A Journey: Beyond Native Boundaries

By GW Staufenberg

The book is about a journey on four continentsEurope, Africa, Asia and the Americasalongside sharing my personal life story. With the subtitle, Beyond Native Boundaries, I suggest more than leaving home but leaving behind personal realities I was born into. Moreover, in the second part, I reflect on my experiences; here I share my observations made along the way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524514334

GW Staufenberg

I was born and raised in Germany. I have had the opportunity to sojourn at the crossroads of some of the better-known events of our time in four continents—Europe, Africa and Asia—before calling America home. I am now retired in Phoenix, Arizona; Barb and I enjoy living in the Valley of the Sun. Currently, golfing, swimming, and reading, besides writing, fill my day.

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Copyright © 2016 by GW Staufenberg.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2016910789

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5245-1435-8

      Softcover      978-1-5245-1434-1

      eBook         978-1-5245-1433-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 08/02/2016

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Contents

Introduction

Chapter:

Part I — Along the Way

1 —    Early Memories

The Face of Terror: Alarm and Panic

Life on the Edge

A Better Shelter

A Refuge

The Longest Day…

2 —    New Boundaries

Reconstruction, (Post war) Family and Friends

The ‘Plan’ (Morgenthau)

The Plan’s Consequence

The Plan’s Rations

Times… In-between

3 —    West Africa

First Impressions of Nigeria

The First Banquet

The Classroom

Leisure

Relocating (to Ibadan)

First Impressions

At Work

A Eureka Moment

At Home (Nigeria)

Companions

Social Scene

Social Dimensions

Interracial Intricacies

Leading up to Independence

Traditional Medicine

A Bush-Mission

Concluding the Tour

Home Again (Germany)

4 —    Middle East

First Impressions

Adapting

Scuba Diving

Narrow Escapes

Wedding Plans

Bachelor’s Party

Wedding Bells

Second Act

Our brief courtship

A lasting legacy

Exploring the Country

Two Highpoints

Two Scourges

Sharia Law

Good-Bye (Arab Style)

Looking Back

5 —    In America

First Impressions

America, an Idea

The American Dream

Our ‘Dream’

Across America

Memory Lane (New York) Across the State

Next Stop (New Orleans / Birmingham / Chicago)

In Retirement

At Home (Arizona)

Part II — Off the Beaten Path

An Exposition and Profiles

6 —    Observations, Along the Way

Moving Boundaries

Early Memories II

The Enlightened Dark Age

The Faces of Slavery

The Challenge of Islam

With Bated Breath…

7 —    Beyond Natural Boundaries

The Purpose of Life

The Natural Principle

The Religious Principle

The Scientific Perspective

My Life’s Purpose

The Purpose in Common

History of Differing Results

Summarizing our Purpose

What do the Principled do

The Mystery of Life

The Complexity of Life

The Challenge of Certitude

Pascal’s Great Wager

The Paradox of Ideas

8 —    Back to the Present

Beyond Progress

Beyond Economics

Beyond Technology

Beyond Religion

Introduction (Religion)

A Religious Dogma

The Law of God

The Nature of Things

My Heroes of Faith

My Faith Journey

Epilogue

Acknowledgement

Picture Index

Light in one’s soul and two halcyon hearts

Convey contentment and harmony.

Harmony in a home brings order to a nation

Order within nations is foundational for world peace.

(Adapted, Chinese)

➢ In Memory of Michael

And a legacy to Martin, Sonya and Joshua

To do Justice, to love Kindness,

And, to walk Humbly with your God.

(Adapted-Micah, 6:8)

INTRODUCTION

W hat, why and who are we? This is the leading question proposed in Building Blocks of Western Civilization, where I explored our western heritage.

In this account: Beyond Native Boundaries, I share my personal journey (Part I), and my observations made along the way (Part II). Sharing a perspective of facts and insights gained may offer a ‘second opinion’ of the popular worldview drawn up by the dominant culture.

Adversities early in life meant day-to-day survival. Political intolerance and bomb shelters belonged to my first experiences, followed by living under an unbenevolent foreign military regime.

Representing the Volkswagen line of products on four continents was more than a job: It became an opportunity for gaining insight. Adapting a dynamic career to differing rules, lifestyles and business practices in these diverse places became a chance to gauge the prevailing social and economic assumptions of multiple peoples and cultures.

The familiar was replaced by the unaccustomed.

From early childhood, travel and the biblical accounts in Genesis, as well as Hauff’s and Grimm’s Fairytales motivated my drive for adventure in me.

Before the age of ten I took on responsibilities of providing for my family’s needs. Barely past adolescence, I was under contract to Africa, teaching industrial skills to people who were in first generation transition from bush to urban life.

