April 2020 - bruckfamilyblog.com

POST 83: CASE STUDY USING THE UNITED KINGDOM’S “GENERAL REGISTER OFFICE” DATABASE TO FIND ANCESTORS

Note: In this post, I walk readers through the steps they can follow for using the United Kingdom’s “General Register Office” database to locate some of their ancestors who may have immigrated to the UK either during the Nazi era or before. I provide as a case example people from my own Jewish family I was able to track down, and vital documents I was able to obtain for some of them.

Post 68, Postscript: Dr. Julius Bruck, Engineer of Modern Endoscopy—Tracking Some of His Descendants

The dispersion of my Jewish relatives following the 1933 Nazi takeover in Germany has led me to search for evidence of my ancestors and their descendants in multiple countries around the world, obviously, Germany and Poland, but also Italy, France, Czech Republic, Spain, Switzerland, Greece, United Kingdom, China (Shanghai), Australia, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Canada, and the United States. I have no doubt, as I expand my ancestral inquiries, this list will grow.

Much of what I will discuss below has generally been covered in Post 68 and the postscript to that installment. Still, I thought that for those readers who can trace some of their Jewish, as well as non-Jewish, ancestors to the United Kingdom, they may find some value in having the information consolidated in one post. Readers may find themselves in the same position I initially found myself where their ancestral searches begin and end with what they can locate on ancestry.com or MyHeritage. Often, however, this is merely the first step in obtaining copies of vital documents if you recognize these might be available from what you discover on these platforms.

Figure 1. Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck (1872-1937)

In Post 68, I discussed Dr. Julius Bruck (1840-1902), my first cousin thrice removed from Breslau, Germany: [today: Wrocław, Poland], a dentist renowned for his influence on modern endoscopy. During my investigations into his family, I became interested in tracking down the descendants of the four children he had with his wife, Bertha Bruck née Vogelsdorf (1843-1917), particularly those of his youngest child, Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck (1872-1937). (Figure 1)

The remainder of this post will be focused primarily on explaining to readers how my involved search into Walter Wolfgang Bruck’s family unfolded. I began by searching for “Walter Bruck” in ancestry.com’s “Eastern Prussian Provinces, Germany [Poland], Selected Civil Vitals, 1874-1945 (Östliche preußische Provinzen, Polen, Personenstandsregister 1874-1945)” database. Here I located Walter Wolfgang Bruck’s death certificate indicating he had died on the 31^st of March 1937 in Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland]; his wife, Johanna Elisabeth Margarete Graebsch, is named on Walter’s death certificate. (Figure 2)

Figure 2. Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck’s death certificate indicating he died on the 31st of March 1937 in Breslau, Germany, and naming his wife, Johanna Elisabeth Margarete Graebsch

Figure 3. “Germany Minority Census, 1939” form for Johanna Bruck (born Graebsch and her daughter Renate Bruck from MyHeritage

My membership to the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles (JGSLA) gives me access to the ancestral search platform MyHeritage, so in the context of writing Post 68 on Dr. Julius Bruck, I searched there for Johanna Bruck née Graebsch. I came across a “German Minority Census, 1939” form (Figure 3), which, oddly, is only found on MyHeritage, not on ancestry.com. This form indicated that “Johanna Bruck (born Graebsch)” was born on the 10^th of April 1884 in Wrocław, Poland; resided there in May 1939; and lived with her daughter, Renate Bruck, who was 12 years of age at the time. Given that Johanna and Renate Bruck were still in Germany at a precarious time, I became curious what might have happened to them. Naturally, the first place I checked was Yad Vashem’s “Central Database of Shoah Victim’s Names”; while I was very relieved not to find their names there, initially I could find no evidence of what may have happened to them or where they may have wound up.

