From School to War: Growing Up in Hitler’s Germany (Contemporary Nonfiction)

by Wolf Dettbarn

  It was also very difficult for him to adjust because my mother had learned to become so independent. Before he had been the man of the house and the provider, while my mother was a traditional housewife. Now he had to adapt to a new world, where my mother was the main provider.

  My mother tried her best to make it as easy as possible for him to reconnect with his new world. For example, my father could stay in bed as long as he wanted, and he enjoyed my mother’s delicious home-cooked food after ten years of prison rations. He also loved walking around town, meeting old friends, and hunting in the forest. Since he no longer had to work, he took it easy and lived another ten years.

  I found it hard to relate to my father at first, because he seemed so distant, due to his terrible experience in a prison camp in Sverdlovsk. This was not his first experience as a prisoner of war, for he had been in a prison camp for a few years after World War I. When I asked him what had happened in Russia, he compared his experience in the Russian camp after WWII to the English POW camp he had been in after World War I. Since the previous camp was in England, and my father spoke English, this made his life easier. Also, the English were much kinder to the prisoners than the Russians, and they fed and housed the prisoners decently. Incredibly, he met fellow prisoners from the English camp in the Russian camp! But he said little about the Russian camp, since he wanted to put the experience out of his mind. Instead, he told me briefly, “We endured very harsh conditions, including extreme cold.”

  He didn’t go into detail, but he did tell me that the Russians put stones in a bag and made the prisoners march around the camp with the stones on their backs. They also had to carry bricks on their backs up a ladder at building projects. Otherwise he said almost nothing about his experiences, because they were too painful. My mother and I knew when he got out that his health was poor, and he was not strong. The weekly postcards he sent to my mother while he was gone had revealed almost nothing about life in the camp, as the cards were heavily censored, so we had no idea what to expect when he returned.

  Maria, Erwin, and Wolf Dettbarn, circa 1958.

  Still, I did what I could to reconnect with him by taking some trips to see the sites of battles in which he had fought during World War I. We went to Verdun, in the Lorraine valley in northeast France, where Germany had lost to the French. We also visited Duamont in the Lorraine, which was the scene of another German defeat by the French.

  My father loved going on these trips, because he was very anxious to revisit his past. On our trip to Verdun, only a few years after World War II, as we walked somberly by the iron crosses marking the graves of the soldiers, he told our guide, “My brother died at Verdun.”

  When we saw my uncle’s grave, my father was visibly moved, tears welling up in his eyes, and he told the guide, “I’m so grateful to the French for allowing these graves to remain.”

  The guide agreed, replying, “Those who think that all the enemy are swine have not met any enemies personally. There are good and bad in every situation.”

  After visiting these old battle sites, we visited the Alsace and other tourist sites. We visited Colmar, the Venice of the Alsace with its many canals, and explored all the picturesque villages in the area.

  These trips were a bonding experience for my father and me, since I had been little more than a child when he left for the war. Then one day my father asked me, “Are you still glad you made the decision to be a doctor?”

  “Of course,” I replied. “I am.”

  “I’m so glad you chose this path rather than a military one,” he said. “Being in the military is so difficult and dangerous.”

  After that, my father repeatedly told me how proud he was that I attained my goal of becoming a doctor. “I’m so proud of all you have done. I know you will be a good doctor. You’re kind and perceptive. And you are very committed to your work. So you will be very successful.”

  One day my father and I went to visit a replica of a Greek temple in the mountains surrounding Eschwege. As we walked to the temple, I was impressed by the majesty of its white marble columns and pyramid-shaped top that shot up through the clouds into the sky. I could imagine the Greek heroes of the ancient myths driving their chariots with winged horses high above the temple.

  As we walked closer to the temple, my father pointed out a saying engraved on one of the stones at the foot of a column. It was a quote from Goethe, which said,

  Never forget this.

  Noble be man,

  Helpful and good!

  For that alone

  Sets him apart

  From every other creature

  On earth.

  The quote impressed me. It made me think of how, despite the horrors of the war years, people had come back together to create a new society. Ironically, this was a quote on a Greek temple by a well-known German writer. But the juxtaposition of the two cultures made me see, even more, how humans rose out of the conflict to become even better, like a phoenix rising from the ashes to create new life.

  At home, my father often got together with friends from before the war. The men hunted, played cards, and had beer in the evenings where they discussed ways to help the city of Eschwege improve and thrive. He was greatly admired in our community too. People greeted him on the streets, shook his hand, and asked for advice on personal and municipal matters.

  My father was praised for his bravery during the war, because he had taken great risks and lived by his conscience, which sometimes got him in trouble with his superiors. But after the war people appreciated his actions. For example, when his commander ordered him to lead men into a battle in Russia, he refused because he knew it would end in a blood bath for his men.

  “I won’t do it,” he told his commander. “We don’t have enough men or weapons for this, and the Russians have much better arms.” But his commander wasn’t interested in his resistance, only in his taking orders, whatever they were. As a result, his commander told him, “You’re being demoted.”