On reflection, it was a very risky mission.

At that time, Africa was mostly under colonial rule. However, gradually, I saw self-rule starting to emerge.

After a few years, my next assignment was to a Middle Eastern country. Here, too, I gained a familiarity with Islam that most westerners do not have.

With a young family in tow my next stop was the United States of America, which became our family’s permanent home and country.

Now retired for more than twenty years to a more laid-back lifestyle, I have filled this time by exploring existence—the very essence of life, its purpose—and by writing down my observations.

With this metaphor: Beyond Native Boundaries, I suggest more than leaving ‘home’. At one level, it raises up memories of leaving behind personal realities, all what is normal or natural of our own little corner of the planet, even if this is demanding or even threatening.

Cultural identity has a remarkably powerful pull, undiminished with time. In fact, exactly the opposite occurs: Time intensifies one’s original experience.

While embracing the host-culture helps to understand the manners, ways and ethos of the adopted culture, the frame of reference always remains the familiar, ‘the native boundaries’.

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PART I

ALONG THE WAY

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Niederwald Monument - 1870/1871

Commemorating the Founding of the German Nation

CHAPTER 1

EARLY MEMORIES

C entral to my childhood was a war in progress, World War II.

The earliest of my memories, my first history lesson, goes back to the fall or winter of 1941, just five years of age. In the attic of our home, while Mutti was hanging laundry to dry, she gave me an account of German and British relations. Perhaps reinforced by events that followed, this triggered my lifelong curiosity about history.

Home tutoring of out-of-favor history, religion or even science is not without personal risks during political repression. The authorities encouraged children to inform on their parents.

Under constant threat not to vary from the political worldview of the time, my parents walked a fine line. To be sure, ‘political correctness’ is not the invention of modern academia; it has been in use for much of human history. Not even the purpose has changed only the application reinvents itself.

All phases of life were highly politicized and controlled, perhaps more so the framework of institutional education. My parents walked this fine line: Unscrambling falsehood and teaching reality gave me a foundation on which I have built. Although I tested their values in my early adult years, I stayed the course. Now looking back more than three quarters of a century, I did not depart from their principles.

All early memories are punctuated by struggles for simple necessities—food, clothing and shelter. The threat of air raids, a constant terror ‘24/7’, heightened the difficulties.

Because we owned some land, growing food helped alleviate hunger. Truck farming, an orchard, gleaning after grain harvests, picking wild berries, gathering beechnuts for cooking oil, gave us a nominal livelihood. The open forest provided us wood scraps for heating and cooking. Foraging coke from locomotive tailings rounded out our routines.

Access to the railroad yard, rummaging for coke, was reserved for railroad employees. Only kids got away with trespassing. Anything that was verboten, such as rummaging in restricted areas, we called ‘organizing’. Not appreciated at the time, though, as time wore on, these struggles gave a perspective and training for life’s ups and down.

Playtime did not count in this environment; everyone had to pitch in. Organized sports were unheard of in our neighborhood; however, we improvised games. German engineering, its superb reputation, may well have been encouraged by the inventiveness of children developing toys and creative games.

One particular game, we called clips is worth describing:

A wooden dowel, four or five inches long and a diameter of about one and a half inch, had its ends shaved to a point.

The object of the game was to ‘tap’ with a short stick one of the pointed ends. It was bashed for distance when shooting up. Similar to golf, reaching the target with the fewest ‘hits’ won the round.

The Face of Terror: Alarm and Panic

A mild and sunny winter day, mid-morning, crisp cool air marked the day, February 22, 1945.

An eerie silence follows the wailing of air raid sirens.

Sirens howling, pulsing off and on followed the monotonous sound of propeller planes flying in formation high overhead was the norm. During the daytime, large numbers of bombers, usually with American markings, headed east.

Another indication of the threat level was a system of color-coded flags, displayed at the railroad yard to warn railway workers.

A large prisoner of war camp was located in the valley. POW’s were engaged at the rail yard. Whenever the flags specified a certain threat level, the prison guards led them up-hill for safety, toward a forested crest.

The Railroad system was a common attack target.

We were not privy of the flag codes; however, by observation I had ‘broken the code’.

A high state of alert continued well beyond noon.

That morning mother was noticeably tense. Mostly, our parents stayed calm, which was reassuring to us kids.

Moreover, my sister and I had stayed home from school because of the elevated threat level. While I helped with house chores, my sister had joined a friend from the neighborhood. Our home was on a corner lot. The cross streets near our house, both dead ends, were a popular play area.

