Wolfhilde von König - Wolfhildes Hitler Youth Diary 1939-1946

Wolfhildes Hitler Youth Diary
19391946

Written by Wolfhilde von Knig

Translated by

Dr. Hedwig Hamer
Monika Trujillo

iUniverse, Inc.

Bloomington

Wolfoildes Hitler Youth Diary 1939-1946

Copyright 2013 by Rosalyn M. Reeder, Curtis Von Koenig, Douglas von Koenig,
Edward von Koenig and Jeffrey von Koenig.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-6855-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-6854-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-6856-9 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 20129)24035

iUniverse rev. date: 01/09/2013

Munich Marienplatz and Salvatorkirche photos printed by license agreement with

Sddeutsche Verlag.

Translated by Dr. Hedwig Hamer and Monika Trujillo

Cover design by Cori Hatheway

Layout by Charles H. Long, Ph. D.

CONTENTS

DEDICATION

This book, which evolved around the Kriegestagebuch (War Diary), is dedicated, with special honor, to our father Emanuel and to our aunt Wolffiilde.

The nickname given our father by his parents was Man, which readily translated into English as Manny. Wolffiilde, too, had a nickname, but its origin is a bit more obscure. Her mother, Elise Jadoul, was born and raised in Liege, Belgium, where a dialect of French is spoken. Wolf is Lu. Wolffiilde was Elises Little Wolf; hence the diminutive form, Lulu. Her full legal name was

Wolftilde Oktavia Emma Elisabeth Knig von Paumbshausen.

Our fathers full name, prefaced by a title meaning Noble Knight,was

Edler Ritter Emanuel Anton Felix Ludwig Knig von Paumbshausen.

In Germany, for non-legal daily use, everyone in the family was allowed to use the abbreviated surname von Knig. When our father was granted United States citizenship, he chose to eliminate three of his four first names, leaving not even a middle initial; to declare as legal the German surname of daily use; to capitalize the V and to adopt the Anglicized oe in place of .

Three of us bear, as middle names, one of those names from his own. One of us chooses to retain the surname form given to all of us at birth, honoring his fathers choice in that matter. Three of us have reverted to the small v, in conscious acknowledgment and appreciation of our age-old German heritage.

Douglas Ludwig von Koenig, 1957

Jeffrey Emanuel von Koenig, 1959

Edward Frederick von Koenig, 1962

Curtis Anton Von Koenig, 1965

by

Douglas von Koenig

Jeffrey von Koenig

Edward von Koenig

Curtis Von Koenig

Our father, Emanuel Von Koenig, is the younger brother of Wolffiilde von Knig. When he died in 2009, we found among his papers this Kriegestagebuch, or War Diary, written by our aunt. The discovery came as a complete surprise, since its existence had never been mentioned to us, even though it must have come to him upon her death in 1993. Dad was thorough, meticulous to a fault. He must have examined all of her bequeathed papers and must certainly have known this was among them. That he did not speak of the Diary suggests the difficulty he had with the intensity and immediacy inherent in its subject matter.

After years of prodding for more information about his war time experiences, he responded in 2005 with 15 pages of material he had written. His account of imprisonment in a Russian camp, his escape and making his way home to Munich are included in this publication.

Wolffiildes handwritten War Diary entries date from 22 August 1939, when she was just 13 years of age, through her 21 st birthday on 8 November 1946. They are inscribed in five volumes; the first three being self-constructed bound books; the fourth, a purchased, smaller bound notebook; and the last, just an assembly of cut-edged loose sheets which appear to have originally been part of yet another bound notebook.

In 2009, when we recognized the manuscript for what it was, the only family member who could have read itour fatherhad just died.

We suspected that the writing would contain material we would find sensitive; therefore, shied away from agencies which provide professional translation. Our idea of the perfect person was German-born Walt Hammerling, who had been our German teacher while we were students in Michigans St. Joseph School District. All of us held him in high esteem.

Walt, however, had long since moved to Sarasota and gone into the real estate business. We werent quite sure how to approach him. Fortunately for us, our mothers good friend Marian OMeara Evans, who is his mother-in-law, had no such reservations.

Walt could not read the Old German Script in which the manuscript is written, his parents having brought him to America when he was very young; nonetheless, he took it upon himself to find for us someone who could. He recalled knowing that a colleague, Monika Trujillo, was fluent in German, as well as Spanish as suggested by her last name. Monika could decipher very little of the archaic form, but volunteered that her mother, Frau Dr. med. Hedwig Hamer, born in Germany the same year as the Diarys author and who, like Wolffiilde, became a medical doctor, most likely could.

Dr. Hedwig Hamer, b. 1925, Wrzburg, Bavaria, GermanyMonika Turjillo, b. 1962, Fulda, Bavaria, Germany

Dr. Hamers eyes were the first to open wider in wonder at the narrative revealed in the handwritten diary discovered in 2009 because she could read the Old German Stterlin Script used by her 13-year-old cohort, Wolffiilde von Knig, when she began writing in 1939.

IN HEDWIG HAMERS OWN WORDS

Three years ago my daughter, Monika, asked me for help in reading a German diary, written in a script incomprehensible to her, which she had been requested to translateif she could. She was enthused by the challenge and confident she could accomplish such a task, if only, first of all, she could read it. She was sure I could read it, and asked me if I would. After obtaining the von Koenigs permission, I began the task of reading aloud to Monika from the original Old Script, making it possible for her to type what she heard into modern German form.

This type of handwriting, Stterlin, was faded out of the school system during my elementary school years. We were then taught to write in the Latin style. It amazes me that Wolffiilde chose to write in the old style when she, too, must have learned the Latin; nonetheless, the Old Script is what we have here.

While Wolffiildes writings are in good penmanship, over the years she wrote the letters smaller and narrowerharder to decipher. With any handwritten material there can be difficulty making out proper names or other unknown words. If not every single letter is clearly legible, it can be difficult to identify the exact word. The translation process can be very time consuming.