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The Extraordinary Early Life of Emanuel “Manny” von König (1927 thr 1966)

This is and extensive chronological summary listing in plain, factual prose the the first 30 years of Emanuel von König’s life; one like no other, split nearly in half, first growing up and fighting for Hitler’s absolute autocracy; then landing in America thanks to a Fulbright Scholarship. There he became a great husband and father of four sons, a U.S, citizen who served in the Army Reserve, while managing a successful corporate career with Whirlpool Corporation.

Those first 30 years also were the bloodiest and most fateful of Twentieth Century Europe, pitting two great democracies and a needed Soviet dictatorship against the Nazi Tyranny, only post-victory to see the Soviet unilaterally pushing their expansionism too far, causing a new break between the “free world” and the communist behemoth; the Cold War was on, this time with nuclear weapons on both sides in 1949.

• Origins and Expansion of the Ludwig von König family in 1920s Munich (1920-1941)

-          March 25, 1920: Ludwig von König marries Élise Jadoul (originally from Belgium). He is a surveyor for the state of Bavaria, which makes him a civil servant. His official family name, Ludwig Viktor Julius Heinrich König von Paumbshausen, indicates a long-gone noble origin.

-          Daughter Wolfhilde is born on November 8, 1924.

-          Son Emanuel is born on March 16, 1927. Soon called “Manny” by all.

-          Sister and brother are growing up in Hitler’s new Reich through its early victories.

-          Both siblings are obliged to enter “Hitler Youth” Program at age 10. There are strong separations between the program for males (military-oriented) and that for females (people service-oriented).

-          For both, there is a junior stage (age 10 to 14), then a senior stage (age 14 to 18).

-          The Nazi Regime always intended to make its youth an effective part of its war effort.

-          At age 10 (1937), Manny is obliged to join the “Jungfolk.” Parents have no say. During weekend meetings, he learns basic skills such as rifle shooting and being a Life Guard, while being subjected to Nazi indoctrination. Meanwhile, he continues his regular schooling.

-          At age 14 (1941), Manny, joins the senior level of “Hitler Jugend,” where he soon has to publicly pledge an oath of Allegiance to Hitler. Gets early military training including firefighting, even from from incendiary bombs; people salvaging; cleaning up debris and repairs.

-          Within his chosen field of service: The War Navy, he is taught naval skills every third weekend on Lake Starnberg, a very large body of water 16 miles south of Munich. Rules of navigation, seamanship, and signaling are among them.

• From Anti-Aircraft Gunner to Infantryman in the Battle of Berlin (1941-1945)

-          In January 1943, Hitler decrees that anti-aircraft (Flak) batteries throughout the country and occupied lands are to be manned principally by Hitler Youth teens. There are some 2,700 such batteries throughout the Reich, each usually consisting of 4 heavy AA guns (105 mm), two control posts and a radar guidance station. They require over 1 million men to function properly.

-          In April 1943, having just turned 16, Manny is accordingly transferred out of the Hitler Youth to join the military.  He becomes a “Luftwaffenhelfer” or LWH (Air Force Helper). This starts with being a spotter for an Flak unit defending Munich. He returns home occasionally, stays that are often occupied by cleaning up debris and effecting repairs to the family apartment.

-          A week before his 17th birthday (March 16, 1944), Manny is selected to study for a week at the Kriegsmarine (War Navy) School at Stralsund on the eastern Baltic coast. He passes his exams with ease. An assignment on a battleship is envisaged for the end of the year.

-          Unpredictably, the following June, he is puled from the LWH and transferred to a different service to Prague, Czechoslovakia, but still serving within a Flak battery unit, this time serving as a active gunner. The threat from the Red Army in the east is getting both serious and closer.

-          After over 3 months on that assignment, he gets 10-day home leave in early October. However, after a happy reunion day with Mother and sister at their Munich home, the air raid alarm blares at 11 pm. All three down to he cellars! It was the first air raid in a series that would last throughout his “leave.” His rescue, salvaging and firefighting skills prove most welcome. 

-          At the end of his leave, Manny takes the train north to begin training at the prestigious German Naval Academy in Mürwick-by-Flensburg, just south of the eastern Danish border and with open access to the Bay of Kiel and the Baltic Sea beyond.

