Immigration at Its Best: Story of a German American Scholar, Born 1933

By Hans Dietz

Hans Dietz was twelve-years-old when the Royal Air Force began relentlessly bombing his homeland of Germany during World War II. Shortly after, the U.S. Army began its dangerous approach.

After the war was over, he yearned for a life under different conditions, and one of his mothers relatives in Minnesota volunteered to sponsor him so he could move to the United States of America.

In this memoir, Dietz recalls embarking on a glorious adventure to a new land. As a young man with an open mind, his recollections are sincere, precious, and funny.

By sharing his story, he demonstrates how one moves from being an outsider to an American. While he came from humble origins, living in America gave him the opportunity to develop his delicate mind and become a teacher entrusted to lead other young minds to similar success.

With more people wondering what it means to be an American, how to view the immigrant experience, and what makes America so great, the story told in Immigration at Its Best is needed more than ever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 7, 2017
• ISBN: 9781546200901

Hans Dietz

Hans Dietz emigrated from Germany to the United States in 1956 at age twenty-three. He earned a masters degree in classical literature at the University of Minnesota and a Ph.D. in classical philology at the University of Illinois. He taught the classics at U.S. universities, at a Germany high school, and for eleven years at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, as an assistant and associate professor. He also taught Latin at secondary schools, was a teacher at a New Hampshire high school for sixteen years, and taught German as an adjunct professor in retirement.

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2018 Hans Dietz. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/18/2017

ISBN: 978-1-5462-0089-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-0090-1 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-0091-8 (hc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017911325

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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To my life partner and author,

Jacqueline K. Kelsey, Ph.D.

A Black Twig Publication at the Appleshed Story Telling Center

IMMIGRATION AT ITS BEST

Story of a German American Scholar, born 1933

HANS DIETZ

Gentes implevit bonis qui iustus est.

(He—the Lord—enriched the people with goods because He is fair.)

