My relationship with Germany is very complex. Many of my ancestors are from Germany and much of what I consider normal family behavior is derived from German traditions brought over specifically by my great grandfather and passed on through his son to my father and thence to me. We also have many family tales relating to Germany, many of which have been confirmed by my father’s formalizing of our family history.
German food, German music, German literature, German history, and German traditions have always been a part of our family, even though many of my other ancestors hail from very different parts of the world.
Originally, some of my ancestors went to Germany from France because they were Hueguenots (French Protestants). However, once there they married into Jewish families, possibly because Catholic families wouldn’t have them. Next, though, they converted to Catholicism and worked their way into the minor nobility. “Ever willing to change in order to fit in and avoid persecution” should probably have been the family motto back then.
However, we apparently developed a social conscience and an inability to keep quiet after that. My great grandfather left Germany because of problems with the Kaiser that labeled him a political enemy. He had grown up as one of a number of sons of a Baron and attended Heidelberg University, participating in both sword play and a singing group (a liederkranz). Trained as an architect, he fled Germany to avoid arrest, and arrived in New York by way of Ellis Island. He found work at first as a cabinet maker, but eventually re-established himself as an architect, building office buildings in New York City. He wanted to be fully American, so he dropped the “von” from our last name, and he converted from Catholicism to Protestantism.
His son, my grandfather, grew up in New York speaking English, German, French, Polish and Yiddish, and eventually joined the US Army during WWI. He was sent to Poland to serve as a translator and was exposed to mustard gas. After he recovered he moved to Texas to find a dry climate to soothe his injured lungs. He met a local girl and married her.
Apparently his siblings and their children continued to be out-spoken, so that in the 1930’s my grandfather, who had moved to Chile for work and had, of course, added Spanish to his languages, was approached by representatives of the Third Reich and told that he had inherited the family title. That meant that all of his uncles and his male cousins were dead, in large part because they spoke out against the Nazis. He actually picked one of the men up by his collar and the seat of his trousers and threw him into the sewer because he was very well aware what their announcement meant.
When my father was old enough he was sent to the US to learn English (he already spoke Spanish, French and German, and would later learn Cantonese and Dutch). As World War II broke out he went to enlist so he could fight the Nazis, but because of his “family ties” to Germany and his ability to speak German, the military chose to send him to fight in the Pacific. During WWII, the big family house in Frankfort was flattened by bombing, and after the war the family estate ended up in the east, where it apparently lies under a factory of some sort today. Someone must have survived, though, because there has been a famous German soccer star with our last name, with just the one s but no von.
In any case, the Germans I have met here in the US or in Spain or South America have all been nice people, open to new experiences, but quite disappointed that I don’t speak German very well myself. Apparently I look very German, even though I have a very mixed ancestry.
One odd thing I always remember is that my grandfather always insisted that the doors to the various rooms of the house be kept closed. He was taught that by his father and always claimed it was “the German way.” I don’t know about that, but, while it might be an excellent idea in a cold climate where you don’t have central heating, he spent most of his adult life in hot, dry areas, where air flow is beneficial.
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