This news story made the rounds through my circles today. In some comments I promised to share a story of my grandfather, and what honoring German ancestry should probably look like.
My Opa was forcefully expatriated from Germany at the end of WWI when he was a teenager. The family was fairly influential in the German Empire, and the Weimar Republic had no use for Prussian aristocracy. He was given two years to learn a language and a trade.
When he got to the US he was determined to integrate. He never taught his children any German, nor did he discuss his family. He was stoic, but proud.
I know, a proud, stoic Prussian. It beggars belief.
By the time my cousin Rick and I came along (his only two male grandchildren) he had relaxed a bit. This is how I know what I know of our family. Rick was a couple of years older, and began learning about WW2 before I did. During one visit, he asked my grandfather, “Opa, what happened in Germany? You don’t believe any of these things.”
The old man’s face went red, and for the first and only time in my life I heard him use profanity.
“You take some fucking Austrian housepainter and put him in charge of Bavarian Catholic peasants, what do you think will happen! They ruined the country! You cannot have Germany without Jews, and you cannot have Jews without Germany! The Jews took care of the family money. They were my professors. They taught me music and art and literature. I will say no more about this. We are Americans. We do not shed tears over a broken past. We fix the future.”
This is German heritage.
Just after the election I posted a quote from Kaiser Wilhelm II. It bears repeating. It’s worth remembering. As we fix the future.
But of our Germany, which was a nation of poets and musicians, of artists and soldiers, he has made a nation of hysterics and hermits, engulfed in a mob and led by a thousand liars or fanatics. – Kaiser Wilhelm II on Adolf Hitler, December 1938
I am proud of my German heritage. And as a proud scion of a noble Prussian house I say NAZIS RAUS!
Vielen danke, Opa. Ins Himmel bist du.
Very touching. It’s good to hear the other side of the story after having all that white supremacist crap shoved down our throats day in day out by the likes of this arsewipe.
catty _big I wouldn’t let this shambling tire fire within a league of my bum. Just sayin’.
You getting me wet…
Frederica Mussolini Get a divorce and a plane ticket.
And as regards both of those tasks, don’t fly United.
Kurt von Finck I have to pay for the ticket? Pfft