Figure 4a. Top half of Dr. Frank Thomas Koch’s family tree with data on Johanna Bruck née Graebsch and her family

Figure 4b. Bottom half of Dr. Frank Thomas Koch’s family tree with data on Johanna Bruck née Graebsch and her family

I then began to search family trees on ancestry.com for both Johanna and Renate Bruck, and, coincidentally, found them on Dr. Frank Thomas Koch’s tree (Figures 4a-b), one of my German fourth cousins who is more closely related to this branch of the Bruck family; it included not only Johanna and Renate’s names, but the name of another of Walter and Johanna Bruck’s daughters, Hermine Johanna Elisabeth Bruck, who died in infancy in 1924. Interestingly, my cousin’s tree indicated that Renate Bruck may have died in 1948. Curious as to the source of all this information, I contacted Thomas. He explained this comes from the Charlotte Cramer-Sachs Family Collection archived at the Leo Baeck Institute (LBI); I was easily able to track down the source of this data from the LBI’s website and confirmed that Renate Bruck’s death is indeed noted as 1948. (Figure 5) As readers will learn, this is an error.

Figure 5. Family tree from the Charlotte Cramer-Sachs Collection, AR 11603, at the Leo Baeck Institute erroneously showing that Renate Bruck died in 1948

Thomas explained that in 1939 the Nazi regime conducted a census of German citizens to segregate Aryan versus non-Aryan citizens; this census recorded names, dates of birth, places of birth, racial descent or extraction, and addresses. People were designated as 100% Aryan, 100% Jewish, or “mixed,” 50% Jewish. This census recorded Johanna Bruck née Graebsch as 100% Aryan and her daughter as 50% Jewish, thus subject to discrimination.

Figure 6. The apartment building at Dammweg 9 in Erfurt, Germany where Johanna and Renate Bruck supposedly lived after they left Breslau, Germany

By 1944, people of “mixed” descent were forced to do hard labor. To avoid this, according to Thomas, there is evidence that Johanna and Renate Bruck relocated to Erfurt, Germany from Breslau by 1944 or earlier. Thomas told me there is further evidence that in 1948, a woman, possibly a neighbor, by the name of Ms. Edith Czeczatka, initiated a search with the German Red Cross, giving Johanna and Renate’s last known address in Erfurt, Dammweg 9 (Figure 6), trying to learn what happened to them. By then, Johanna and Renate no longer lived in Erfurt, and the German Red Cross could provide no further clues as to their fates. This is where things stood when I began to search for them.

Thomas provided one obscure clue that was ultimately instrumental in unraveling where Johanna and Renate wound up, namely, that they may have immigrated to England. I did a query for “Renate Bruck” on ancestry and came upon a marriage register listing for a “Renate S. G. Bruck” and a “Harry E. Graham” in Willesden, Middlesex, United Kingdom in October 1948. (Figures 7a-b) “Bruck” or “Brook” are not uncommon names in England, so I had no way to know whether this was the elusive Bruck relative I was searching for. As readers can confirm, this register only lists the names and years persons married with no other vital data.

Figure 7a. Reference from ancestry.com showing that “Renate S. G. Bruck” and “Harry E. Graham” married in October 1948; the volume and page number where the marriage certificate can be found are given

Figure 7b. Marriage register listing for Renate S. G. Bruck and Graham with District, Volume and Page number circled

Having never previously needed to access vital records from the United Kingdom, I turned to my friend Ms. Madeleine Isenberg who volunteers with JGSLA for assistance. Madeleine told me to check the United Kingdom’s “General Register Office (GRO)” database. Registering as a user is straight-forward. Go to their website and click on “Register as an Individual.” (Figure 8)

Figure 8. Portal page for the United Kingdom’s “General Register Office” database where researchers begin the registration process

Figure 9. The “Options” page of the General Register Office database where researchers begin their searches

Figure 10. The “Start Application” page of the General Register Office database

Once you are logged in, you have multiple options. (Figure 9) For Renate Bruck and Harry Graham, I was interested in ordering their marriage certificate so selected “Place an Order.” The following screen allowed me to select where the event was registered, thus for Renate and Harry, in “England or Wales” as a marriage in 1948 (Figure 10); I filled in the appropriate information, checked the “I know the GRO reference number” (i.e., readers will observe from the October 1948 register that I have circled the District, Volume, and Page number on which the original marriage record for Renate S. G. Bruck and Harry E. Graham can be found). Then, on the next screen, “Application for an England and Wales marriage registration record,” I entered this information and the names of the spouses. I filled in the “Service Options,” provided payment information and submitted my request. Certificates cost between 11- and 14-Pounds Sterling (i.e., ~$13.75 to 14.50), and typically arrive within three to four weeks.