Mother postponed a planned trip to the local bakery. She had prepared the bread dough earlier that morning. Our local bakery helped with baking the homemade dough. All daily essentials were government rationed and bread was scarce, as was flour and the fuel for baking.

My attention was focused on the rhythmic wailing of sirens; the sound pattern differed with the changing intensity of the anticipated danger.

In addition, frequent observations of a warning flag at the rail-yard signal tower continued to indicate a high level of air raid alert.

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Kreiensen - Nestled in the Foothills of the Harz Mountains

British attack planes, released their bomb load just as they came in low, over the high ridge at the far right. Targeting the rail yard below in the valley, however, inertial velocity carried most of the bombs toward the opposite ridge. Near the top of the ridge, our neighborhood received many of the incoming bombs. Carpet-bombing and chained bombs increased the destruction.

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By early afternoon, the sequences of events are blurry and the pace frantic, however, mother called my sister inside. Her playmate also headed for home, downhill. We were ushered down to the basement!

Father had fortified one of the basement spaces, the laundry room. Two treelike support columns, one on either side, supported a large wooden beam fitted diagonally across the ceiling. In addition, the government’s standard air raid shelter supplies included gasmasks, fitted for each person, and a water pump. Firebombing became one of the most dreaded air raids.

Earlier, a puzzling sight: The teenage son of a political functionary, Ortsgruppenführer, (he lived in the neighborhood, monitoring neighborhood activities) passed by our house going uphill toward the top of the mountain wearing an army helmet and carrying military style binoculars. (Our home was located just below the highest elevation around, overlooking our town, the narrow valley, and the railroad depot.)

That day, the railroad depot was targeted with a bombing attack.

Low flying planes approached their target—us—from the south-west, initially hidden from view by the Klusberg mountain range. Moreover, when this squadron was spotted by local air defenses the rattling of anti-aircraft guns -Flack- signaled us to run down the basement stairs, to our makeshift air raid shelter.

However, mother escorted my sister and me to a location under a doorframe, a crosswalk away from the designated home shelter.

The house was of stone construction with poured concrete basement walls.

A huge concrete and steel reinforced lintel supported the doorframe. There we huddled! Joined minutes later by Father who insisted climbing in the attic to check for fires as bombs exploded around us. The house’s foundation shook violently and thick dust enveloped us.

Father used his civil defense training while the rest of us frightenedly huddled together. Mother cautioned father to stay put - a good intuition, as we later found many pieces of shrapnel in the attic, fortunately, no fires.

At one point mother insisted that we huddle closer, and exclaimed, Together, we are going to heaven,— if the house were hit directly. I suppose this was trauma counseling in the trenches.

The clocks stopped right after 2 o’clock that afternoon.

The raid lasted less than 10 minutes—but it seemed an eternity.

With blasts from exploding ammunition in train cargos still coming from the rail yard, we emerged from our shelter.

The devastation in our neighborhood was extensive.

Our house had no structural damage; however, all windows were blown out in the front and on one side. Most rooms had cracked walls, the ceilings hanging down, and doors and doorframes damaged. Too, the roof was damaged severely. Nevertheless, we still had a ‘some roof’ over us—although it required patching.

Of the fourteen homes in our neighborhood—a suburb—four were hit directly and had totally collapsed, burying our neighbors in their home shelters. Among the three neighbors who had died was the playmate of my sister.

Just minutes earlier, before the air raid had begun they were hopscotching…

Our home was located on the side of a mountain range opposite the bombers approach route. The target: The large rail system, a major rail hub. The rails traversed many bridges and viaducts, however, none were hit. Notoriously, the poor aim of the bombardiers had most bombs landing in neighborhoods, sparing the railroad system. The German war effort was hardly affected.

Many bombs, including chain-bombs (several bombs tied together) fell on open fields nearby, leaving large deep craters in the unplanted fields.

Some bombs did not explode, making it hazardous to move in the neighborhood. Also, our streets were filled with debris.

In desperation my parents loaded up a hand drawn cart, taking us across the mountain range to a small village nearby where friends sheltered us for the night. I still remember fondly the comforting quietness of this village.

Not long thereafter my parents sent me to another small village, their ancestral home.

An uncle had insisted to shelter me, because two of my brothers had been killed just a few months earlier. I suppose this was a family survival plan. The farmstead that my mother grew up on became my new home until the war was over.

This tiny village, with a population of some two hundred farmers—Oldershausen, became my second home during all of my childhood years.

War was not an unusual circumstance. Since the beginning of my ‘world consciousness’, wartime was the natural state. I listened attentively when father and mother talked of the good old days, the times before 1919, during the reigns of Emperors Wilhelm I and II – die Kaiserzeiten. These memories related to exotic foods, bananas,