Ah, Bloggette, my dearest... I did promise a second installment on this topic, so here it is.
When we last spoke of the topic, the Baronial family was facing the onset of World War II. Franz IV. was conscripted into the regular German army, the Wehrmacht, in 1940 and immediately saw action. His tour of duty, which lasted until the German surrender on 8 May 1945. During that time, he saw active duty in Poland and Russia, and was among those trapped in a pincer movement outside Stalingrad during the legendary Battle of Stalingrad. It was there he earned an Iron Cross for extreme bravery, as a tank commander. At one point, when the Russian army had completely cut off all lines of communication and supply, Franz IV. commandeered a military off-road vehicle (my, how hard I tried not to use the word "Jeep" here, even though it was something of that order) and managed to singlehandedly drive it through the Russian lines under the tank cannons and reestablish a link with the main army.
Franz was wounded often, and several times life-threateningly, mainly through mortar shell fragments. One of these at one point struck him in his neck and pierced his jugular. Franz's tank driver saved his life by placing his thumb on the spurting hole and quickly driving their tank directly into the field hospital, or Lazarett. As it was a field hospital under fire, there was no cosmetic or fancy surgery available; Franz was sewn up with the metal shard lodged in his jugular, and sent on his merry way. Until he died, we never ate anything really hot or terribly cold, as it would set his fragment "tingling," which he did not enjoy and therefore ice cream was a rare treat, just as "steaming hot soup," as my grandmother on Mother's side, Edith preferred it be served, was also something we didn't see too often.
Peter, a few years younger than Franz, desperately wanted to emulate his older brother and join the army. As he was Mutti's Nest- haekchen, her baby as we would say, the topic was not popular. But eventually conscription time came, and Peter enlisted. His brother's rapid rise to commissioned officer in mind, Peter sought to shorten his own "stellar rise." Unfortunately, he chose to do so by enlisting in the Partei and joined the nefarious NSDAP to advance his career. Sadly, it ended it very quickly - he fell at the Battle of Monte Cassino, Italy, in March 1944. I'm sure there's a moral in there somewhere, but...
Peter's death was the one major heartache and pain his mother, Elli, never really recovered from, as you'll learn a little later in this blog. Both Fritz and Elli made "pilgrimages" to his grave site for many years.
Franz IV. meanwhile managed to elude capture by the Russian army. As the end of fighting, he and a comrade made their way back to Germany. They walked for miles, and once over the border in Poland, managed to catch sporadic train service along parts of their long trek back to ruined Berlin. At one point, starved and thirsty, Franz and his comrade saw a slice of bread in a gutter. They picked it up and, instead of fighting, split it. Franz told me once that it was, to his near-delirious state of mind then, the most delicious thing he had ever tasted, dirt and all.
When they reached the Elbe, others heading in the same direction told them that the Russian army was hooting German officers on sight and nt asking any questions, either beforehand or afterwards. Franz pulled all insignia off his uniforms and through them, along with his medals and decorations for valor, into the mighty river, and thus was likely saved from summary execution.
Upon his return, home looked very different to Franz. More than 90 percent of all of Berlin's structures were either totally destroyed and uninhabitable or nearly so. It was uncommon for people to live in their former flats with one or more walls entirely missing or open to the elements. Fortunately, Glasowerstrasse 27 suffered no direct hits from the fierce bombardment during the final days before capitulation, save for one incendiary bomb which had fallen into the third floor laundry room through an open skylight and failed to detonate. The iron foundry next door, however, had not been so lucky. It had been the target of a number of attacks, but was operable except for needing a new roof.
Fritz and Franz set about returning the family business to operating condition and sorting out what to do about numerous ruined family properties jointly owned with various relatives. Elli's family had invested heavily in Berlin Mietskasernen or rental apartment blocks, most of which had been severely damaged or wholly annihilated. All the little comforts of life we normally take for granted, such as electricity, gas, water and sewerage service were only available for short periods of time or not at all.