Figure 11. Marriage certificate for Renate S. G. Bruck and Harry E. Graham, dated the 18th of October 1948, confirming Renate was the daughter of Dr. Walter Bruck and listing other family members

The marriage certificate for Renate S.G. Bruck and Harry E. Graham corroborated what I suspected, namely, that Renate was indeed the daughter of Dr. Walter Bruck, identified as a Doctor and Professor of Dentistry. (Figure 11) The certificate provided a wealth of additional information and names I was able to follow up on. Renate’s full name was “Renate Stephanie Gertrude Bruck,” and her husband was “Henry Ernst Graham.” Henry’s father was Hermann Gradenwitz (1876-1940), showing Henry had anglicized his surname to “Graham.” Both Renate and her husband had previously been married, Renate to a man named Eugen Walter Mehne, and Harry to a woman named Ruth Philipsborn (1914-2003); Henry and his first wife Ruth, I later discovered, married in 1935 in London indicating Henry had already emigrated from Germany by this time. Renate and Henry were married in the presence of a Marie Luise Gradenwitz (1881-1955), whom I later confirmed was Henry’s mother, née Mugdan. Curiously, Hermann Gradenwitz is buried with a Leo Mugdan, possibly his brother-in-law, as readers may be able to detect from their headstone. (Figure 12)

Figure 12. Hermann Gradenwitz’s (1876-1940) tombstone in Berlin showing he is buried with a Leo Mugdan, possibly his brother-in-law

From ancestry.com and MyHeritage, I learned more about Renate and her family. Renate’s first husband, Eugen Walter Mehne, is initially listed in a 1908 Breslau Address Book showing he was an instrumentenmacher, an instrument maker; he is listed in a Breslau Address Book as late as 1939, and by then is a geigenbauer, violin maker. I recently found a fleeting but unattributed reference on a family tree that Renate and this Eugen Mehne married in 1945, place unspecified.

I have been unable to learn when or where Eugen was born or died, although the fact that he was already in business in 1908, 18 years before Renate was even born, proves she married an older man. Similarly, her second husband, Harry Ernst Graham (aka Heinrich Gradenwitz), was significantly older when they married in 1948, he was 43 and she only 22. Harry, I discovered, was born on the 8^th of November 1904 in Berlin, and died on the 7th of March 1959 in London.

Having confirmed that Renate Bruck was in fact the daughter of Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck, I next turned my attention to Renate’s mother. Assuming she had survived the war, I surmised she too may have immigrated to England. In MyHeritage, I found a “Johanna M.E. Bruck” living in Barnet, Hertfordshire, England, born around 1885, who died between January and March 1963, at the age of 78 (Figures 13a-b); I already knew that the Johanna Bruck was born on the 10^th of April 1884, so the difference by one year I deemed insignificant. I checked the distance between Willesden, where Renate Bruck married in 1948, and Barnet, where this Johanna Bruck died, and found it was only 44 km apart, or 27 miles, so it was reasonable to assume these people might be related.

Figure 13a. Reference from MyHeritage showing Johanna M. E. Bruck perished in Barnet, Hertfordshire, England in the first quarter of 1963 at the age of 78

Figure 13b. Death register listing for Johanna M. E. Bruck

By this time, I was virtually positive that Johanna M. E. Bruck was Renate’s mother. I returned to the GRO database and searched for her among the death records for the first quarter of 1963. I found her listed and ordered her death certificate. It arrived a few weeks later and confirmed that Johanna was indeed the widow of Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck; she died of ovarian cancer that resulted in early cardiac failure. (Figure 14)

Figure 14. Death certificate for Johanna Margarete Elisabeth Bruck showing she died on the 5th of March 1963 in the County of Hertford, England and was the widow of Walter Wolfgang Bruck

