Category: Hedwig Schlenger

POST 29: TIEGENHOF: UNRAVELLING THE “MYSTERY” OF HEINRICH “HEINZ” REGEHR

“The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.”—Oscar Wilde

Note:  This story has me going back to the town in the Free State of Danzig, Tiegenhof, where my father was a dentist between April 1932 and April 1937, to talk about a man whose destiny has remained opaque, a man named Heinrich “Heinz” Regehr.  Though I relate this tale in a linear fashion, the way I learned things did not follow a straight line.

Figure 1-Heinrich “Heinz” Regehr in Königsberg, East Prussia in April 1936, between Hans “Mochum” Wagner on the left and an unknown man on the right

For readers who have regularly followed my Blog, you may recall from Post 2 that my father’s now 94-year-old friend, Juergen “Peter” Lau, whom he first met in Tiegenhof as a young boy, recognized numerous people in my father’s photographs.  This story begins with one such identification, an individual named Heinrich “Heinz” Regehr.  The sole photograph of Heinz Regehr shows him walking across the street in the former East Prussian city of Königsberg (today: Kaliningrad, Russia) in April 1936, in the company of two other friends, one of whom is known to me, Hans “Mochum” Wagner discussed in Post 4. (Figure 1)  When Peter first identified Heinz Regehr, he told me his name, nothing more.

Figure 2-Page in my father’s 1932 Pocket Calendar with “Linchen Regehr’s” name by the date January 13th

In yet another post, Post 6, discussing the names in my father’s 1932 Pocket Calendar, under the date January 13th I mentioned finding a “Linchen Regehr,” who I would later learn was the wife of this Heinz Regehr. (Figure 2) Seemingly, the Regehrs, husband and wife, were friends or acquaintances of my father’s, so I became intrigued about what had happened to them.

Thus, upon my return to the United States in 2013, I turned to the membership index in the back of the “Tiegenhofer Nachrichten,” the now-defunct annual journal for former German residents of Tiegenhof and their descendants.  On multiple occasions over the years, the index of members has been immeasurably useful, in part because the maiden names of women are provided.  I used the index to identify all the people with the surname “Regehr,” and went on a letter-writing campaign in the hopes I could learn Heinz Regehr’s fate. 

One German lady to whom I wrote was a Ms. Anneliese Franzen née Regehr.  Some weeks passed, and eventually I was contacted on her behalf by her daughter living in Atlanta, Georgia, Ms. Meike Guenzerodt.  She explained to me that Heinz Regehr was her mother’s father, that’s to say, her grandfather, who had disappeared in fighting at the end of WWII and was presumed dead.

Ms. Guenzerodt provided a little history about the family’s escape from Tiegenhof towards the end of WWII.  Meike explained that Anneliese’s mother had been involuntarily institutionalized in a psychiatric facility outside Tiegenhof, and this delayed the family’s departure as the Russians were approaching.  Eventually, however, families of institutionalized patients were assured by German authorities their loved ones would be evacuated to Bremen, in the western part of Germany, before the Russians arrived.  With these assurances in hand, Anneliese’s grandfather took Anneliese and her two sisters and fled westward; at the time, Anneliese, the youngest, was six years old (born 1938); the middle sister, Evamarie, was 16 (born 1928); and the oldest, Lore, was 21 (born 1923).  Their father, Heinrich Regehr, was in the German Army at the time and they would eventually learn had gone missing in action in 1945 near Küstrin, 60 miles outside Berlin in the German state of Brandenburg, on the Oder River along the border with Poland.

The promised evacuations of the patients in the psychiatric facility never materialized, and the doctors and nurses decamped, leaving the inmates to fend for themselves.  With no staff to prevent them from wandering off, Anneliese’s mother made her way back to Tiegenhof.  There, a nurse found her wandering the streets and took her in, where she survived a mere three weeks before succumbing to disease in 1945.  After the war, the family was visited by this former nurse and learned of the mother’s fate.

Meike explained that because of the family’s hasty retreat from Tiegenhof, no family photos of Heinz Regehr had survived.  She asked whether I could send her a copy of my father’s picture of him for her mother, an entreaty I was most happy to oblige.