  Fortunately, that’s all his commander did, because the penalty for disobeying an order from a superior officer could have been much worse. My father could have been sentenced to death. But his friends with whom he had risen in his military career rallied to his side, telling the judges that they would be judged by their actions too. As a result, their support protected him from the ultimate punishment of being thrown into the stockade for several weeks, months, or years. I’m not sure of the exact penalty, but he was still a colonel when he returned from the prison camp, and he was glad that he no longer had to take an active part in a war he hated.

  My father died in 1965. He and my mother had ten happy years, traveling and spending time with family and friends. My father deferred to my mother in most family decisions, a big change from before the war, and he seemed happy to relinquish the reins, for he was now very tired and just wanted to relax.

  Meanwhile, my father’s two sisters remained by choice in East Germany, where they both became teachers and remained unmarried. But they were able to visit my parents on a regular basis, since at this time there was no wall between the two Germanys.

  Chapter 13

  Becoming a Scientist

  I had always wanted to be a physician, but after these years of clinical work I decided to turn my interests toward research in basic science. My experiences with clinical work, especially seeing the death of a child, led me to research as my career. In addition, I was excited by seeking to discover the unknown. I felt that research would involve my creativity more and that something new would be lurking behind every experiment. At the time, I had done little research and was not sure what aspect of basic science I would like to pursue, but I was still convinced this was the path for me. My experiences in the next few years led me to be sure that this would be my lifelong career.

  In 1954, I completed my residency. One of my professors at Göttingen knew some researchers at Ciba Pharmaceuticals in Basel, Switzerland. He thought that I would benefit from working in a pharmace
utical lab and that the lab would gain from my fresh outlook and creativity. So I packed my bags and headed for Switzerland.

  Basel is a beautiful medieval city, known for its dedication to the arts over many centuries. For me, it was a revelation. Not only was the work life-changing, the gray pall of destruction that hung over Germany after the war was not visible here. Switzerland was neutral and had suffered no damage.

  I plunged right into work at the lab, where I learned the basics of research and learned to be a scientist. The other scientists and lab techs trained me in the techniques of basic scientific research, since at that time I was unfamiliar with many of the instruments and necessary procedures.

  One of my first assignments was studying the changes of potassium and sodium in the blood of dogs to determine what factors caused the changes. This was new work for me, and I found it fascinating and exhilarating, which further assured me that I had chosen the right path. What I learned at Ciba formed the basis for all my future studies.

  Basel was a great experience after leaving war-ravaged Germany. It is located on the Rhine River, where Switzerland, Germany, and France meet. Its main language is Swiss German, but many residents speak French and Italian, the other official languages of Switzerland. Besides the many cultural benefits, the food (always central to my life) was abundant, unlike the privations people experienced in war-ravaged Germany and even during the postwar period.

  My work left me a lot of time to investigate the city. My new colleagues kindly showed me around, and we visited art museums, theaters, and music venues. I especially enjoyed visiting the Museum of the Arts, which has the world’s oldest art collection open to the public, and it is the home of many paintings rescued by or sold to the Swiss to save them from the Nazis. As I learned from my visits, many Jewish art dealers in Germany sold their collections to the Swiss because they knew their collections would be confiscated by the Nazis, so the provenance of much of the art from that period is unknown. Although these questions weren’t raised when I studied in Basel, there are still questions about whether some of the art in the museum was obtained legally.

  I also enjoyed being in Basel because of its long academic tradition. The great Dutch theologian Erasmus, who lived from 1466 to 1536, lived, taught, and is buried there, and much of his work is in the university archives. Frederich Nietzche, the German philosopher, lived and died there in 1900.

  While I was at Ciba, I became good friends with another young scientist who also worked there, Fridolin Sulser, who was studying hypertension, and he was largely responsible for my later coming to Vanderbilt University. He and his wife Johanna lived a short distance away here in Nashville until his recent death.

  In 1955, after I spent a year in Switzerland, I received a letter from a Swiss friend at the Physiological Institute at the University of the Saarland in Homburg, Saar, who suggested I join him in his research at the university. I quickly accepted and headed to the Saarland, which is located in southwest Germany, on the border of France and Luxembourg.

  Named for the River Saar, which flows through it, the Saarland is an area with a conflict-filled past. Since it was rich in coal and a major mining area, it was very desirable land. After the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, the area was placed under the control of France and the League of Nations. But since the population was mostly German, Hitler initiated a plebiscite in 1935 to return the Saarland to Germany. Not surprisingly, 90.8 percent of the mostly German population voted to rejoin Germany. After Germany lost the war, the area came under the protection of France. In 1948, the French established the University of the Saarland, the first truly international university, though the majority of the students spoke French or German, and arranged for the school to be affiliated with the French University of Nancy. The Saarland thereafter remained under French control, until France returned it to Germany in 1957. Now it is the smallest of Germany’s sixteen federal states and its largest city is Saarbrücken.