The question of "what's next" was on everyone's lips and Berliners no less were anxious about their fate than any other Germans. Food was in short supply, and those families with a roof over their heads were required to take in those who had been bombed out. Glasowerstrasse 27, with its plentiful bedrooms, was no exception, and so two refugee families were billeted in the house, which was divided into three large apartments. Our family moved to the ground floor, where dining room, music salon, Gartensaal, the Herrenzimmer (my grandfather's imposing study, at left above)) and the Turmzimmer (Tower Room, at right) were primitively converted into sleeping and living quarters for Fritz, Franz, Elli and Frieda, Fritz's dowager mother. Like many old turn of the century homes, the house had but one large bathroom on the second floor, so that was shared by all three families until Fritz managed to find materials with which to build a second toilet under the stairs on the ground floor and a bathtub could be installed in the cavernous old kitchen next to it.
One day not too long after the end of the war, Elli came into the study with a sheaf of papers that were deeds or shares in the various properties the family owned in and around Berlin. She asked her two men what they should do about them, and Fritz shrugged his shoulders and deferred to Franz. Franz, in what would someday become evident as possibly one of the biggest mistakes in his young life, told his mother that he knew his cousin Georg was taking charge of the shares and interests held by Elli's two sisters, Clara and Alice, and that he didn't want to get in Georg's hair about "a bunch of ruins," that he thought she should just sign them over to Georg. Fritz agreed, with the exception of the family's newest acquisition, a large plot of land with a log cabin on it close to the old co-op house owned by all of the sisters in Bad Saarow on the shores of the Scharmuetzelsee lake (see Part 1 for picture). As Fritz had purchased this large new lot in 1938 and wanted to be able to enjoy the idyllic lake or possibly even build a house there, depending on the future, he insisted that deed be kept.
Business at the foundry was just getting started. Obstacles to a full and speedy recovery were many. Russian troops frequently marched all over the city and "secured" things they deemed good to have or send back home as "informal reparations." One day, Franz heard clanking noises in the courtyard of the foundry and went to investigate. He found a small detachment of Russian soldiers busily dismounting the engines from the company's two pre-war Dodge trucks. When the "technicians" saw him, a number of threats were shouted in Russian, but the most understandable of all was the cocking of numerous rifles, which made their intention perfectly understandable. Luckily, Franz trusted his instincts and quickly withdrew, leaving the troops to send the two Dodge engines back to Russia with the millions of other illegally confiscated or stolen items that left Germany, Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia and all the many other nations Russians now regarded as "their domain" through those channels - to the victor go the spoils...
My great-grandmother, Frieda, also had her own run-in with the Russians. In June of 1945, she was walking from church to Glasowerstrasse 27 when she was attacked by Russian soldiers. Although already in her late 80s, she resisted, and one Russian soldier cut off her left ear, then raped her. After he was finished, several others kicked her and then the detachment moved off laughing and looking for other women to abuse and violate. According to Russian and German sources, more than 100,000 Berlin women were raped between April and June of 1945, many of them multiple times. The 2008 German film, A Woman in Berlin, is based on similar events and is truly worth viewing.
Among the numerous tests the family was yet to endure, many were rooted in the division of Germany after surrender. U.S. troops had occupied much of southern central Germany, but U.S. president Harry Truman had not allowed them to advance on Berlin to prevent clashes with Russian troops and thus further complicating an already shaky alliance with Stalin. The map at left shows the division of Germany and which country occupied what parts at that time. Ultimately, the U.S. "traded" off the entire purple shaded area with Stalin for half of Berlin, which it then split with the remaining two allies, Britain and France. This was a lucky development for Berliners, as they otherwise would have been completely cut off from the west when the Iron Curtain fell after the tenuous relationship to Russia soured and sparked the Cold War. While the decision to keep American troops from advancing was probably not the best ever made, the subsequent decision to trade off a large part of central (later East) Germany for a stake in Berlin was an inspired one, even though it did not seem so at the time and caused great consternation among the western allies and the Germans themselves. Without the trade-off, I likely would not be here writing this entry, as the future would have unfolded completely differently.
Another test still to affect the family as it did all Berliners followed in 1948. On June 24, Russian troops marched up and completely encircled what was now known as West Berlin, cutting off railway and water routes, telephone lines and blocking all access ways to the city except air routes. Berlin was located 100 miles inside the Soviet occupation zone, and most food for the city was produced in the Soviet zone. When the city was blockaded, food grew scarce in no time at all. Among the many reasons for the Blockade the Russians cited was primarily that a new currency had been introduced, the Deutsche Mark without their tacit approval, and that therefor the four powers agreement sharing responsibility for the administration of the city was no longer valid. Therefore, so the Russians claimed, they were only doing what they felt was "right and just" to protect their interests from "Western imperialist aggression." The Cold War had begun in earnest.