Believing I had resolved the question of Heinz Regehr’s fate, I set the issue aside.  In 2014, when I again visited Peter Lau in Germany, our conversation veered to Heinz, and I mentioned I’d learned he’d gone missing in action during the war and presumably died.  I can practically visualize Peter’s look of disbelief when I told him this.  He recounted that Heinz Regehr had in fact survived WWII, and eventually immigrated to Alberta, Canada.  He’d previously married Lina Regehr, following the death of her first husband, Franz Schlenger, a son of Otto Schlenger, owner of Tiegenhof’s Dampfmahlmuehle (steam-operated flour mill).  I would later learn from a descendant of Hedwig “Hedsch” Schlenger, to which Post 10 was devoted, that Lina and Heinz had had two boys, Henry Regehr, born in 1932, and Martin Regehr, born in 1940.

At this point, I started to wonder whether I’d uncovered the proverbial “skeleton in the family closet.”  I began to question if Heinz Regehr had not had two families, that’s to say, that he had somehow survived WWII.  With one wife, I knew he’d had three daughters born, respectively, in 1923, 1928 and 1938, and with Linchen Regehr, he’d apparently had two sons, born, respectively, in 1932 and 1940; the fact that he’d had his third daughter by his first wife between the time he had his two sons with his second wife troubled me greatly.  As implausible as this may seem, readers must remember that Anneliese had “affirmatively” identified her father, and Peter Lau had confirmed my father’s picture depicted Heinz Regehr.  Nonetheless, I never felt entirely comfortable with my conclusion, so I set the issue aside for future consideration as I continued researching other facets of my family’s history.

Figure 3-Heinrich & Lina Regehr’s older son, Henry Regehr, as a young boy in Tiegenhof in Hans “Mochum” Wagner’s class (Source: Günter Jeglin book “TIEGENHOF und der Kreis Großes Werder in Bildern”)

It wasn’t until I began writing stories for this Blog that I came back to the question of Heinz Regehr.  I turned to ancestry.com, and did a query on him, and, lo and behold, was directed to “Find-A-Grave,” which confirmed that Heinrich Regehr (1898-1965) and his wife, Lina Regehr (1901-1968), were buried in Mountain View Memorial Gardens in Alberta, Canada.  I also uncovered an obituary for the older of Heinrich and Lina Regehr’s sons, Henry Regehr (1932-2012). (Figure 3)  The obituary confirmed that Henry Regehr was born in Tiegenhof on June 11, 1932, and provided names of surviving family members, including a son named Robert Regehr.  Armed with this information, I turned to Alberta’s White Pages, and phoned several Regehrs who seemed promising.  A few days later, Henry’s son, Robert Regehr, returned my call and confirmed he was Heinrich Regehr’s grandson.  We exchanged information, he shared a little of his family’s story, and eventually he would confirm that my father’s picture was indeed his grandfather.  So, it now seemed I had the “proof” that Heinz had survived the war and immigrated to Canada, seemingly abandoning his first family.

Figure 4-Documentation from “Volksbund Deutsche” Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V.” with information on Heinrich Regehr who went missing on March 1, 1945

Not wanting to leave any stone unturned, I tried to learn more about Anneliese Franzen’s father who’d gone missing in action during WWII, thinking there might be updated information or something to suggest it was a different Heinrich Regehr.  I discovered a German website (https://www.volksbund.de/en/volksbund.html) with data on German war casualties.  This organization describes itself as follows: “Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V. is a humanitarian organization charged by the government of the Federal Republic of Germany with recording, maintaining and caring for the graves of German war casualties abroad.”  This website included the name of the Heinrich Regehr I presumed was Anneliese’s father, so I requested a copy of the documentation.  What I received confirmed what Anneliese’s daughter had told me, namely, that her grandfather had gone missing on March 1, 1945. (Figure 4)  An additional piece of information that Volksbund Deutsche provided was the date of birth of Heinrich Regehr, specifically, March 27, 1897.  While not necessarily significant, it differed by a year from what I’d discovered on “Find-A-Grave” for the Heinrich Regehr in Alberta.  Hoping to resolve this discrepancy, I contacted Alberta’s Provincial Government trying to obtain his death certificate but was told, not unexpectedly, only family members could obtain this document.

