Tale of two wars.
Found this story on NPR about a solider that fought in WW2 and Korea. It would not be such a abnormal thing until you learn that he fought in the German Army in WW2 and the US Army in Korea.
When Welzel was 2 years old, his father got a job that took the family from Ohio back to Germany, where they had emigrated from before the war.
Young Hank Welzel became young Heinrich. He grew up under the Nazi regime, complete with a requisite membership in the Hitler Youth.
Because of his past he never told anyone because of what might happen.
“You had to consider yourself a German if you wanted to stay alive. … You had to play the game,” Welzel says.
On Oct. 10, 1944, just shy of his 18th birthday, Welzel was captured on a hill north of Florence, Italy. Soon afterward, an American officer who spoke perfect German began to interrogate him.
“Should I tell him I was born in the United States or shouldn’t I?” Welzel thought to himself.
“The next guy was like sittin’ 10 feet over — the next German soldier, waiting for his turn and, you didn’t know who to trust,” Welzel recalls. “I never told anybody that I was an American citizen by birth. That was my secret. It was my highest secret, so I didn’t dare tell him.”
He served as a Medic in both wars, it does not say what awards that he might have gotten in the German Army, but he recived a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart in Korea. Then he went on to deal with what we now call PTSD and the fact that he was not sure who to trust with his past given of how people might change the way that they looked/treated him.
Welzel finally sought help in the early 1990s for what was diagnosed as post-traumatic stress disorder. He has not fully come to terms with his war experiences yet, but after a life spent keeping his past a secret, he has found the best therapy is to open up and discuss what he has been through.
Today, Welzel and his wife live in Freeport, Maine, in a house he built. He helps his son with a lilac nursery business and keeps himself busy building benches from reclaimed lumber and selling them at farmers markets. At 84, he says his goal is to get to 100.
A interesting story to say the least. Also about the German units, in a book I was reading about the Großdeutschland the Allied troops divided German units into “White” and “BlacK” units based on how they conducted themselves in the war. The Großdeutschland was considered one of these “White” units. Also there seemed to be a act that allowed the wear of German military awards that were “De-Nazied” in 1957 that would show that regardless of what the Nazis did that individual bravery would still be honored. Which would directly relate to the person in the story.
Category: War Stories
Oddly enough, my brother-in-law’s father also served in the German Army during WWII, was captured by the Americans in Italy and fought in the US Army during Korea to gain his citizenship.
My CSM at USAJFKSWC aiso was in the German Army in WWII,Drafted near the end of the war when he was 13 or 14 years old.After the war he went back home and found out that he was the only member of his entire family to survive the war.He came to the U.S. on the “Orphan Train” and was adopted by a family in PA.He joined the U.S.Army and fought in Korea and and then went S.F. when it first started taking off…he did multiple tours in RVN and eventually retired…Now that was a great Man and the best NCO I ever worked for!
For a VERY interesting story about things in the German Army in WWII, I would recommend “The Forgotten Soldier” by Guy Sajer. This was a French kid who was enlisted into GrossDeutchland Division and sent to the east front to fight the Russians. When they were transferred to the west, he and the other foreigners, as well as most of the Germans, were shocked to find themselves facing Americans and British forces. They had been told nothing of the Allied landings, or the advances into France.
But regardless, it’s a poignant tale of soldiering and surviving.
Sporkmaster: Good find, one of the common themes was that information would not get to the front and that when the person went to duty staff guard duty that he learned that they were losing and how bad.
AW1 Tim,
That is an excellent book; in fact, I need to locate one of my copies. I bought it years ago when I first got into reenacting, lost it and then purchased it again a few years ago. It was always a bit controversial as to the authenticity of Sajer’s story, though, due to a few discrepancies that were possibly the result of faulty memory or poor translation (such as the cuff title being sewn on the wrong sleeve).
Another interesting, if even more controversial, book is “Devil’s Guard” by George Robert Elford. It covers the story of a Waffen-SS officer who served with the Foreign Legion in Indochina with a special unit comprised almost entirely of other former SS and Wehrmacht men. I have never read the original due to its price (though it seems to have gone back into print but is no longer on the publisher’s website) but have a copy of the sequel. IIRC, the book I have covers the units continued tour in Indochina under the South Vietnamese while the third and final book covers their final years working for the CIA.
Hey fm2174 I to have read “Devil’s Guard” and found it quite interesting, had no idea there were sequels to it. Gonna chk it out.
“Devil’s Guard” Methinks the book was fiction. I the subsequent book, two Viet females are used as combat gider pilots… A tad bit far fetched, IMO.
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