In what turned out to be a major rethinking of the plans for Germany after the war, Americans, British and French politicians decided to abandon the so-called Morgenthau plan, which had called for all industrial capability in Germany to be completely dismantled and for the country to be transformed into a low-level agrarian society so that the would never be able to begin another war. Instead, a massive airlift was begun, with American and British military planes flying 646 tons of flour and wheat, 125 tons of cereal, 64 tons of fat, 109 tons of meat and fish, 180 tons of dehydrated potatoes, 180 tons of sugar, 11 tons of coffee, 19 tons of powdered milk, 5 tons of whole milk for children, 3 tons of fresh yeast for baking, 144 tons of dehydrated vegetables, 38 tons of salt and 10 tons of cheese. In total, 1,534 tons in daily to keep the city's population of over two and a half million people alive, in addition another 3,475 tons of coal and gasoline to keep the city heated and powered. Through combined use of aircraft and careful coordination, the three western allies managed to keep the necessary supplies coming in in what can best be called "conveyor belt fashion," causing the Soviets to end their futile attempt at siege by the end of May 1949. Allies continued the airlift until September of that year in order to further stabilize supply levels and lessen dependence on food procured from the Soviet-occupied zone.
After the blockade ended, life had become more stable, although it in no way approached the quality it had before the war. The refugees were still living in the upper two floors of the family home, food was still rationed all across Europe, and the foundry was in need of new products and new markets in order to provide an adequate living for the family. During his long journey home from the Russian front, my father had been fortunate to share one of the interminably long, slow railroad rides through parts of Poland where rail was still operating sporadically with a man who was a bell founder. When Franz and he got to talking, he understood that our family owned an iron foundry and told my father he should consider making bells. Franz first laughed at the idea, since all bells he had ever heard that were cast from iron had always sounded terrible, but the old foundry-man told him that there was a secret to the process, which he shared with my father. Franz wrote the formulas and tests and other information he was given by the old man in a little notebook and carried it back to Berlin, where he shared it with Fritz. Experimental casting began in 1950, and the first bells ready for sale were available shortly thereafter. With most churches in Germany having melted their bronze bells for the war effort and being unable to afford new bronze bells to replace them, the market was a hot one, and soon the foundry was busier than it had been since before the war.
In 1952, Franz was completing his interrupted studies to become an engineer at Berlin's Technical University, when he was one of a dozen students selected to go on a "fact finding" trip to the United States under the auspices of the Marshall Plan, the western allies plan to rebuild rather than dismantle Germany to provide it with economic stability so that the tragic events of after World War I which led to Hitler's rise to power would not repeat themselves. This rethinking of Germany's fate was one of the main factors that had incited the Soviets to begin the blockade. Franz and his fellow engineering students were sent on a two week journey all across the United States, an especially to Detroit, at that time the "motor capital" of the world, where most cars on the planet were being produced. Not only were the young students to be awed by the sheer immensity of the industrial plants there which were unrivaled after the destruction of most European industrial complexes during the war, but the idea was also to recruit some of these future bright minds to work there.
During their trip the bright young men were introduced to locals and treated to various entertainments and shows in their honor as well as dinners and luncheons - in short, shown traditional U.S. hospitality. One evening in Detroit was set aside for a square dance in Grosse Pointe, then one of the best sections of the city. A pretty young woman named Beth was spending a quiet evening at home when her telephone rang and a friend asked her to come down to the community center to help make the young Germans feel welcome. She declined, but by the third call, her resistance was worn down sufficiently for her to reply, "Oh, all right." She dropped her two little twin girls, age 4, off with her parents next door and went to the community center, quite sure it would be a waste of time.
Well, what can I say, dear Bloggymathingy... it was love at first sight. Beth walked in to the room, and there was Franz. Their eyes locked, bolts of pure unadulterated love flew across the room, sparks flew and... well, tune in again soon for the next installment:
The Baron is Born.
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