Figure 5-Page from 1927-28 Tiegenhof Address Book for the “Kreis Großes Werder,” including two listings for Heinrich Regehr

Within the past month, I again queried “Heinrich Regehr” on ancestry.com.  Because “Regehr” is a common Mennonite name, often tens of thousands or even millions of “hits” will appear.  Perhaps, because I’d never previously scrolled through enough of the names, on this particular occasion I was directed to an 1927-28 Address Book for the “Kreis Großes Werder,” the “kreis” or “state” (i.e, the equivalent of a county) in which Tiegenhof was located; I’d never previously come across this directory for Tiegenhof, a comprehensive one 23 pages long.  What I discovered gave me further pause.  It included two listings for Heinrich Regehr, one on Lindenstraße, the second on Schloßgrund. (Figure 5) However, knowing that Heinrich had been a “Bankbeamter,” or “bank official,” at the “Kreissparkaße,” or district savings bank, and knowing this bank had been located on “Schloßgrund,” I considered that the second listing might be his private residence.  By itself, this was still not enough to conclude there were two Heinrich Regehrs. 

A brief digression is necessary.  Occasionally readers will send me photographs or documents related to my Blog posts or provide other useful information.  One such reader recently suggested I register for a forum, entitled “Forum.Danzig.de,” which devotes an entire section to Tiegenhof.  Because this forum is in German and requires painstaking use of Google Translate, which in the case of German yields completely tortured transliterations, it took me time to sign up.  With an English-speaking member’s assistance, I eventually negotiated the process, and uploaded my first question.  While this forum has turned into an absolute boon, results of which will be presented in upcoming posts, in this post I want to focus on Heinrich Regehr.

The gentleman from “Forum. Danzig.de” who assisted me, Mr. Peter Hanke, has been gracious and helpful beyond measure.  In the span of less than two weeks, Peter has helped me solve no fewer than three thorny issues that have confounded me for several years, including the question of Heinrich Regehr.  Uncertain whether the Danzig Forum knew of the 1927-28 Address Book for the Kreis Großes Werder I’d discovered on ancestry.com, I offered to make the Tiegenhof portion of it available to members.  Peter confirmed the Forum’s awareness of this directory, then gave me a link to additional directories for Tiegenhof, which he offered to send.  After looking through the list, I asked him for two address books for landowners in Kreis Großes Werder, one for 1925, the other for 1930.

Figure 6-Page from 1925 Tiegenhof Address Book listing Heinrich Regehr on Lindenstraße

After receiving these address books, I searched for Heinrich Regehr, hoping, once and for all to resolve the question of whether I was dealing with one person or two.  Unlike the 1927-28 address book, the 1925 address book included only the one Heinrich Regehr listed at Lindenstraße, seemingly related to a Hermann Regehr, a “hofbesitzer,” or farm owner, and “getreidehandlung,” someone involved in crop treatment. (Figure 6)  The 1930 address book again included this Hermann Regehr, but also “Lina Regehr” at Vorhofstraße. (Figure 7) While unlikely, I briefly considered Heinrich had first been a farmer, then later gone into banking.  While I had no definitive answer, because Lina Regehr’s address was different, I became more certain there were two different Heinrichs.

Figure 7-Page from 1930 Tiegenhof Address Book listing Heinrich Regehr on Lindenstraße & Lina Regehr on Vorhofstraße

I mentioned in passing my quandary to Peter Hanke, and, unexpectedly, within a day he confirmed two Heinrich Regehrs had lived in Tiegenhof and provided the following information on each:

Heinrich REGEHR I (Figures 8a & 8b)

Business: Merchant

Rank: Unteroffizier (non-commissioned officer)

Date of birth: May 27, 1897

Place of birth: Neukirch [today: Nowa Cerkiew, Poland]

Address in Tiegenhof: Marienburgerstr. 14

Home State: Kreis Großes Werder

During WWII: Ground personnel in Elbing [today: Elbląg, Poland]

Missing in action since May 1, 1945 (somewhere near Küstrin/Reppen/West-Sternberg/Zorndorf)

Relatives: Father Hermann Regehr, born January 29, 1867

Figure 8a-“Heimatortskartei” for Heinrich Regehr I (front)
Figure 8b-“Heimatortskartei” for Heinrich Regehr I (back), listing Anneliese Franzen’s name

 

 

Heinrich REGEHR II (Figures 9a & 9b)

Date of birth: December 18, 1898

Place of birth: Rückenau [today: Rychnowo Żuławskie, Poland]

