Hi coh2.org,
I've never told the story of my two grandfathers to this community. It's a wild tale and the way in which I discovered it is a story in itself. My mom is currently doing research and hopes to one day write a book about the crazy way in which she came into this world. She was born on April 11th, 1943, in Ludwigsburg, Germany.
I'm opening a topic here because I would like to share this story, and more importantly, I would like your help! Many members here are history buffs and historians and you guys could have great insight into many of the missing pieces, or perhaps you might have suggestions as to how I could go about learning more details. As most of you know, I've been living in Berlin for the last 10 years. My German is adequate and I could easily make a field trip to a location in Germany to do research or try to get access to some archives.
I hadn't planned to do this, but since we have this forum now, it just fits. I'll try to summarize the story as briefly as possible, and then we can talk about it and maybe flush out more of the details.
My mother, Edelgard (b. Edelgard Helga Hofmann), was born on April 11th, 1943, in the midst of World War 2 in full swing. My grandmother, Martha Brückner (b.1922), was a 20-year old "candy stripe nurse," who had met my grandfather-by-blood (I call him this because I never knew him growing up) Kurt Hofmann (b.1913), a Wehrmacht soldier, when he was injured on the front with a broken arm in 1940. He had come to the hospital in Ludwigsburg to recover. Before Kurt was called back to the front (he spent 21 months in Russia starting in October of 1940), they had fallen in love.
In July of 1942, Kurt spent a few weeks vacation in Ludwigsburg. My mother was conceived during this vist and Kurt became engaged to Martha on July 14th, 1942. Kurt returned to the war in Russia. Kurt and Martha were married "by proxy" on October 24th. I have a photo of my grandmother holding roses by herself. "By proxy" means that they were not actually in the same place. Kurt was at war and Martha was home in Ludwigsburg when they were married. My mother was born 6 months later.
Kurt, Martha and Edelgard 1944
In January of 1944, Kurt spent another short vacation in Ludwigsburg. He met his infant daughter for the first and only time. The new family made a visit to Schloss Ludwigsburg, the great yellow castle, and took many pictures. Kurt compiled the pictures into a bound book, adding poetry and watercolor paintings, even hand coloring some of the photos himself. The book expresses the love of a young couple; a handsome soldier and his beautiful bride, touring the castle grounds in peace. To look at the book now is quite odd, knowing that the world was burning in an insatiable fire all around them.
Kurt returned to the Russian front. We believe he was captured there some time in 1944 or early 1945. He was declared "Missing."
After the end of the war in May of 1945, my "grandpa" (as I knew him my whole life), Albert Kirchhoff, an American artillery soldier from Kentucky, was stationed in Ludwigsburg as part of the security force. My grandmother Martha was living there with her young daughter (my mom) in a war-torn Germany. She would go to the post office weekly to check if the status of her husband had changed, but even after a few years, Kurt was still simply listed as "Missing." She thought he had been killed. Eventually she began to date Albert, and with the encouragement from her parents who believed that there was no future for her and her daughter in Germany, she married Albert in 1948. Albert adopted Edelgard and they returned to the States two days after the marriage. Albert and Martha had a son, my uncle Ben, and raised their two children in Washington state.
We're not sure exactly when my grandmother or her family learned that Kurt had survived the war. He had spent 6 years in a Russian concentration camp. Upon learning of this story, I could only attempt to imagine what it must have felt like to return from Russia after what must have been a horrifying many years, only to find that your wife and daughter had left for America, essentially with "the enemy." If it even happened that way, we're not really sure.
In 1958, Kurt visited the Brückners (my great grandparents) and got Martha's address in Washington. There was some drama about an investigator or lawyer appearing at Martha and Albert's door in 1960. We're not exactly sure what that was all about (did it have to do with claiming a dependent on taxes? was it something about the legality of the marriage and the adoption?), but that's when my mom, now 17 years old, learned that her father-by-blood had been a German soldier, and that she had been adopted.
Similarly, I only learned that my grandfather-by-blood has been a German soldier when I was around the same age. I grew up knowing only Albert as my "grandpa." He had taught me how to make stained-glass and craft wooden trains by hand. When I was 20, I lived in Italy for a year. A friend, who spoke German, visited me, and I told him the story of my grandfather-by-blood who my mother and I had never met. We decided to go on a mission to find him. My family wasn't very helpful, as nobody wanted to stir drama between Albert and Martha. We only had a name and a location. We traveled by train from Italy to a small town in northern Germany called Oldenburg. We went to the local post office and cold-called all of the K. Hofmann listings in the phonebook. None of them knew of a long-lost daughter named Edelgard. I sat dejected, not knowing what to do. We had just traveled across many countries on our quest and had struck out completely. After a few minutes of sitting with a blank stare, I remembered that there were two spellings; "Hoffman" (the most common one) and "Hofmann" (the highly uncommon one). I rushed back to the phone book and thumbed to the listings for "K. Hofmann".
In his broken German, my friend asked on the phone, "Are you the father of Edelgard, who was born in 1943?"
The voice on the other line became defensive, "Who are you? Are you with a lawyer?"
"No no," my friend replied, "I am a friend of Jason, who is here with me. He is Edelgard's son. We only want to meet you."
After some reassurances, Kurts fears were alleviated (veterans were still being tried for war crimes), and he invited us to his house. My friend and I spent 3 days there, looking at old photo albums and listening to stories. Kurt gave me the bound book that he had made for my grandmother in 1944. He was now married to his third wife. We learned that he was an officer in the Wehrmacht, and many of the details that I have already recounted in this story. Kurt had a box of war memorabilia up in the attic, and we kept asking to see it. Eventually all of these stories about his first wife (my grandmother Martha) became too much for his current wife. She had a bit of a breakdown and insisted that we go. We never got to see what was in the box. I tried to send letters to Kurt after this meeting, but I never heard from him or saw him again. He died in Oldenburg a few years later.
I wrote most of that from memory. I could do some digging and probably find some more details (names and dates and such). I would still like to see what was in that box. I'm wondering if it got passed down, and to whom. I don't think Kurt had any other descendants other than my mom and myself, but I think he had step-children from his two other wives. How could I go about finding this stuff? How could I learn more about his experience in the war? Like where he was stationed exactly and when. I would like to find his promotion history in the Wehrmacht and learn basically any new detail about him and his duties during the war. Where would I begin?
Very interesting stuff. Will you do anything for the 70th anniversary?
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