Contents

Part: I   1933–1956. Youth in Germany

1.    German Roots

2.    I Am Not a DP

3.    Is a Financially Secure Existence Possible in America?

4.    Growing Up in Germany

5.    The Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass): November 9, 1938

6.    My Grade-School Years

7.    Fliegeralarm, Fliegeralarm! (Air Raid Warning)

8.    Kinderlandverschickung

9.    My Loving Father

10.    Dangerous Days in a Not-So-Safe Childhood

11.    First Communion

12.    War Zone as Playground

13.    British Bombs over Düsseldorf - Stadtmitte (City Center)

14.    Heavy US Bombing of Mayen

15.    The Front Arrives. What Now?

16.    The US Occupation

17.    Food Supply: A Major Concern

18.    Difficult Postwar Times

19.    Schools Reopen and the Woes of an Altar Boy

20.    Father’s Grave Not Existing

21.    Early Personal Growth in Trier

22.    Touching the Robe of Christ

23.    The Benedictine Abbey of Maria Laach, a Haven of Liturgists

24.    Bicycling to Rome

25.    Everybody Loves Southern Germany’s Baroque Churches

26.    Gegrüsset seist Du, Maria (Hail Mary): Schönstatt

27.    Serious about the Priesthood

28.    The All-Importance of Music

29.    The American Fever

30.    A Student at the University of Bonn

31.    Can Handwriting Reveal Character?

32.    Student Exchange at University of Caen, France

33.    Failure of the Research Paper and a Happy Way Out

Part: II   1956–Present. Adulthood in America

34.    America! Here I Come

35.    On the Way to the USA

36.    The Joyous Entry to America

37.    Starting in an Entirely New Setting

38.    A University of Minnesota Student

39.    Instruction on an American Campus

40.    Anecdotes of Changing Cultures

41.    Misspelling Names and Attractive Coeds on Campus

42.    Playing Wilhelm Tell

43.    A Rough Cultural Adaptation

44.    Stuck in the Elevator

45.    You Are Fired

46.    The End of Tiring Jobs

47.    The Path to Classical Scholarship

48.    The Church in the Life of Americans

49.    Jazz in Minneapolis?

50.    Closing the Circle in Illinois

51.    Give Me a K, Give Me an E…

52.    Love and Scholarship

53.    The Wyoming Adventure

54.    A New Job at University of Notre Dame

55.    Happy Days at Notre Dame

56.    Mozart with the Chicago Symphony

57.    Are Earworms Really Bad for You?

58.    A Short Return to Europe

59.    Home Again, But Not for Long

60.    The End of the Liebfrauenschule Experience

61.    Hellas, How I Love You!

62.    Back to America and Customs Inspection

63.    Completing the Dissertation

64.    Looking West Again

65.    Stanford University, the Grateful Dead

66.    Losing Tenure

67.    Picking up the Pieces and Tumbling Again

68.    Divorce

69.    Angelus mihi venit (An Angel Came to Me)

70.    Student Teaching

71.    A Certified High School Teacher

72.    A Summer in Bonn

73.    The Adenauer Memory

74.    More Inferior Jobs

75.    The Ivory Tower Waves Again

76.    NEH Seminar and More Disappointments

77.    No End to Short-Term Jobs

78.    Another Attempt at College Teaching

79.    Passus Ultimus (The Last Mile)

80.    Job Search versus Personal Life

81.    The End of Nomadic Life

82.    Québec

83.    Bayreuther Festspiele 1995 (Bayreuth Opera Festival)

84.    Steely Dan at Tenure Celebration

85.    One More Language and Costa Rica Study Tour

86.    More NEH Summer Grants

87.    More Home Visits

88.    A Frightening Experience

89.    Make Room

90.    The Big Finale

91.    Afterword

Part: III   Professional Achievements, Papers, and Publications

92.    Papers

93.    Publications

Part: IV   Images

94.    A Carpe Diem (Seize the Day) Wish

Part I: 1933–1956. Youth in Germany

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Mayen at Christmas

Image courtesy of GAV Mayen.

German Roots

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T HROUGHOUT MY LIFE in America, it has always been a cause of pride to be recognized as a native of an illustrious country of renown like Germany, a land of great culture and fame.

Illustrious country of renown? But one might ask: what about the dark side of the country’s history in the years 1943 to 1949, when Germany lay in the rubble of its destroyed cities and devastated countryside, with no government and nothing but contempt from the rest of the world?

We might continue to ask, what if the United States had not come to the aid of Germany, defeated for the second time in a row, and had just left the country at the mercy of the Soviet Union, which was just waiting to swallow up all of Central Europe? What if America had just kept entirely out of the entire continental mess?

In that case, Germany would have become, and stayed forever, a third-world country. Hence, in accordance with the saying Dic mihi unde venias et dico tibi quis sis (Tell me where you come from and I tell you who you are), I think I would not meet the same flattering curiosity from people around me.

However, during the decades since the 1950’s Germany has been enjoying a solid democracy and has reached superb political and economic power among its European partners and the rest of the world.

It’s German pride. I am proud to be a German American.

I Am Not a DP

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W HEN I LIVED in student housing at the University of Minnesota in 1958, we had a guy walking around from room to room, joking and sometimes wielding a gun just to frighten everybody.

He would enter my room and address me with, Hey, DP. Not knowing how to react to this tough guy, I corrected him politely and said, I am not a DP, dude.

Still, I could not get it into his head that I was a regular immigrant with an immigration visa and a sponsor. For him, everybody speaking with an accent was a DP or just a foreigner.

I never did get to peaceful terms with him; luckily, he left soon before the term was over.

It is indeed fortunate that I never had to be a displaced person in my life.

I came to the United States, sponsored by an American citizen. I came willingly, with enthusiasm and the expectation to take advantage of America’s many opportunities and the encouragement to go as far as possible in life.

And so I think I have treated myself to this privilege sufficiently so that I can gladly claim to have had a successful career and a good life.

Is a Financially Secure Existence Possible in America?

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M Y LIFE NARRATIVE takes a sudden leap of twenty-two years to show how hard it can be to adapt to a new culture and how wrongly Europeans view job security in America. I begin with this story:

For the summer of 1980, I had a stipend from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for a research project on the history of the Third Reich to be conducted at the University of Bonn.

We moved from Illinois to Bonn for that summer. My wife Jacqueline, teaching English at the time, finished her study of comparative learning styles at the Beethoven Gymnasium.

When we were back in the United States, I received a letter from a professor of the department of ancient history in Bonn, saying that he was sorry that I was not able to find a position in Germany.

He went on to say that there were still job openings in southern Germany which I could consider. He added that he did not think that it was possible to make a secure living in the United States.

My well-meaning colleague could not believe that I would go back to America without a job waiting for me, which indeed was the case.

It had been twenty-four years that I first came to America. In those years, I had grown to be an American and would have had a difficult time readjusting to German life, had we decided to stay.

Having lived in America for so long, I had started to create my own narrative, building a career all on my own in an environment where everybody is free to succeed, without any sociological constraints. I was already in the midst of my journey, and the best was still to come.

My concerned friend had misunderstood my determination to go back to the country where I had already spent as many years as I had lived in Germany.

In addition, I would add that my dear friend was wrong about life security in the United States. He was sharing the old disputed view that it is not possible to count on a secure living in America, whereas progress in the socialized field has made it possible that seniors in retirement, for instance, can have a comfortable life supported by Social Security, Medicare, and additional annuity income.

Growing Up in Germany

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I WAS BORN in 1933, the dark year when Hitler came to power, starting his systematic destruction of Germany. Mayen is my birthplace, a small town of roughly nineteen thousand inhabitants, located in the volcanic Eifel region of the Federal State of Rheinland-Pfalz (Rhineland-Palatinate). Its main economic resource was basalt stone mining.

Rocks were the product of this community. Rocks determined the character of its natives: rough and simple. There were strict divisions between educated and uneducated, rich and poor, Geschäftsleute (those who owned a business or store) and Arbeiter (working-class people).

The economy was bad in those days. My dad received a minimum of education. I remember my mother saying that my father’s job was to help his father, Heinrich, hammer big basalt blocks into cobblestones used for street pavements,