Address in Tiegenhof: Neue-Reihe 1-3

Business: Director of the Kreissparkaße

Immigrated to Canada after WWII: Calgary, Alberta

Wife: Lina, née ZULAUF widowed SCHLENGER

Children: Heini (Heinrich) (born June 11, 1932); Martin (born June 5, 1940)

Lina’s children by her first marriage: Brigitte SCHLENGER (born August 25, 1922 in Danzig-Langfuhr); Rudolf SCHLENGER (born October 11, 1923 in Neuteich)

Figure 9a-“Heimatortskartei” for Heinrich Regehr II (front)
Figure 9b-“Heimatortskartei” for Heinrich Regehr II (back) with Lina Regehr’s name and date of birth, along with those of her children by her two marriages

 

 

Surprised as to the speed with which Peter had confirmed the existence of two Heinrich Regehrs, born in consecutive years, living in Tiegenhof at the same time, I naturally asked where the data came from.  It was clear it didn’t originate from any Address Books.  Peter gave me a link to a free online catalog on FamilySearch entitled “Heimatortskartei Danzig-Westpreußen, 1939-1963,” a database whose existence was previously unknown to me.  This is a civil register of refugees from the former province of Danzig-Westpreußen, Germany, now Gdańsk and Bydgoszcz provinces in Poland.  Consisting of handwritten and typed index-sized cards, it was developed by the German Red Cross after WWII to help people find their families who’d been expelled from this region.  All the available cards have been photographed and uploaded to FamilySearch.

Figure 10a-“Heimatortskartei” for Hermann Regehr, Anneliese Franzen’s grandfather (front)
Figure 10b-“Heimatortskartei” for Hermann Regehr, Anneliese Franzen’s grandfather, listing the names & dates of birth of Anneliese and her siblings (back)

 

Figure 11-Obituary for Lore Schoel née Regehr, Anneliese Regehr’s oldest sister

I reviewed the index cards on roughly 4,000 former residents of Tiegenhof.  Not only did I relocate the Heimatortskartei for Heinrich Regehr I and II, but I also found a card for a Hermann Regehr (Figures 10 a & 10b); the names and dates of birth of Anneliese and her two siblings are included on the flip side of the card confirming this was the grandfather who fled Tiegenhof with his three grand-daughters. (Figure 11) This Hermann Regehr is found in the 1925, 1927-28 and 1930 Tiegenhof Address Books.  In ancestry.com, I was also able to locate his birth register. (Figure 12)  Additionally, Peter Hanke accessed the Church books of the Mennonites, a paid service, and discovered the family overview for Hermann Regehr’s father, Johann Regehr. (Figure 13)  While not detailed here, the Mennonite books also contain information on Johann Regehr’s parents going back yet another generation

Figure 12-Birth register listing for Hermann Regehr, Heinrich Regehr I’s grandfather, born January 29, 1867
Figure 13-Page from the Church book of the Mennonites for Johann Regehr, Heinrich Regehr I’s grandfather

 

Figure 14-Page from the Church book of the Mennonites for Heinrich Regehr, Heinrich Regehr II’s grandfather

Similarly, for the family of the Heinrich Regehr II who wound up in Alberta, Canada, Peter accessed the Mennonite Church books for his father and grandfather, both also named Heinrich Regehr. (Figure 14)

The Heimatortskartei catalog often provides invaluable clues as to family connections, spouses, vital events, and more.  Beyond the Regehrs, in at least three other instances, I connected names and/or dates on the cards to the corresponding information in my father’s 1932 Pocket Calendar or to pictures in my father’s collection.  These will be the subject of future Blog posts.

I can hear readers saying, “It’s obvious there were two different Heinrich Regehrs!”  And, while I would be inclined to agree, I try to avoid making facts fit a false narrative.  The “fact” is that both Anneliese Franzen and Peter Lau recognized the same Heinrich Regehr.  What I initially failed to consider is that because her father disappeared from her life when she was very young, no older than six years old, Anneliese may have had only vague recollections of what her father looked like and may have jumped to the conclusion, based on the name I provided, that the picture I sent was of her father.  Regardless, taking the time to patiently research Heinrich Regehr has led to a finding that supports what Anneliese and her family have always known and dispels any notion their father “abandoned” them.

