A Duty of Remembrance: The Story of My German Family

A Duty of Remembrance recounts the lives of two families during the first half of the twentieth century. August, a cooper, spent WWI in Flanders carrying the dead and wounded by horse-drawn wagon to the field hospital. His son, Gustel, joined the SS at the age of twenty; saw his first action September 1, 1939 during the invasion of Poland. He was deployed in an Einsatzkommando unit to the Ukraine, and, then, as a Gestapo officer back in the Reich and in Greece. Schoolteacher Herbert was a passionate National Socialist as were his daughters, Irmgard and Erika. His son, Manfred, joined the Waffen SS at the age of eighteen and saw his first action in Dieppe. Captured by the Russians at twenty-one, he spent five years in the Gulags of Siberia and in the Lubyanka in Moscow. Erika, fleeing from the Russians during the trek of women and children, was one of only four women to make it to the West. Irmgard and her two little girls were driven out of their home by French troops; they spent weeks on the road. Although disillusioned and feeling betrayed by their government, all rebuilt their lives.