Heino R. Erichsen - Reluctant Warrior: Former German POW Finds Peace in Texas

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Heino R. ERICHSEN

As told to JEAN NELSON-ERICHSEN

EAKIN PRESS Fort Worth, Texas

www.EakinPress.com

Copyright 2001 By Heino R. Erichsen Published By Eakin Press An Imprint of Wild Horse Media Group P.O. Box 331779 Fort Worth, Texas 76163 1-817-344-7036 www.EakinPress.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ISBN-10: 1-68179-160-9 ISBN-13: 978-1-68179-160-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Erichsen, Heino R.

The reluctant warrior: former German POW finds peace in Texas / Heino R. Erichsen; as told to Jean Nelson-Erichsen.1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 1-57168-507-3 ISBN 1-57168-514-6 (pbk.)

1. Erichsen, Heino R. 2. German AmericansBiography. 3. Prisoners of warBiography 4. SoldiersGermanyBiography 5. World War,
19301945TunisiaPersonal narratives, German. 6. TexasBiography I. NelsonErichsen, Jean. II. Title.

E184.G3 E72 2001

940.548143dc21

2001018964

Contents

Foreword by Dr. Alvin H. Franzmeier

Preface

Acknowledgments

I.The Reluctant Soldier

1.Safari of the Afrika Korps

II.Captivity Far From Home

2.Barbed-Wire Sickness

3.Sheep on a Ship to Scotland

III.A Lost Generation of Hansels and Gretels

4.Childhood under the Nazis

5.Repatriation Amidst Devastation

IV.A Leitmotif of Love

6.Back to Can-Do America

7.Wars and Threats of Wars

8.Orphan-Saving Expeditions

Postscript

Maps

Bibliography

Glossary

Index

Foreword

Life is a journey for each of us. We begin our journeys by being born to a family that is part of a people in a specific country in a particular moment in history. This is our heritage, but that heritage does not always foretell our destinies. We do not know where the jouurney will take us and how it will end.

Heino Erichsen invites us to walk with him as he looks back upon his journey from the perspective of a man in his seventies. From that viewpoint, he calls us to rejoice with him at the leading of God through the momentous events of the rise of Naziism in Germany, the death and destruction of World War II, the Allied victory, and Europes struggles to recover. We look at it all through the eyes of a German soldiera prisoner of war and a son returning to his broken country.

But the journey does not end there. It takes an unexpected twist as the former prisoner of war returns to the United States, where he was imprisoned, to begin a new life. He becomes a father and struggles with the thought of his own sons being sent to fight a foreign war in Vietnam. He speaks from his own bitter personal experiences as he joins with the Quakers to protest the injustice of that war.

And the journey continues. The father of two is destined to become the spiritual father of thousands. Out of his own experience with adopting children from Colombia, there arises a new calling. He and his wife, Jean, decide to find homes for children orphaned in Latin America, Europe, and Asia. The former soldier is now called to fight for the lives of children. He becomes an internationally respected spokesman for homeless children around the world.

Looking back on his life, Heino sees Gods hand guiding him, even when he himself did not understand or know it.

In the frigid waters around Greenland are countless icebergs, some little and some gigantic. If you were to observe them carefully, you would notice that sometimes the small ice floes move in one direction while their massive counterparts flow in another. The explanation is simple. Surface winds drive the littles ones, whereas deep ocean currents carry along the huge masses of ice.

As Heino looks back upon the trials and tragedies of his life, he seems to be telling us that our lives are being subjected to two forces: the surface winds and the deep ocean currents. The surface winds represent the constantly changing, unpredictable, and distressing events of the world around us. Heino was caught up in those winds and blown from Germany to Africa and then across the Atlantic to the United States. The winds shifted, and he was blown to Great Britain, Scotland, and finally back to Germany. With another shift, the winds took him back across the Atlantic to the United States and then to South America.

But operating simultaneously with these guests and gales was another even more powerful force. That force is the sure movement of Gods wise and sovereign purposes, the deep flow of His unchanging love. That love began its relentless work in Heino when he was baptized. The Spirit of the eternal God created within his heart a conviction that never left him. God is Emmanuel, the God ever with us. And that loving Presence guided him to minister first to his own family and then to hundreds of families and children to bring them homes, health, happiness, and hope.

DR. ALVIN H. FRANZMEIER, Pastor

Living Word Lutheran Church

The Woodlands, Texas

Preface

My baptism and confirmation as a Lutheran occurred in Germany during the time when the Nazis tried to replace Christianity with paganism. Jugendweihe (youth consecration) took the place of religious ceremonies. Hitler also tried to convince us to believe in Vorsehung (providence) rather than Gods plans.

However, much of the German army was under the influence of Prussian Officers Corps. Even though they pledged oaths to Hitler, their belief in God remained. The belt buckles were inscribed, Emmanuel (God is with us). The words encircled a German eagle that clutched a swastika!

God was with me during my capture in Africa and my captivity. In American POW camps, I ignored dangerous Nazi POWs who tried to keep the rest of us from attending church. I needed to feel spiritually connected with God and with my family. Only my faith sustained me when Nazis caused the deaths of three of my buddies.

After WWII, when we were sent to Great Britain instead of home, I was spiritually at a low ebb until a religious experience touched me on Christmas Eve in a Scottish church. Former enemies, Protestants and Catholics alike, bowed down together in a spirit of peace and reconciliation. The wonder of the Holy Trinity filled my heart and soul and led me to believe that God had spared me for a purpose.

After my immigration to America, I married and became the father of two sons. When they reached their teens, America was in the midst of the Vietnam War. The thought that my sons might become soldiers in a foreign war, just as I had, propelled me into the anti-war demonstrations of the Quakers.

During this period, we adopted twin infants. On our trip to Colombia to emigrate them, I witnessed the plight of street children and discovered a new purpose for my life.

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