 

REFERENCE

Jeglin, Günter

1985  TIEGENHOF und der Kreis Großes Werder in Bildern.

 

 

 

 

POST 10: TIEGENHOF & THE DIARY OF HEDWIG “HEDSCH” SCHLENGER

Figure 1. Hedwig & Alfred Schlenger on the steps of the Dampfmahlmuhle in Tiegenhof

 

Among the people my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, was acquainted with in Tiegenhof, and may even once have considered good friends, were the owners of Tiegenhof’s Dampfmahlmuehle (steam-operated flour mill), Hedwig “Hedsch” Schlenger, nee Fenger (b. June 13, 1899, Tiegenhof, Free State of Danzig-d. June 3, 1982, Hannover, Germany) and her husband, Alfred “Dicken” Schlenger (Figure 1).  Using the membership list in the Tiegenhofer Nachrichten, the annual periodical for former German residents of Tiegenhof and their descendants, I had the good fortune to locate Hedsch Schlenger’s grand-daughter, a delightful lady by the name of Beate Lohff, nee Schlenger (Figure 2), living in Meppen, Germany.  Readers will recall from an earlier post that my father had recorded Hedsch Schlenger’s name by June 13th in his 1932 Pocket Calendar, a date Beate would later confirm was when her grandmother was born in 1899 in Tiegenhof.

Figure 2. Beate Lohff b. Schlenger, grand-daughter of Hedsch Schlenger, in 2013

 

Not only was I fortunate enough to locate Hedsch Schlenger’s grand-daughter, but I also had the indisputable “luck” to learn that Beate had inherited some of her grand-parent’s personal papers and surviving pictures, which Beate graciously shared with me.  The pictures, some of which have been discussed and shown in previous posts, included people whom my father had once known, including two personal friends, Kurt Lau and Hans “Mochum” Wagner.  Perhaps even more valuable was a 12-page diary Hedsch Schlenger had written covering the period from roughly September 1944 through August 1947 that I had translated into English; readers will correctly surmise this overlaps with the period when the Russians overran Tiegenhof and East and West Prussia and worked their way westwards towards the heart of Nazi Germany as the German war-machine collapsed.  Hedsch Schlenger’s diary provides a fascinating, albeit limited, look at this period.  The initial entry is dated June 1, 1945, with subsequent entries dated, respectively, June 24, 1945; July 22, 1945; August 29, 1945; May 1947 and August 1947.  According to Beate Lohff (personal communication), a portion of Hedsch Schlenger’s diary has been lost and was likely destroyed.

In this Blog post, I have extracted several sections of Hedsch Schlenger’s diary to highlight contemporary personal and historic events; provided brief commentary on the events or people discussed; depicted some of the individuals mentioned; and, finally, illustrated, using a few of my father’s pictures, the areas through which Hedsch and her entourage likely passed.  Since most of the people mentioned will be of scant interest to the reader, I will focus primarily on the broader contemporary historical events that Hedsch Schlenger touches on that readers may find more entertaining.  The complete translated diary can be found under Historic Documents for anyone interested in reading it, although readers should be prepared to go through it with an Atlas in hand.

Hedsch Schlenger’s initial diary entry dated “Schwerin, June 1, 1945”:  “By September 1944, we had survived 5 years of war.  My husband [Alfred] passed away in August [1944] after being severely ill for 8 weeks; my 19-year-old son Eberhard was an aircraftsman in Breslau (today: Wroclaw, Poland) and only my second 13-year-old son Juergen was with me in Tiegenhof, where I lived with my mother-in-law in the mill and where my husband used to work as a mill merchant.”

Commentary:  I was able to locate the 1944 Death Certificate for Alfred Schlenger, Hedsch Schlenger’s husband, in the database discussed in previous posts: Östliche preußische Provinzen, Polen, Personenstandsregister 1874-1945 (Eastern Prussian Provinces, Germany [Poland], Selected Civil Vitals, 1874-1945).  Alfred’s Death Certificate is one of the few records in this database which is typewritten.

Throughout her diary, Hedsch Schlenger refers to her mother-in-law as “Omama,” although her given name was “Martha Schlenger, nee Ruhnau.”  More will be said about her fate later.

Hedsch Schlenger’s diary entry:  “The Russians advanced further and further into East and West Prussia and on January 23, 1945, the first tanks appeared in Elbing [today: Elblag, Poland], 20km (ca. 13 miles east-southeast) away from Tiegenhof.  At 8 in the evening we received the first order to evacuate. . . At 11 p.m. it was all cancelled as the danger should have been over, but at 5 in the morning the situation became very serious. . . It was the 24th, my husband’s birthday, when we left the beautiful mill site at 8:30 in the morning.”

