(Continued from About my Father (2)) The ink was hardly dry on Albrecht’s BK ordination certificate when the official church got wind of it and took steps to prevent a repetition. In a letter dated May 7, 1941, while Albrecht’s regiment was nearing the Soviet border, the then president of the Konsistoriat in Düsseldorf, the …
(Continued from About My Father (1)) Those “trials by fire” were not far off. After a year of study in Basel, in 1938 Albrecht returned to Germany. He spent approximately a month in Berlin, finishing his theological studies. In early summer of 1938 Albrecht spent almost a month traveling in the UK, visiting London and …
Growing up as a bomb baby in Germany, as I did, it was common not to have a living father. About 2.5 million German children lost their fathers in World War II. Source. In my case, my father lost his life two months before I was born, so we never knew one another. From my …
The Nicolaus family name has some mythical roots. My mother’s mother Lydia, her mind clouded by advancing dementia, maintained that it came from the Tsar, who on his travels had got the daughter of a German merchant pregnant, etc. A myth I like much better is that we’re descended from the original Bishop Nicolaus of …
I was born in Essen. My father was born in Kiel but raised in Essen. His mother was born in Essen. His father worked as an office supervisor for Krupp in Essen. My mother, who was from Berlin, married my father in Essen. My mother and I lived in Essen until sometime in mid-1943. My …
