Book 1

My Parents and Childhood

As a child, I received a postcard-sized photo from somewhere of my mother in traditional Bavarian dress. Because of this, I know that she was a pretty woman and, like me, attached to her homeland.

I never knew my dear parents, so I could never know where I came from. I do not know what genes and diseases I could have inherited from my mother and father.

Unfortunately, my mother died of pneumonia when she was thirty-six. Oddly enough, her mother had also died at thirty-six, in 1913, while on the lake in Waging. My grandmother was born on December 31, 1876, in Eberting, part of the community of Friedolfing, and went to Waging in 1903, where she married Ludwig Hüttinger. In July 2004, I went to the Waging registry office and held the marriage certificate from May 29, 1903. The parents of my grandparents, my great-grandparents, were also listed on the certificate, Simon and Helene Strasser. Both were already dead by the time my grandmother married. When I calculate it, they were at least twenty years old at the birth of my grandmother in 1876, so I know that my family tree reaches back to 1850.

My mother gave word of her departure to Heufeld from Bad Aibling on February 2, 1927. (Because Heufeld was later combined with Bruckmühl, I still have not had an answer from the registry.) She married again after a divorce, changed her name to Diepold, and had more children. I managed to find that information out from neighbors and acquaintances. My foster mother searched for information for a year to no avail; she was never able to meet my mother herself. So far I have not been able to find out where she last lived and died.

My existence began when my mother gave birth. I saw the original birth certificate in Tittmoning.

My mother, Genofeva Strasser, was born in Tittmoning in house number seventy on January 26, 1896, at six in the afternoon. Hebamme Franziska Spitzauer was the witness.

An additional notice from February 21, 1896, in Tittmoning: After a statement from the kingly county court of Tittmoning on February 20, 1896, the protocol of the above court names and acknowledges the unwed elderly Bräuknecht Georg Schwangler of Watzing as father of the child known as Genofeva, together with the guardian Kammacher Konrad Bayer Jr.

There are a number of documents saying the same sort of thing. The records reveal that the mother of my mother, my grandmother, was also named Genoveva Strasser and was in service to Kammacher Konrad Bayer. My grandmother was born on December 31, 1876, in Ebering in Fridolfing.

My mother was employed by Peter Wildgruber, a shoemaker in Bernau who was named my godparent on August 9, 1919. In 1995 I went to Bernau and got to know Peter Wildgruber's daughter, and I asked her if she had found any information from the baptism. She told me that she didn't have any information. She only knew that her father was married in 1919. Peter Wildgruber was my mother's unofficial caregiver, and my mother was given lodging in Bernau.

My mother's husband, Mr. Eugen Steiert, was military. They married during the war, in 1916. They were living separately at that time. My mother was a waitress. Her home address was 24 Rosenheimer Street, Kolbermoor. She worked with quite a few people, and among them was probably my father. My whole life I have asked myself what kind of man he was. How did he look? She took the secret to her grave.

To understand that, one must understand the turbulent times back then. The time of my conception was fall, 1918. The First World War was lost and over. At the large railway junction in Rosenheim, many troops were being discharged, deloused, and disbanded between Kolbermoor and Rosenheim. There was a large marshaling yard with a repair shop called Sanierung. Over the years the area had developed a bad reputation because all kinds of vermin stayed there. Our parents warned us about the area, but we kids from the Karolinen levels sometimes made patrols of the area anyway, to see what was different about it. It was a gathering place for people who did not want to or could not pay rent. Some lived in arranged railway cars. Sometimes we found thrown-away or destroyed military weapons. After World War II, the area was built into an industrial park.

The regent prince was in flight before the revolution. The communist government council fought against the white freedom corps that wanted to save us from the communists. Many innocent people were stood up against the wall and shot. Most of the soldiers had no future or goals, and some were wounded. After my mother's husband, Eugen Steiert, was dismissed from his position as corporal, he needed to find a new path.

After my mother found out, to her horror, that she was pregnant, she tried to hide her situation. She continued her work as a waitress. This was, of course, done where no one knew her. Apparently she tried some extreme measures to get out of her situation. (A friendly dentist surmised this fifty years later in Bayreuth. The strong poison that should have ended the pregnancy deformed the roof of my mouth.) As an embryo, I had already had to fight for my life. After the secret abortion failed, she chose Bernau as the village for the secret birth.

(This year, 2005, I am going to investigate further why the town of Kolbermoor absorbed the cost of caring for me. I have a handwritten note dated 1921 in my possession, which states that the baker, Spiegel, took custody of me. There may also be records in Kolbermoor of the school costs and books that the community paid for.)

My Birth Certificate from Bernau on the Chiem Lake

Before the undersigned registrar appeared today the midwife Katharina Eggers, a resident of house number 80, Bernau, showed that a child was born on Friday, August 8, 1919, at four fifteen in the morning to the housekeeper Genoveva Steiert, born Strasser, wife to Rosenheim's living mechanic, Eugen Steiert, both of the Catholic religion and living in house 4½, Bernau. The child was male and was called Hermann.

The midwife, Katharina Eggers, was in attendance.

Representing the registrar
Engelländer 2.Mayor
Added on December 24, 1921

The following report is a message from the district court of Bad Aibling. The final verdict of the Traunstein district court on February 21, 1921, has determined that the child born Hermann Steiert on August 8, 1919, was an illegitimate child of Genoveva Steiert, born Strasser, and is therefore named Hermann Strasser.

Bernau, December 14, 1921

The Registrar
J. W. Engelländer

Just one day after my birth I was given the name Hermann. My godfather was the shoemaker Peter Wildgruber. I wonder where they got the name Hermann, such a rare name in Bavaria? Is that a reference to my father?

Later my foster mother, who I called Mama, tried to the best of her ability to shed some light onto my dark past. When she found out that my mother received 4,000 Reichsmarks in hush money, she was convinced that I must be descended from a famous person. At the time, a person could buy a house with 4,000 Reichsmarks. Whoever could spend that much money for the sake of his reputation must have been a politician or a famous person.

While she was investigating, Mama also found out that my mother asked that I be given to the mortuary woman right after I was born, a solitary woman who washed...