Next, I tried to figure out when Renate Bruck might have died. In ancestry.com, I uncovered evidence of yet a third individual she had wed, a man named Gary Newman whom she married in 1956. (Figures 15a-b) A family tree in ancestry indicated Renate Newman had died in England on the 3^rd of March 2013. With an actual year of death, I was able to locate a death certificate in the GRO database corresponding to this lady. I ordered a copy of this document, as well. Any doubt I might have had that this was Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck’s daughter was dispelled when I saw the maiden name “Bruck” on the certificate with her known date of birth, the 16^th of June 1926. (Figure 16) Her cause of death was specified as esophageal cancer. She had been an interior designer during her working years, while her husband had been a commodity broker.

Figure 15a. Reference from ancestry.com showing that a “Renate S. G. Graham” and “Gary Newman” married in October 1956 in Middlesex, England

Figure 15b. Marriage register listing for Renate S. G. Graham and “Newman” with District, Volume and Page number circled

Figure 16. Death certificate for “Renate Stefanie Newman,” dated the 3rd of March 2013, providing her maiden name (Bruck) and the name of her son, “Nicholas Francis David Newman”

At the time of Renate’s death in 2013, her son, Nicholas Francis David Newman, was attendant. Thinking I might finally have found a living descendant of the esteemed Dr. Julius Bruck from Breslau, I first tried looking for him in the GRO database but discovered the index of historic births ends in 1916. The database includes death records until 1957, and, then again between 1984 to the present; oddly, death records between 1957 and 1991 are not available. Regardless, knowing Nicholas Newman was still alive when his mother passed away in 2013, I searched death records for the few years postdating this year. Not expecting to find anything, I was astonished to discover he died in 2015 (registered in February 2016) at only 55 years of age. Sadly, Nicholas Newman’s death certificate stated he committed suicide and no next-of-kin were named (Figure 17), so any hopes I had of possibly finding a living descendant of the esteemed Dr. Julius Bruck have been dashed, at least temporarily. I am still trying to ascertain whether Renate Bruck might have had additional children with her third husband, or possibly children by her second husband, Harry Graham.

Figure 17. Death certificate for Renate Bruck’s son by her third husband, Nicholas Francis David Newman (1960-2015)

There is one additional search engine I want to bring to readers attention that I stumbled upon. It is entitled “FreeBMD” (Figure 18), which is an ongoing project, the aim of which is to transcribe the Civil Registration index of births, marriages and deaths for England and Wales using the GRO database, and to provide free Internet access to the transcribed records. It is a part of the “Free UK Genealogy family,” which also includes “FreeCEN” (Census data) and “FreeREG” (Parish Registers). My suggestion when using FreeBMD is to only enter a surname and check “All” under “Type” of vital records being sought; this will result in the broadest possible list of names. I have used FreeBMD to search for other family members who wound up in England and found it to be useful when I only have a name and no dates or GRO reference number to work with.