On the road, we were soon driving in convoy and moved forward very slowly because of the ice.  We drank hot coffee for the first time at 3 p.m. in Steegen [today: Stegna, Poland] (15km), and all the vehicles gathered at 7 p.m. . .in Nickelswalde [today: Mikoszewo, Poland] (25km).  Our Wanderer (car) soon crossed the river on the ferry. . .”

Commentary:  Steegen was a beach community north of Tiegenhof where my father often recreated (Figures 3 & 4).  Nickelswalde was the major ferry-crossing point across the Weichsel River [today: Vistula], a ferry my father often took on his way to Danzig (Figure 5 & 6).

Figure 3. My father at the beach in Steegen in June 1932
Figure 4. The beach at Stegna, Poland, formerly Steegen, as it appears today

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 5. My father aboard the ferry “Schoenberg,” crossing the Weichsel (Vistula), likely the same ferry Hedsch Schlenger and her entourage used to escape
Figure 6. Current Vistula River barge crossing at Mikoszewo, Poland, formerly Nickelswalde

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hedsch Schlenger’s diary entry:  “In Danzig, I met Ruth van Bergen. . .thanks to her, I went once more to Tiegenhof by car.  Our house was completely occupied by soldiers and plundered. . .The mill was in use, which means new flour and whole grain were produced by means of an electric motor. . . Ruth van Bergen and I spent the night in [Tiegenhof] and one could hear shooting from the front-line, which was 8km away.  The next day we drove back through Burnwalde [on the Weichsel], where another pig was slaughtered and packed for us to take.  The ferry from Rothebude took 10 hours because the roads were full of convoys all the way to Danzig.”

I made it once more to Tiegenhof with Erna Baumfolk. . .That night we stayed with the Regehrs (uncle). . .In the afternoon, we drove back with the Wehrmacht.  I had a feeling then that I will never see my home again.  The cemetery was the only place that remained untouched.  I will never forget that peaceful image amidst the war.  Will I ever see my husband’s grave again?”

Commentary:  The above describe Hedsch Schlenger’s last two visits to Tiegenhof from Danzig.  Following the war, the Communist Government in Poland not only expelled most remaining Germans but also made a concerted effort to remove traces of German occupation, a pattern we see repeated in other cities and towns across the country.  Consequently, while many German-era buildings still stand today in Nowy Dwor Gdanski, the cemetery where Alfred Schlenger and other Germans were once buried in Tiegenhof no longer exists.

Figure 7. The Grand Hotel in Zoppot as it looked in August 1931

 

Hedsch Schlenger’s diary entry:  “The situation in Danzig became increasingly dangerous.  The Russians reached Graudenz [today: Grudziądz, Poland], Schneidemühl [today: Piła, Poland] and were close to Dirschau [today: Tczew, Poland] and were close to Stettin [today: Szczecin, Poland].  If we stood a chance to go west by train we had to leave Zoppot [today: Sopot, Poland] (Figure 7) again.  Many of our friends had left by ship but it was very difficult to get tickets; train tickets were hard to get.  Philipsen, my brother-in-law, left on the “Gustloff” as boatman.  The ship was torpedoed at the beginning of February near Leba [today: Łeba, Poland].  Most likely he died in the attack.  My sister [Lisbeth] often went to Gotenhafen/Gdingen [today: Gydnia, Poland] to get some news but always in vain.

All of a sudden, Doempke, my brother-in-law, managed to get me 3 places on a hospital train, and on February 24th, my mother, Jürgen and I set out from Neufahrwasser [today: Nowy Port, Poland] towards an uncertain destination.  There were 15 wounded in the carriage who arrived by boat from Königsberg [today: Kaliningrad, Russia] and were loaded onto the train. . .It was very cold in the compartment and it took us 3 days to get to Stettin [today: Szczecin, Poland] through Pomerania.