  A friend of Fridolin Sulser wanted me to join in his research into isolated nerve fibers (how nerves function in the brain and its periphery). He invited me to work with him, since his professor was impressed by my research at Ciba, and the professors and doctors with whom I had worked sent positive references and letters of recommendation.

  Thus, I became an assistant to Professor Stämpfli, a Swiss scientist, who was already well-known for his work with single nerve fibers in the brains of frogs. He gained this wide recognition when he worked with Professor Huxley from Cambridge University and discovered that an active nerve fiber in the brain, when stimulated, jumped from one node to another—one of the most important discoveries of that era. Professor Stämpfli also worked with the effects of potassium and sodium on the brain, as I had done at Ciba. Because of the “jumping nerves,” all of us called Professor Stämpfli “Professor Sprüngli,” which means “jumper” in Switzerland. Dr. Stämpfli knew very well what we called him and was not amused.

  In 1958, I published my first paper with Professor Sprüngli on brain functioning. Then, while I was in the Saarland, I received an invitation to go to Columbia University in New York. And so I left Homburg, on the outskirts of Saarbrücken, in 1958 and began a new chapter in my life.

  Chapter 14

  New York and Columbia University

  I was delighted to receive the letter from Columbia University in New York City inviting me to work in the Department of Neurology in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and I immediately accepted. Not only was Columbia one of the most prestigious universities worldwide, but I had always wanted to go to New York and see the world. I felt having my first venture away from Europe in New York was like a lucky gift from providence.

  Though I felt drawn to New York, so many things were unknown. I assumed my stay in New York would be temporary. I had no idea if I would like the United States or the city. I also did not know Dr. Nachmansohn, who had invited me to join his faculty. Yet, while so much was uncertain, I was excited and eager to start a new chapter in my life.

  Before I left, I packed minimally, since I didn’t think I’d stay permanently, and I had few belongings. I felt very sad saying good-bye to my mother and father; I was now their only child after my brother was killed during the war. I also felt sad because my father had finally returned from ten years in a Russian military prison camp in 1955, and over the past three years we had just begun to get reacquainted. Fortunately, my mother’s sister, mother, niece, and nephew lived close by, so my parents would not be alone. Still, it was a blow to them when I left. My mother was angry that I planned to leave her and my father but my father encouraged me to go. He said, “This is the opportunity of a lifetime. If you say no, who knows if such a chance will arise again?”

  As I prepared to leave, I thought about how I had just reconnected with my father, and how we had started spending so much time together after he returned from the prison camp only for me to leave him again so soon. Especially memorable were our trips to France, which I described earlier.

  As much as I looked forward to going to New York, saying good-bye made me feel regretful about everything and everyone I was leaving. It was not only hard leaving my mother, but heartbreaking leaving my father even though my parents encouraged me to go to advance my career.

  As a parting gift, I bought my father a German pointer dog, as he was an ardent hunter. Though I didn’t hunt, he hunted alone or with friends and I felt giving him the dog was a way to show him my continued love and support because this sport was so important to him.

  We named the dog Falco. Though this was the name on his pedigree, we all liked the name and felt it suited my father. The breed, a German pointer, was characterized by being strong and loyal, as was my father. Everyone in the family loved Falco so much that, as family legend has it, my cousin Barbara would not agree to marry her boyfriend Peter until she saw if Falco liked him. Falco did, nuzzling Peter and wagging his tail, so the marriage could proceed.

  In fact, Falco was still alive when I left for Ne
w York, and I missed him along with the many family members and friends I was leaving. But unfortunately three years later, as I learned in a letter from my mother, Falco ran out in front of a car. For me, it was like losing a family member; I still have his picture in my study, along with pictures of the rest of the family. As I left for New York, I thought of all the things I had not asked my father. He wouldn’t talk about the prison camp and said little of his days fighting. I don’t know if he would have talked about the atrocities in and out of the concentration camps. I was reluctant to press him; he’d been through so much and I did not want to upset him. So I have been left to regret the things left unsaid and wonder what his true opinions were. These thoughts still occupy me.

  Maria and Erwin Dettbarn, and Falco, early 1960s.

  Sitting in the garden outside the prison, Oma Conrady (left) and Opa Conrady (right).

  An Emigrant to America

  In the fall of 1958, I was ready for the long trip to America. I took a train to Cannes, one of the great summer resorts in the world, best known for its film festival, which began in 1946, and its luxurious hotels and restaurants. There I boarded an American ocean liner for the voyage to New York.

  As I soon discovered, most of the passengers were travel groups from America who had visited Europe on vacation. I spent many hours with them, as they introduced me to what American life would be like when I arrived in New York. Most were middle-aged couples and women and families with children, though I met one younger single woman, Jemma, in her twenties. I danced with her in the evenings in the ship’s ballroom.