I went shopping on Saturday to the Bookstore, Barnes and Noble to be more specific. I spent about 1 hour there and had a great time looking at all the different books. I finally selected two books. The first was a “Lion in the White House;” Teddy Roosevelt as president, and second a book titled, “German Boy, by Wolfgang W. E. Samuel.”
I started reading Deutscher Junger and could not put it down. The book is about a boy of 10 whom through his eyes we see the horror of war and realize that just because the shooting has stopped that the dying does not stop. Below are some of my favorite passages.
“Opa Samuel handed me a piece of yellowish-looking bread spread with real butter and jam. It had a sweet taste to it, almost like cake, not sour like the bread we got in the Russian zone. “What is it,” I asked Opa, “Cake?” He explained with a laugh, “that yellow color is corn, Wolfgang, American Corn. What we call Mais. Some well meaning person in America sent ships loaded with American corn rather than Rye or Wheat. Now it has to be eaten. The bread is a little dry but it is wholesome. And we have to thank the Americans for it.” (P282, Samuel)
“…as he slipped on a thick, fleece lined gray winter jacket which reached to just above his knees. He saw my questioning eyes and said, “An American church group gave me this jacket in the internment camp in Schleswig. I had nothing to keep me warm. They are good people, the Americans.” (P283, Samuel)
“…I knew the Americans had chosen to be here with us Germans, placing themselves on our side, trying to save our Berlin. Their coming meant to me that we were not going to be part of the expanding Russian Empire. The day-to-day presence of the Americans gave me, I thought, what new money could not buy and what war had lost for my country—friends. Good friends, I hoped, who would be there each tomorrow to help if we needed them.” (P.350, Samuel)
“I knew there was a better life ahead for us Germans with friends like the Americans…there were so many things for a young boy to discover about these American soldiers. They were different from soldiers I had known before, mostly men whose faces were hard and whose fingers were never far from the triggers of their guns. These Americans carried no guns… on my way home I could see the soldiers sitting there, laughing, enjoying the German beer that they liked so much…If they weren’t smoking or drinking they were chewing gum, just like the American soldiers of 1945.” (P.351, Samuel)
“I liked the Americans and I liked being near them.” (P.359, Samuel)
“I felt sorrow for the American pilots who had died for us Germans. Only three years ago they were fighting against my country, and now they were dying for us. The Americans were strange people, and I really didn’t understand them, even though I had read about them and met them first in war and now in peace. I wondered, as only a child can wonder, what made these people do the things they did.” (P.368, Samuel)
“It was as if the Americans had never been there. I suddenly missed the Americans and their airplanes. I missed being around those noisy, confident, and carefree people, the people who like to play games – to win” (P. 376, Samuel)
COL Samuel came a long way from being a young German refugee from Pomerania. He ended up moving to Colorado and building a new life and a new home in America with his mother and step-father. He finished high school, joined the US Air Force, became an officer and retired a Colonel in 1985. I guess dreams can really come true.
FRIENDS FOREVER
Samuel, Wolfgang W. E.. “German Boy” Broadway Books, copyright 2000.