 On the 27th we arrived in Bad Kleinen in Mecklenburg, where we got off the train.  Then we travelled through Schwerin, Ludwigslust, Wittenberge and Neustadt (Dosse) to Rathenow. . . [roughly 45 miles northwest of Berlin]”

Commentary:  Here Hedsch Schlenger identifies some places the Russians captured as they were closing in on Pomerania and West Prussia, and touches on one of the lesser known disasters of World War II, specifically, the torpedoing of the former cruise ship known as the Wilhelm Gustloff. 

Figure 8. Map of Free State of Danzig

 

Figure 9. Northern portion of Free State of Danzig with places mentioned by Hedsch Schlenger circled

 

Hedsch Schlenger’s contemporary account details how the Russians were advancing into West Prussia and Pomerania from the South and East.  Other informant accounts I’ve collected suggest the Russians were even backtracking East to capture pockets of German resistance they may have bypassed on their way West.  Some readers may recall from my earlier Blog post dealing with “Idschi and Suse [Epp]” that their brother, Gerhard Epp, did not evacuate from near Stutthof until May 6, 1945, indicating this area east of Danzig was likely one of the last captured by the Russians.  On Figures 8, 9 & 10, I have circled some of the places that Hedsch Schlenger mentions in her narrative as she travels from Danzig to the German State of Mecklenburg.

 

Figure 10. Map showing relationship of Danzig to Pommern (Pomerania) and German State of Mecklenburg

 

 

Elsewhere in her diary, Hedsch Schlenger identifies her sister by name, “Lisbeth,” without providing her married name.  In the section quoted above, Lisbeth’s husband is merely identified as “Philipsen.”  It was initially unclear to me whether this was her husband’s prename or surname.   However, I was eventually able to locate a birth record from the Evangelical Church in Tiegenhof for a “Otto Wilhelm Max Philipsen,” a child that Lisbeth, nee Fenger, had with her husband which confirmed that “Philipsen” was Lisbeth’s married name and that she was married to Otto Philipsen.  I even found Lisbeth Philipsen’s name and address in Bremen on a page in Alfred Schlenger’s Address Book, given to me by Alfred’s grand-daughter (Figure 11).

Figure 11. Page from Alfred Schlenger’s Address Book with the names of his brother, Kurt Schlenger, and his sister-in-law, Lisbeth Philipsen, listed

 

The “Philipsen” mentioned in Hedsch Schlenger’s diary is this Otto Philipsen who died when the Wilhelm Gustloff was sunk in the Baltic Sea by Soviet Navy submarines.  An American scholar by the name of Cathryn J. Prince, has written a riveting account of this little-known disaster in a 2013 book entitled “Death in the Baltic: The World War II Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff.”  As the Russians were advancing from the East, Berlin made plans to evacuate upwards of 10,000 German women, children, and the elderly from West and East Prussia aboard a former cruise ship, the Wilhelm Gustloff.  Sailing from Gotenhafen/Gdingen [today: Gydnia, Poland] through the icy waters of the Baltic Sea on January 30, 1945, the ship was soon found and sunk by Russian subs.  An estimated 9,400 people lost their lives, six times the number lost on the Titanic!!

Hedsch Schlenger’s diary entries:  “On April 12th, the Americans were already marching into Stendal [roughly 100 miles northwest of Berlin].  On this occasion, I wanted to leave Rathenow again for I did not wish to fall into the hands of the Russians.  I did not flee from the East for that. . .

In the meantime, the Russians were getting closer and closer to Berlin, the Allied forces kept advancing from the West, and the Russians began new attacks even close to Stettin.  They were now near Mecklenburg, and on May 1st, they were now no more than 20km away from Krakow am See [located in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany, and the place where Hedsch, her mother and her son had temporarily taken refuge with friends as she was writing her account].

My mother. . .still wanted to stay there [Krakow am See].  However, in the morning one of the soldiers advised us to get on the truck going in the direction of Schwerin and make our way to Lübeck.  By 9 we had packed everything and set out again to flee from the Russians, who were supposed to reach Krakow by 12.  They were constantly on our heels during our journey.  The streets were lined with tanks again, between them were soldiers, wounded and prisoners—a bleak string of hardened people, who had lost their homes and their country.

 And suddenly the war ended. . .

June 24th: We are still in Schwerin, although every minute there is a rumor that the Russians will occupy this part of Mecklenburg as well.  Many people from Danzig walk around with Danziger coat-of-arms on their clothes, and the rumors are circulating that a Free City shall be established again.  But they lack any foundation.