Johnanna Bruck née Graebsch Family & Vital Statistics

Name (relationship)	Vital Event	Date	Place

Johanna Margarete Elisabeth Graebsch (self)	Birth	10 April 1884	Breslau, Germany [Wrocław, Poland]
	Marriage (Dr. Alfred Renner)	6 May 1905	Breslau, Germany [Wrocław, Poland]
	Divorce (from Dr. Renner)	8 March 1917	Breslau, Germany [Wrocław, Poland]
	Marriage (Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck)	after 1919	Breslau, Germany [Wrocław, Poland]
	Death	5 March 1963	London Borough of Barnet, England
Alfred Friedrich Karl Kurt Renner (first husband)	Birth	20 June 1873	Breslau, Germany [Wrocław, Poland]
	Marriage	6 May 1905	Breslau, Germany [Wrocław, Poland]
	Death	after 1941
Walter Wolfgang Bruck (second husband)	Birth	4 March 1872	Breslau, Germany [Wrocław, Poland]
	Marriage	after 1919	Breslau, Germany [Wrocław, Poland]
	Death	31 March 1937	Breslau, Germany [Wrocław, Poland]
Hermine Bruck (daughter)	Birth	January 1924	Breslau, Germany [Wrocław, Poland]
Hermine Bruck (daughter)	Death	10 March 1924	Breslau, Germany [Wrocław, Poland]
Renate Stephanie Gertrude Bruck (daughter)	Birth	16 June 1926	Breslau, Germany [Wrocław, Poland]
	Marriage (Eugen Walter Mehne)	1945 (?)
	Marriage (Harry E. Graham b. Heinrich Ernst Gradenwitz)	18 October 1948	Willesden, Middlesex, England
	Marriage (Gary Newman)	October 1956	Middlesex, England
	Death	3 March 2013	Woodbridge, Suffolk, England
Harry Ernest Graham (born Heinrich Ernst Gradenwitz) (son-in-law)	Birth	8 November 1904	Berlin, Germany
	Marriage (Ruth Philipsborn)	April 1935	Kensington Borough of London, England
	Marriage (Renate Bruck)	18 October 1948	Willesden, Middlesex, England
	Death	7 March 1959	London, England
Nicholas Francis David Newman (grandson)	Birth	2 May 1960	London, England
Nicholas Francis David Newman (grandson)	Death	9 August 2015	Woodbridge, Suffolk, England

POST 82: DR. OTTO BRUCK IN THE BRITISH ARMY

Figure 1. My father, Dr. Otto Bruck, in his British Army uniform in Sétif, Algeria in the Summer of 1944

Note: In this post, I discuss the limited amount I know about my father’s 2 years and 224 days in the British Army as a member of the 338^th Royal Pioneer Corps. (Figure 1) Like his five-years in the French Foreign Legion, his tour of duty in the British Army began in Algeria, though it ended in Italy. I also talk about his reason for enlisting in the English Army, and, as in previous posts, provide some historical context.

Post 80: Dr. Otto Bruck in the French Foreign Legion

Post 81: Photo Essay of Dr. Otto Bruck’s Time in the French Foreign Legion

Between January 30, 1933 and May 8, 1945, there were two main laws pertaining to the loss of German citizenship. This not only affected Jews, but also Communists, Socialists, members of the Social Democratic party, conscientious objectors, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Quakers. The “Law on the Revocation of Naturalizations and the Deprivation of the German Citizenship” of July 14, 1933, deprived some persons of their German citizenship individually. Their names were listed in the “Reichsgesetzblatt” (Reich Law Gazette), and with publication of the particular “Reichsgesetzblatt” they lost their German citizenship.

The main group of former German citizens, however, lost their citizenship with the “Eleventh Decree to the Law on the Citizenship of the Reich” of November 25, 1941. This decree stripped Jews of their remaining rights, and stipulated that Jews living outside Germany were no longer German citizens. Deprived of their citizenship and their passports nullified, this effectively stranded in place Jews who had left Germany in the years before or shortly after the beginning of WWII.

As a related aside, ancestry.com has a searchable database entitled “Germany, Index of Jews Whose German Nationality was Annulled by Nazi Regime, 1935-1944,” where the names of individuals whose nationality was rescinded can be entered.

I previously explained to readers that my father left Germany in March 1938 and enlisted in the French Foreign Legion in November 1938. Enlistment in the Legion did not convey French citizenship unless one served at least three tours of duty or was seriously wounded during a military operation. Thus, the Nazi decree of November 25, 1941 stripping Jews living outside Germany of their citizenship effectively rendered Jews, including my father, “stateless.” While he was still a member of the Legion in November 1941 with two additional years of service to fulfill, my father no doubt began to consider what options might be available when his tour of duty ended.

