After World War II the German economy lay in shambles. The allied bombing destroyed 20 percent of all housing in Germany. Germany was in debris and ashes and Europe was in ruins, due to Hitler’s aggression against the neighbouring countries.
After the un-wanted war, my father and my mother and other Germans hungry, dead looking figures wandered about the streets in their everlasting search for food and shelter.
All Germans suffered enormously after the WW II.
How my parents and other people in Germany must have felt after this senseless war?
With the help of United States
Marshall Plan helped for providing funds
to
rebuild German destroyed cities.
Frankfurt a/Main 1945
Today - the modern Frankfurt Metropole
My parents didn’t discuss much about the war. In elementary school WW II
was never really discussed by teachers. Most information I got was when I
became a foreign missionary in other nations, where people asked me about
the war my country waged. I read many books and saw movies about the WW II
in Europe.
My father sometime talked to us children about being captured as soldier at
age 17. He had to serve in the German army. Rejecting the Army that time
under Nazism was a death sentence.
He served the German army during the time of Nazism against US forces at the
end
of WW II.
He was a young teenager when the Nazi regime drafted him into the German
army to fight against American forces. He told me that after spending only 6
month in the army, he became POW of the American Forces in Germany.
My dad told me stories when I was a kid about his encounter with American
soldiers in Germany. The stories still move me today. While my father was in
prison the American soldiers fed him and gave him extra chocolates and
chewing gum.
As a kid I grew up in Frankfurt in the 50's. Near our home there was a very
busy street, and many American soldiers in their big trucks passed by and
gave us young German kid’s chocolates and chewing gums. We then saluted the
soldiers and they saluted back. I still remember this.
My hometown Frankfurt am/Main 1945
American red cross helping the wounded Germans
I only was born 6 years after Hitler’s
regime capitulated against the allied forces in 1945.
As I remember a little bit I grew up with another elder brother and younger
sister and my parents in a ruinous house in Frankfurt. It was in such a very
poor condition that I often felt sick.
My father worked in a mine and my mother worked in public buildings
cleaning. They earned very little money and we just barely survived.
In the middle of the 50s
we moved into a two bedroom (50m2)
apartment for refugees with my parents and us 4 children.
There were times we sat in the kitchen without having electric light and we
had to use candles instead. My parents couldn’t
pay the electric bill and the electricity was cut off.
I have often eaten dry bread, because my parents had no money to buy food
for us children.
When I was 8 year old I worked on a farm in autumn. After the school day
ended I and other school children picked potatoes on large potato farms. We
got little money and some food from the farmer we worked for.
Often I gave the money to my parents. As a young teenager I did many manual
jobs to earn my own money.
Believe it or not - that's me!
On a train ride
(center it's me)
My mother was rather a religious person, and I think this why I eventually could join the Unification Church. I think her spiritual ancestral merit was transferred to me, and the spirit world must have guided me very much in my youth to join the Lord of Second Advent, Rev. Sun Myung Moon. Today, I can clearly see this, after looking back in my life how God guided my life.
My Father was a very righteous man. When I lost my elder brother in 1970 due to illness my Father lost faith in God, because he lost a son who was only 24 years old.
My Parent’s youth was not easy and I understood much later when I joined the Unification Church, how much they have gone though all those suffering times.
My father passed away in 1994 when I worked with our Church in Russia. I couldn’t attend his funeral, because leaving Russia wasn’t easy. To get a ticket for airplane or train wasn’t easy. My mother passed away in 2006 and they are now buried together in Frankfurt.
Me, my brother Peter and my sister Doris
My parents
Years before I joined the movement I got interested in spiritual matters. I
started reading the Bible and other religious scriptures. I met different
religious groups and I wanted to find true friends and live in a true
community, and I wanted to be helpful to others. Before that I wanted to
become a social worker.
My desire was always to live in a foreign country away from my country,
Germany. Eventually this happened after I joined the movement in 1974.
I could feel always God’s presence in nature but I didn’t know it was God at
that time. He gave me strength and guidance all the time. I received a lot
of protection and it was my spiritual ancestors who helped me to be on the
right track. I met different types of people, as I was searching about life
on my own and in this way I came across religious people too.
Some of my friends got involved in taking drugs. I was scared and I looked
for different types of friends and then I meet the Unification Church.
Immediately I felt that is the right group of people to which I wanted to
belong.
When I heard the Divine Principle lecture on the spirit world, I felt very
relieved to know that there is eternal life. I was scared to die and that
everything would be over.
It took me some time to understand the meaning of the Messiah and his
purpose for coming to the fallen world. But I was attracted emotionally to
the True Parents and I promised to follow them, which until today I have
never regretted.
When I look back into my life it was the best I could do, accepting the
Unification Church Principles and following the True Parents.
After being in the UC in Germany for 6 month, I volunteered to become a
foreign missionary with other UC members from Japan and the USA. True Father
asked in 1975 for volunteers to go out into the world to spread the new
message of truth, The Divine Principles.
I was dispatched as a missionary with another missionary from Japan und USA.
True Parents sent out missionaries from those 3 providential countries to
120 nations around the world. I was lucky to be in that group. I completed
21 years foreign mission on God’s Day of 1996 (God’s Day is the January 1st
in Unification Theology). True Parents gave awards to all 21 years foreign
missionaries in a special ceremony.
After I joined the Unification Church I longed very much to get blessed in
holy matrimony by the True Parents, and second I wanted to see True Parents,
who I met for the first time at True Father’s 60th birthday in 1980, New
York.
I’m thankful to God and True Parents who gave me this wonderful spouse from
Austria. Today we have 4 wonderful and beautiful children, 2 boys and 2
girls.
In June of 1996, my wife and I attended a 40 days workshop in Cheong Pyung
Korea with Dae Mon Nim and Hyung Jin Nim. It was a great gift and Grace for
both of us and our 4 children. I also believe that our ancestors in sprit
world, our tribes living on earth. will receive great blessing from our
sacrifice.
In Cheong Pyung I received the mission as National Messiah for the
Philippines. So far, I was there 6 times. I love the Philippines! It is
country where I feel at home.
After the 40 days Cheong Pyung workshop in Korea, I almost lost my whole
family in a fatal car accident in Poland after we left our mission country
Russia to return to Austria. It was a miracle that my whole family survived.
One passenger (not a member) got instantly killed who was sitting beside my
wife and the other passenger got seriously injured too. My daughter at that
time was only 5 years old. Eleonora was also very seriously injured and fell
into a coma. My wife and I thought she would not survive it. Doctors in the
Hospital told me, afterwards that they never expected she would survive. One
of our boy’s was thrown out of the car and flew 25 meters over the motorway
and fell in a bush. The van also started burning.
I contacted Dae Mon Nim in Korea and she ordered many good angels to help my
daughter to survive and she survived. We are very grateful to God, and True
Parents, Dae Mon Nim, and Hun Jin Nim. We really saw with our own eyes a
grace and a miracle in our family.
See more:
Collective Sins/our tragic accident