-           After graduating in late December, then a hellish 5-day train ride towards the east, he proudly boards the heavy cruiser Lützow to serve as an anti-aircraft gunner on January 2, 1945, at the port of Pillau in East Prussia, not far from Königsberg (now Russian Kaliningrad). His battleship, along with a few others, will help slow down the powerful Russian advance towards the east.

-          On March 16, in turns 18 and enjoys his gunner duties. He has now reached the height of 6’2”, while the rich food on board gives him an impressive stature.

-          On April 16, he miraculously escapes death when his battleship is heavily damaged and nearly sunk by a special RAF Squadron of 18 heavy bombers. Based on Hitler’s pre-emptive orders that all “freed-of-duty” Air Force and Navy men must be reassigned as infantryman to the defense of “Fortress Berlin,” Manny is sent by train he next day towards the besieged capital city.

-          This train ride proves as calamitous as the one he took in January, but again he manages to reach his assigned destination in the region of Nauen, some 20 miles west of central Berlin, where he most likely arrived on the 20tth to join his assigned unit of the 12th Army unit. He was still wearing his Navy uniform!

-          West Berlin was another lucky draw for Manny, as it was the last cardinal spot that the Red Army, which had come from the east, had to assault to complete their encirclement of Hitler’s capital. The chances of serious attack or capture were still high, but combat death was much les likely than in the giant hellish cauldron 20 miles to the east, north and south.

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• From Red Army POW to Near-death Experience Once Freed (1945-1946) [Summary]

-          Within days, Manny is taken prisoner by a Russian tank unit.  Over the following two months, he is moved through four dehumanizing Russian camps, the last one in Czechoslovakia near the East-German border. Each camp had worse conditions (and food) than the previous one, the Russian plan being to lead the captive young German soldiers to and early “natural” death.

-          Manny caught louse-born typhus in the first camp, dealt with bedbugs and bad bread in the second, woke up next to comrades who had just died overnight in the third, and finally was struck with pleurisy (bacterial infection of the external lung tissues called “pleura”) in the fourth.

-          In early July, 1945, Manny is still alive, but barely; he has lost half his weight, while his pleurisy brings him close to the last brink.

-          Then, through unimaginable good luck, he is cleared for transfer by ambulance to a hospital in the town of Eilenburg in south-eastern Germany. The local German doctors save his life with appropriate measures. A total of, 1000 cc (34 ounces) of pleural fluid was drained from his chest.

-          Meanwhile, his family in Munich, aware of his battleship’s fate and having no news from him since early April, believes him deceased. His parents finally decide to allocate all of their University-earmarked savings to their daughter Wolfhilde, who aspires to be a medical doctor.

-          Unaware of this and still in Eilenburg, Manny had been so weakened it will take him 11 months and the help of competent medical staff to recover enough to make it back to Munich in early June, 1946.

-          August: The U.S. Congress passes the Fulbright Program to foster peaceful cultural and educational international relations after the war ends.

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• From Disabled War Veteran to High School Graduate in a Crushed Germany (1946-mid 1948)

-          Luckily for Manny, Munich happens to be in the American Occupation Zone. As a war veteran, he is under supervision of the new Bavarian administration. By early August he has sufficiently recovered and must now consider completing his high school studies at Luitpold Real Schule.

-          His parents then finally feel they need to break the bad news to their son: In the belief that he had not survived the sinking of the Lützow, they had decided in late 1945 to allocate all of their savings earmarked for schooling to his older sister Wolfhilde, who passionately aspired to become a medical Doctor. This leaves Manny almost entirely on his own to pay for his schooling.

-          He will still manage to complete his high school degree between September 1946 on July 14, 1948. During most of that period, Germany lies in ruin, its economy in shambles. The Nazi Reichsmark is still the official currency for Germans, but is considered worthless.

-          The national economy has as a result turned into a national black market based on barter. Cigarettes, especially ones made in America, become the new unofficial currency. Manny, now devoid of any youthful naiveté, does very well in that situation, saving almost enough money for his own University aspirations.

-          Meanwhile, the United States finally concludes that Stalin’s expansionist USSR is not to be trusted. In January of 1948, General George C. Marshall is named Secretary of State; the policy of containment becomes official, including the rebuilding of a strong and healthy West Germany.

-          The Marshal Plan (“European Recovery Program”) is signed into law by President Truman on March 3. Soon, billions of dollars will flow into Europe to further reconstruction and consolidate democracies still not under the Soviet yoke.