Figure 2. My father’s demobilization document from the French Foreign Legion

My father’s five-year enlistment in the Legion ended on the 13^th of November 1943 when he was demobilized in Colomb-Béchar, Algeria (Figure 2); two days later, on the 15^th of November 1943, he joined the British Pioneer Corps in Algers, Algeria, and reported to Sétif, in northeastern Algeria. (Figure 3) The Pioneer Corps was apparently the only British military unit in which “enemy aliens” could serve (Figure 4); an enemy alien is a citizen of one country living in another country with which it is at war and technically viewed as suspect as a result. According to what my father told me, he switched to the English Army in the hope that after WWII was over, he would be admitted to England and could resume his dental career there. While my father never fully explained the circumstances, it seems a fellow soldier stole his identity and committed a misdeed for which my father was blamed making his entry into England impossible.

Figure 3. Political map of Algeria with Colomb-Béchar and Sétif, Algeria circled; Béchar is where my father was demobilized from the French Foreign Legion, and Sétif is where he was garrisoned with the English Army

Figure 4. English Army Recruitment Poster calling on men 30 to 50 years of age to join the Pioneer Corps

Thousands of German nationals joined the Pioneer Corps to assist Allied war efforts and the liberation of their home country. (Figure 5-6) Typically, they were Jews and political dissidents who’d fled. Unlike the French Foreign Legion, German refugees were not given anonymous names. Obviously, serving as a German national in the British forces was especially dangerous because, in case they were captured, there was a high probability of being executed, either for being a traitor or for being Jewish. Nonetheless, the number of German-born Jews joining the British forces was exceptionally high; by the end of the war, one in seven Jewish refugees from Germany had joined the British forces. Their knowledge of the German language and customs proved particularly useful; many served in the administration of the British occupation army in Germany and Austria following the war.

Figure 5. My father on leave from the English Army visiting one of his French Foreign Legion buddies in Ouargla on July 15, 1944

Figure 6. My father in his British Army uniform in Sétif in August 1944

Figure 7a. Side 1 of my dad’s “Certificate of Demobilization” from the English Army dated June 30, 1946, translated into French

Figure 7a. Side 2 of my dad’s “Certificate of Demobilization” from the English Army dated June 30, 1946, translated into French

Figure 8. My father’s English Army “Star of Italy” and ribbon (consisting of five vertical stripes of equal width, one in red at either edge and one in green at the center, with two intervening stripes in white)

Among my father’s surviving papers is his “Certificate of Demobilization” (Figures 7a-b) from the English Army, translated into French, as my father was then living and working illegally as a dentist in Nice, France. The certificate indicates my father served in North Africa and Italy from the 19^th of November 1943 until the 5^th of May 1946, obviously as part of the occupation army after the war ended. He was awarded the Star of Italy (Figure 8) for his involvement in the military campaign there. At the time of his demobilization on the 30^th of June 1946, either in Naples or Rome, my father was a private receiving the pay of a corporal. My father served a combined 2 years 224 days in the English Army. (Figures 9a-b, 10) Unlike with the French Foreign Legion, I was unsuccessful obtaining a copy of my father’s military dossier from the United Kingdom’s “Army Personnel Centre” in Glasgow. This is conjecture on my part, but possibly because my father enlisted in Algeria rather than the United Kingdom, the military dossiers for enlistees in North Africa are archived elsewhere. My primary interest in retrieving this file would be obtaining clues on why my father was unable to immigrate to England, an event that would have been transformative.

Figure 9a. Frontside of my father’s “War Medal 1939-45” and ribbon (consisting of a narrow central red stripe with a narrow white stripe on either edge, along with a broad red stripe at either edge with two intervening stripes in blue)

Figure 9b. Backside of my father’s “War Medal 1939-45” and ribbon

Figure 10. My father and his English Army buddies in Rome, Italy in September 1945 with St. Peter’s Basilica in the background

POST 81: PHOTO ESSAY OF DR. OTTO BRUCK’S TIME IN THE FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION

Note: In this post, I talk briefly about the origins of the French Foreign Legion’s romanticized reputation and its depiction in popular culture, followed by a presentation of a few of my father’s photos showing his time in the Legion in Algeria between November 1938 and November 1943.

