 |
| personal Feick family photo |
Never was a word spoken about him by his niece (my mother in law) so I sort of assumed that family had lost contact with him or he had died in the war. I found the record of his birth on Ancestry.com. He was born at the turn of the twentieth century. Seeing him in uniform I wondered if he had served in WWI or WWII? I found this next photo on the internet. German soldiers posing at the Arc De Triomphe after the fall of France to Germany in 1939. The uniforms appear to be identical, therefore I conclude he served in the German army in WWII.
 |
| German soldiers before Arc du Carrousel 1940.jpg creative commons use Wikipedia |
Then it occurred to me that he was 17 at the start of WWI and possibly draftable age. What kind of luck is that to have been a soldier most of his young life? Or maybe he was really lucky. What are the chances a young man would make it through two world wars? On the losing side no less? His birth register has a notorized stamp that states he was married in 1937 and died in 1989. Both events were in Welldorf, Groß-Gerau, Hesse, Germany. This is not far from his town of birth in Worms and even closer to where his niece lived after her marriage, Groß-Bieberau. I would think my mother in law would have mentioned she had an uncle and aunt? What was his wife's name? Great Grandfather Otto had written it in the family register but the name was unreadable (to me anyway). Uncle Otto married at 37. Did he have any children? The hunt for Uncle Otto goes on.
my husband's Great Uncle
Otto Joseph Kränzle
b. August 5, 1900 Worms, Rheinland-Palatinate, Germany
d. December 4, 1989 Welldorf, Groß-Gerau, Hesse, Germany
Otto Joseph's birth record
**click on photos to enlarge for easier viewing**