“I saw our father until 1972, with interruptions. He was often not there, but if he was there, he was loving with us. I wonder sometimes how his relationship with our mother endured so many lows. For, unfortunately, our father had a loose relationship to money, he abused alcohol, so he was always in debt to restaurants. But I also know that he would have given the shirt off his back to help others without thinking that children and women were waiting at home.

“Our father was a very intelligent and spoke several languages. Unfortunately, he had great difficulty in taking responsibility. Today, I often do not know what of his stories were true and what invented. I think he had no real deep feelings; he was always looking and loved the women. He had a very charming nature. Although he was loved by his first wife and also my mom very much (I think she loves him still), he never managed to get his life under control. He graduated from school in an apprenticeship as a skilled worker for hotel and restaurants (especially making pastry) and while still in a high school in Heidelberg he was managing director and restaurant manager in several facilities.”

-- Sibylle Ute Günzel, 02/18/2013 email to Lynn Steen. (Translated from German original)

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Before his marriage to our mother he had fathered two children that I know of.

A girl surname Haberland in Heidelberg and the marriage between our parents a girl, somewhere in Mecklenburg .. I think. The latter, I also know my mother, she had referred to the allied elements.

We knew that our father 2 children in his first marriage, and she had heath and Hartmut hot, he had. A picture of them as they once were as children to visit in Kiel More we were not known. My mother wrote to her father, but was never answered.