July 22, 1945:  Since [June] 19th we’ve been in Rostock.  The Russians replaced the English in Schwerin. . .”

Commentary:  In the closing weeks of fighting in Europe, the Allied powers had actually pushed beyond the previously agreed occupation zone boundaries determined at the 1945 Yalta Conference by the “Big Three” (Russia, America, and Britain) on how to split up Germany following WWII.  In the case of the Americans, they had sometimes pushed by as much as 200 miles beyond the agreed boundaries.  So, after about two months of holding certain areas meant to be in the Soviet zone, which was clearly the case with Schwerin, the Allied powers withdrew during July 1945, which corresponds with Hedsch Schlenger’s account.

Clearly, there was an unrealistic expectation among some former residents of Danzig that a Free City would once again be established there, a situation that obviously never came to pass.

Hedsch Schlenger’s diary entry:  August 29, 1945:  “We are still in Rostock.  The refugees from the East keep coming still.  Amongst them was also the Schritt family from Zoppot [today: Sopot, Poland], who knew for sure that Omama [Hedsch Schlenger’s mother-in-law, Martha Schlenger] had died there. . Allegedly the Doempkes tried to take their own lives. . .

 . . .Many have taken their own lives, like my mother-in-law in Zoppot, who [died and]. . .is buried in the garden at Heidebergstraße.  The Doempkes. . .also took poison. . . “

Figure 12. Hedsch Schlenger’s mother-in-law, Martha Schlenger, nee Ruhnau (“Omama”), on July 17, 1934 in Wolitta (Kaliningrad, Russia) (photo courtesy of Dr. Heinrich Schlenger, Kiel, Germany)

 

Commentary:  Here, Hedsch Schlenger learns that her mother-in-law, Martha Schlenger, nee Ruhnau  (“Omama”) (Figure 12), died in Zoppot as did the Doempkes, her brother-and-sister-in-law. 

Many Germans who decided to stay in West Prussia as the Russians were approaching in the closing days of WWII were either killed or eventually took their own lives; those that survived were later expelled or naturalized as Polish citizens.  In the case of women who stayed, they were the repeated victim of rape by Russian soldiers.  My father’s friend from Tiegenhof, Peter Lau, to whom an earlier post was devoted, told me that his aunt decided to stay in Danzig to protect her property only to eventually arrive in West Germany months later a shattered woman on account of her brutal treatment at the hands of Russian soldiers.  Peter also recounted that German women took refuge in what was once Tiegenhof’s Käsefabrik (cheese factory), and what is today the Muzeum Zulawskie, as the Russians were approaching; after the town was captured, these women were systematically removed from the factory and repeatedly raped.

Hedsch Schlenger’s diary entry:  August 29, 1945:  “Recently I met a Mr. Kurt Schlenger who is a distant relative of ours.  He lives here in Rostock; he’s married and is a distinguished violinist. They live in Massmannstraße 10, have an 18-year-old daughter who wants to become an artist. I even met a sister of this Mr. Schlenger, a widow named Mrs. Seidel, who lives in Tremsenweg 4. They are very nice people, but completely different to us. They are dark, small and not as handsome as our Schlengers.”

Figure 13. Dr. Kurt Schlenger, ca. 1935 (photo courtesy of Dr. Heinrich Schlenger, Kiel, Germany)

 

Commentary:  This entry took some time to unravel.  Hedsch’s husband Alfred had a brother by the same name, Dr. Kurt Schlenger, who coincidentally was also a musician (Figure 13).  Readers may recall from an earlier post that this Dr. Kurt Schlenger, born on April 20, 1909, was mentioned in my father’s 1932 Pocket Calendar.  I spent a considerable amount of time searching for a Kurt Schlenger from Rostock, Germany on ancestry.com who could be the “distant relative” to whom Hedsch was referring.  Eventually, I found one Kurt Schlenger in Rostock, Germany, born on June 11, 1893, who is likely the relative in question; his marriage certificate shows he was born in Preußisch Holland (Prussian Holland) [today: Pasłęk, Poland], 46km or less than 30 miles from Tiegenhof.

From German refugees continuing to arrive from the East, Hedsch Schlenger was either able to re-encounter people she knew from West Prussia and Tiegenhof, including people my father also knew, or learn about people who’d decided to stay behind.  The fate of those who stayed behind, however, is often unclear.