By HANS F.W. STIERLE

For The Beachcomber

In 1938, my parents took me on a visit to their homeland, Germany. Mom was born in Duesseldorf, Dad in Stuttgart.

Your article in the Sept. 30 issue of The Beachcomber was fascinating, testing my memory of the years I grew up in Germany during World War II, living in Stuttgart.

Each and every day my parents reminded me to be prepared, to keep a chair with clothing by my bedside and take them along to rush to the cellar as soon as the sirens started, to be safe from the American aircraft bombings.

Soon, my sister Inge, then brother Roland were added to the family that lived on the ground level of the complex of four levels. We quickly reached the safety of the cellar.  On one such night, our building was hit by bombs, bringing the top three levels down in flames, while partially destroying our living quarters.

Hence, my mother, sister and brother were evacuated to the village of Neckartailfingen, with a population of about 500. My dad and I remained in the beat-up apartment. Why? Since dad was an American citizen, the German government had offered him the choice to join the German army or work for the private sector. He chose the latter, so, in the morning he walked to the Rilling Wine Company, while I walked to school. On the way I had to get off the sidewalk as the bodies of mostly women and children were being pulled out of buildings and covered with blankets. Nobody had prepared me for such a sight.

When my dad and I reunited for dinner, he asked me: “Wie wars in der Schule (How was it in school)?”  He didn’t know the school was bombed out! Cell phones were not available in the mid-1940s…

Now I joined mom, sister and brother in Neckartailfingen, where the student body was rather small; most kids worked on their family farm. Hence, five fellow students and I took the four-mile bike ride to a higher school of learning in Nuertingen. Our parents and teachers always warned us: “If you hear the sound of airplanes, jump into the ditch.” When it happened, bullets were flying all over the road. How can you prepare for that? As the American fighter planes flew by, I jumped out of the ditch, waved at them and screamed: “Nicht auf mich schiessen, ich bin Americaner (Don’t shoot at me, I’m an American)!”

Who knows, maybe I did the right thing: Taking preparedness to the next level!

— Hans F.W. Stierle is a longtime Islander, a retiree and the founder of the American Youth Soccer Organization.