-          Manny-Erika love affair, planned wedding in Chile (!), but his mother squashes it stealthily.

• From University of Munich to University of Minnesota (Mid 1948-1950) [Summary]

-          On on June 20, 1948, a thorough currency reform – with a new Deutsche Mark - is introduced by German statesman Ludwig Erhard. The black market collapses within three days, and by year’s end, the German economy starts to show sign of promising recovery within a few years.

-          June 24 - Soviets blockade all land access to Berlin; Berlin Airlift begins June 25.

-          Manny gets summer job at Yacht Club at Lake Starnberg, serves as skipper on sailing boats entertaining American officers. He earns honest money in a most enjoyable way; makes friends.

-          November 1949 - Manny enters University of Munich at age 22.

-          June 25, 1950: The Korean War begins with the brutal invasion of Communist North Korea into the western-oriented South Korea. It will last 3 very bloody years, then end in a stalemate lasting to this day.

-          July 1950 – Manny secures a Fulbright Scholarship. Gets assigned to University of Minnesota.

-          August 1950 – Manny sails on S.S. Brazil to New York.

-          September 1950 – Manny arrives on University of Minnesota at Minneapolis campus.

• From Freewheeling Student to Responsible American Husband (1950-1956) [Summary]

-          Late September 1950: Manny is invited to a student meet on campus

-          There, Manny is introduced to a group of students, including an attractive brunette from Minnesota, one who had been studying German for a few years as a second language. Her name is Rosalyn Reeder; she is from Forrest Lake, in the farm country north of the State capital.

-          Christmas 1950: Manny and Rosalyn are seriously in love and already talking marriage.

-          March 21, 1951: Manny and Rosalyn are wed in a joyous ceremony. Her brother, took a leave from his U.S, Navy duties to be her best man. Many other student friends are in attendance.

-          Summer of 1951: The couple plans to travel together to Germany in August, when Manny’s return trip, paid by his scholarship, is due. They both need to work to earn enough money to afford Rosalyn’s passage on the liner. They manage.

-          August 1951: They sail together from New York on the S.S. Washington, along with many other Fulbright scholars also returning, arriving at the port of Bremerhaven, then take the night train to Munich. At dawn, the train passes through Frankfurt, giving Rosalyn her first look at a ruined German city. She weeps.

-          September 1951: The von König family welcomes their new daughter-in-law. She feels well-accepted. Both Manny and Rosalyn get jobs with American organizations and contribute to their living expenses. 

-          Christmas 1951: Wolfhilde (nicknamed Lulu), joins the rest of the newly expanded family to celebrate the Christian holiday. All goes mostly well.

-          Summer 1952: Manny and Rosalyn, together with a German couple, indulge in a wide-ranging vacation, visiting Switzerland, Italy and France!

-          Early November 1952: Manny and Rosalyn spend a weekend in Nuremberg, visiting among others places the infamous stadium “where Hitler orated the masses into frenzied passion,” here quoting

-           Rosalyn.  This was a particularly emotional moment for the young couple.

-          Late November 1952: Manny and Rosalyn take the midnight train to Genoa, Italy, where the S.S. Independence will be ready to take them back to the intact New World.

-          December 1952: The couple arrives in New York, then quickly returns to Minneapolis. They badly need jobs as they in fact had to borrow the money needed to pay for their transatlantic

passage from Manny’s father…

-          January 1953: Manny gets a job with Seeger Refrigeration Company first as a production clerk, but is soon promoted to Assembly Line Foreman [Article from St. Paul Dispatch].

-          1954: Manny keeps progressing at Seeger, while Rosalyn finds a job with an insurance company, then a better one with a recruiting firm.

-          1955: Whirlpool Corporation acquires Seeger. Enormous career opportunity opens up for Manny.

-          May 17, 1956: Manny officially becomes a citizen of the United States! His career at Whirlpool flourishes.

-          November 1956: Rosalyn announces she is pregnant with their first child.

-          June 3, 1957: First child, a son they name Douglas, is born!

-          Fall 1957: Wolfhilde/Lulu, now a well-established Doctor in Munich, is lured by her infant nephew to make her first trip to America. Her visit goes wonderfully well.

-          Summer of 1958: Manny and Rosalyn take their one-year-old son on his first transatlantic airplane trip and show him off to his delighted German grandparents.