a lengthy recovery he was re-instated into the Military Police on the eastern front. That ended with five years in Soviet custody near Moscow and the collapse of his first marriage along with the death of his two sons.

Eighteen years later, I became the firstborn of his new family here in Winnipeg. 

Happy 107, Dad. It would be great to share a coffee and some Königskuchen with you today! I've got so many questions I'd like to ask you. I'm finally ready to listen to the stories about the old days. I think our world needs to remember those days ... now, more than ever!

My oldest daughter with her opa 
1987

Silent Mysteries

I grew up in a house with different kinds of silence. I won’t call them all secrets, because some were born of ignorance and not deliberate. My mom’s family past, for example, belonged to the former. She didn’t know what happened to her dad. She didn’t understand the politics of communism and then later, Nazism. She was an uneducated pawn, shuffled around for authoritarian agendas. First as a kulak child, later as a munitions worker, still later as a forced labourer. I couldn’t judge her as guilty, merely naïve.

My dad’s silences, however, were deliberate secrets. Some of these were based in guilt, others based in shame. The difference, you ask? In its simplest form, guilt is based on others’ judgment of you, while shame is a self-judgment. My dog might feel guilty because I caught him stealing the cat’s food, but he has no sense of shame. I might tell him he’s a bad dog, but all he wants is my approval. In fact, his only goal is to next time not be caught in the act. 

German soldiers talking to French women 
 Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-129-0480-25 / Boesig, Heinz / CC-BY-SA

My dad voluntarily joined the Luftwaffe when he was 18 in 1936. He participated in the invasion of France and once shared how he drank cognac in Cognac, France. That’s where I—the know-it-all, Canadian-born daughter—judged him as a guilty perpetrator of war. I didn’t want to hear more of his war exploits. So he kept quiet around me.

But he had other secrets. One included a failed first marriage and dead children. That was a silence I wish he’d broken, and a secret I wish he’d shared. It took a bit of sleuthing on my part, but now I can only pity him when I finally learned the details about that secret. That was his private shame. It’s a book I’ve been working on. Complicated . . . filled with guilt and with shame. There’s nothing like a mystery to keep me exploring and writing family history. 

Just a Car or Inter-generational Baggage?

So I bought a new car recently. It happens. Living in suburbia in Canada sort of makes a car a necessity. It’s not something I’m necessarily proud of, but in spite of living close to a bus route, driving a car has become a convenience I’m loathe to give up. I drive a car to take pets to the vet, patients to the doctor (I live with two non-drivers), and to exit the city and hang out in nature. (Okay, I drive a car for a lot of mundane things too . . . like when I’m too lazy to walk, time-conscious, or too much of a wimp to face the rain, north wind or the darkness of late nights.)  

The thing about cars is that they wear out. My little red putt-putt was starting to cost lots of money to keep on the road and so I made what I hope is a smart financial decision and got a nearly new used car . . . big enough to haul lumber to repair the broken fence, to carry my bike, tent, inflatable kayak and, of course, the dog.

public domain

I’m a happy soul. 

I had a budget and I stuck to it. Now I could have got myself a nice little German import for that price, but my dad—dead now for almost thirty years—stopped me. His resentment towards the Germany that detoured his life for fifteen years, and impacted it for a lifetime, echoed in my ears. “Why would I buy a German car? I’m not supporting that country now, I’m done with Germany.”  That country . . . the one he served through military service for nine years . . . joining the Luftwaffe in 1936 at age 18. That country . . . the one for whom he spent an additional five years in a Soviet POW camp. Why would he support that country’s car industry? And why would I? I know, it’s not a Nazi country anymore and yet . . . VW was created in May of 1937. It was to be the people's car and employees had automatic withdrawals from their pay checks to fund this national endeavour. But then Hitler decided to have a war instead.

In my father's memory, I don’t buy German cars. It’s funny how I still hear his voice and feel his influence all these years later. Germans might have a reputation for making good cars, but they’ll forever carry a tainted history . . . at least in my driveway.

Poppies for Father's Day

My dad painted this still life of poppies back in 1954, the year after arriving in Canada . . . the year I was born. I’m hoping to someday recreate this painting with a real-life photograph. I’ve got a couple of poppy plants growing in the garden . . . but haven’t been graced with seven beautiful blossoms—not yet. 

Every six years I get to share my birthday with Father’s Day and it’s a great way to remember my dad. He’d turn 101 this year if he was still around, but he died twenty-six years ago. I can easily remember how long he’s been gone, because my youngest was still a babe in arms. He was a great grandpa . . . but for too short a time. 

Instead, Dad was many other things. Short, humble, funny, tough. He could fix anything. Being my dad was only one of his many roles. Now as I get older I’m beginning to appreciate the complexities of the man I called Papi. 

He was eighteen when he joined the Luftwaffe. Twenty when he married his first wife. Two children soon followed, but neither the marriage or the two boys survived the war.  

There was a plane crash. There were five years in a Soviet prisoner of war camp outside of Moscow. There was the home-coming to a home that no longer existed.  There was the divorce. 

Then there was my mom . . . a new wife. Soon after that, a ship to a new country. New children. New job. He was a busy man. And yet . . . he had time to paint poppies, to read fat books (which I’m trying to read). He had time to grow tomatoes, to go fishing and boating. He had time to not just buy a cottage, but to build a cottage, and even, to decorate the mocha tortes he was famous for.  

This was my father. Happy Father’s Day. For you, I grow the poppies.