Post 80: Dr. Otto Bruck in the French Foreign Legion

Figure 1. Cover page of the book “Memento du Soldat de la Légion Etrangère” my father was given upon his enlistment in Paris on November 9, 1938

My father, Dr. Otto Bruck, signed up for the French Foreign Legion on the 9^th of November 1938 in Paris (Figure 1), and reported for duty in Sidi Bel Abbès, Algeria (Figure 2) on the 18^th of November 1938. As discussed in the previous post, as a Jewish refugee in the lead-up to WWII without a visa to a safe haven, his options were limited, so he heeded the advice of one of his first cousins and enlisted in the Legion.

Figure 2. Political map of Algeria with the names of towns and cities mentioned in the text and photos circled

Before embarking on a presentation of some of my father’s visual images of his time in la Légion, I want to tell readers a little more about the Legion’s history to supplement what I discussed in the previous post, focusing primarily on the origins of the Legion’s romanticized reputation and its depiction in popular culture. There is no intent on my part to be comprehensive, so interested readers are encouraged to research the Legion’s history to obtain a more broad-based understanding.

The Legion was established on March 9, 1831 by King Louis-Philippe as a military unit to support France’s conquest of Algeria, which they had invaded the previous year. The Legion’s debut was inauspicious because of mismanagement in Algeria, nationally homogeneous battalions, resistance to military discipline among recruits, widespread desertion, and an unqualified officer corps. In 1835, the Legion was transferred into Spanish service to help Queen Regent María Cristina de Borbón put down a Carlist rebellion, though was resurrected in December 1835 by Louis-Philippe once he realized the continuing need for legionnaires in Algeria. The latter became known as the nouvelle légion (“new legion”), which staked out a reputation for military valor during the 1837 storming of Constantine, Algeria.

At the time, legionnaires were often used for labor rather than combat, a situation which began to change only with the arrival in 1840 of Thomas-Robert Bugeaud as commander in chief in Algeria. Recognizing the vulnerability of static legionnaire units in isolated locations that could be overwhelmed by Algerian resisters, Bugeaud instituted a counterinsurgency strategy that took the battle to the enemy and demanded incessant marching; the campaigns, while grueling, improved the Legion’s morale and performance. The Legion’s officers also then began to understand “. . .that leadership of foreign mercenaries requires finesse, appeals to the men’s sense of honor, and nonjudgmental, non-xenophobic attitudes.” Around this time, the Legion began to be more accepted as a full-fledged branch of the French army. The prior practice of nationally homogeneous military units was abandoned, discipline improved, and an ameliorated esprit de corps began to develop.

While historically the Legion had many cutthroats, political refugees, outlaws and others who required strict, often merciless, discipline, by the mid-19^th century the Legion had established its reputation as a formidable fighting unit. French imperial expansion that took place between 1871 and 1914 corresponded with the Legion’s “golden age.” The corps, which numbered about 10,000 legionnaires at the time, participated in campaigns in southeastern Algeria and in the conquest of Morocco. The campaigns were then spear-headed by mule-mounted units, the old Montées, as I explained to readers in the previous post. These units became a permanent fixture of Legion operations in North Africa into the 1930’s. The “Batterie Saharienne Portée de Légion,” of which my father was a member, originated as a mule-mounted unit, though by the time he joined it was a motorized infantry company.

The Legion’s reputation as a band of romantic misfits began to capture the public’s imagination during the Legion’s golden age, augmented by what is referred to as the anonymat, the requirement to enlist under an assumed name. This anonymity allowed legionnaires to invent fabulist pasts, unconstrained by reality. What also appealed to many recruits was the possibility of starting life anew with a clean slate, in an environment of macho hardships and challenges.

Readers will recall from my previous post that the Legion had always had a large complement of Germans in its rank. Ironically, German propaganda contributed to the allure of the Legion by depicting it as a band of criminals commanded by sadistic NCOs which, counter-intuitively, seduced the naïve and innocent. Literary works, such as Ouida’s Under Two Flags (1867) and Percival Christopher Wren’s well-known Beau Geste (1924), further kindled the public’s idealized view of the Legion.

By 1933 the Legion numbered more than 30,000 soldiers that were based in Sidi Bel Abbès under the oversight of an inspector general. The Legion’s first inspector general was Paul Rollet who was responsible for creating many of the Legion’s current traditions. Among other things, he sought to secure the Legion’s place in the public’s imagination by reviving the uniform legionnaires had worn during the 19^th century consisting of white uniforms and white kepis, and commissioning a glamorized history of the legion, Le Livre d’or de la Légion étrangère (“The Golden Book of the Foreign Legion”); he even had artistic battle scenes painted showing legionnaires in white kepis to reinforce his belief that they were members of an elite and exclusive military unit.

Rollet’s efforts were partly intended to counter what he perceived as an orchestrated attempt to vilify the Legion and thinly veiled attacks on France. Hollywood productions of novels about the Legion, including Under Two Flags (1936) and Beau Geste (1939), as well as the French film Le Grand Jeu (1934; “The Full Deck”) were also responsible for promoting the romanticism, adventure, and the opportunity for atonement through hardship; these possibilities were at the heart of the Legion’s appeal.

In the case of my father, the Legion offered a much simpler option, a lifeline. Still, there is a paradoxical intersection between the draw the Legion’s idealized view in popular culture may have had upon my father and the name he assumed upon his arrival in America in 1948, “Gary Otto Brook.” Recently, I asked my still-living mother why he adopted the name “Gary,” and she thought it was because he liked the actor Gary Cooper. This seems like a reasonable proposition, and the fact that Gary Cooper was one of the featured actors in Beau Geste, the 1939 movie about the French Foreign Legion, is not lost on me and does not seem coincidental.

With this rather lengthy prologue, let me turn now to a presentation and brief discussion of a few of my father’s photos of his time in the Legion.

Figure 3. Camel from a méhariste camel company (Compagnies Méharistes Sahariennes) France created as part of the Armée d’Afrique in the Sahara in 1902. Méhariste is a French word that roughly translates to camel cavalry

Figure 4. My barely visible father, marked by the “X,” marching with his company in Ouargla, Algeria on Bastille Day, July 14, 1939

Figure 5. General Maxime Weygand conducting a troop review of French Foreign Legion soldiers on Bastille Day, July 14, 1939, in Ouargla, Algeria

Maxime Weygand (Figure 5) was a French military commander in World War I and World War II. Weygand initially fought against the Germans during the invasion of France in 1940, but then signed the armistice with and partially collaborated with the Germans as part of the Vichy France regime before being arrested by the Germans for not fully collaborating with them.

Figure 6. Butcher at the market in Ouargla, Algeria, March 1941

Figure 8. Palm grove in Ouargla, Algeria

Figure 9. Blindfolded donkey drawing water from a well

Figure 10. My father playing cards with two compatriots. Circled is my father’s cigarette case, given to him by his own father, and passed down to me

Figure 11. The cigarette case depicted in Figure 10

Figure 12. The dormitory of the “Batterie Saharienne Portée de Légion,” of which my father was a member, in Ouargla, 1942

Figure 13. My father at a bar in Ouargla, Algeria, summer 1942

Figure 14. Two convoy trucks in Amguid, Algeria

Figure 15a. Truck accident in Djebel Djerrine, located between In-Salah and Amguid

Figure 15b. Truck accident in Djebel Djerrine, located between In-Salah and Amguid

Figure 16. Legionnaires gathered for a group photo after a successful gazelle hunt

Figure 17. Indigenous Algerian man from Ouargla

Figure 18. Legionnaire in Fort Miribel, located between In-Salah and El Goléa

Figure 19. Two members of the Italian Armistice Commission in Ouargla

The Commissione Italiana d’Armistizio con la Francia (“Italian Armistice Commission with France”) or CIAF (Figure 19) was a temporary civil and military body charged with implementing the Franco-Italian armistice of 24^th June 1940 and coordinating it with the Franco-German armistice of 22^nd June. It had broad authority over the military, economic, diplomatic and financial relations between France and Italy until the Italo-German occupation of France on the 11^th November 1942. It liaised with the German Armistice Commission, which I discussed in Post 80, which likely accounts for their presence in Ouargla, Algeria.