Who Am I? My Story and Philosophies: The Autobiography of a Somebody or Nobody or Anybody?

By Rolf Harms

This autobiography offers a compelling insight into the struggles and achievements experienced by this farm boy in postwar Germany. He leaves home at fifteen to seek his fortune in the unknown future. We experience his exhilarating arrival in New York City as a young teenager on his own. We follow his years at sea and share in his becoming an illegal alien hiding out in plain sight in Brooklyn, New York.

The story follows an incredible career in the corporate world, where he amassed an impressive knowledge of the credit card business as it develops to a multibillion-dollar industry that left an indelible impact on society.

Rolf’s contributions to the American Express credit card expansion is reflected in the impressive promotional opportunities achieved. The book summarizes his career and highlights his passion to fight fraud on credit cards and provides an interesting insight into this field of work. Following a corporate career at AMEX, the author becomes a realtor and opens his own office. His views on real estate following the 9/11 era makes for an interesting commentary on our time.

Finally, we explore the philosophical views this author has developed during his journey. His ideas on who we are or have become is reflected in the book’s title—Who Am I?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Dec 18, 2017
• ISBN: 9781490786391

Rolf Harms

This author, Rolf Harms, is a unique, perhaps somewhat eccentric, individual. He suggests that we are the product of accumulated experiences in our lifetime, and therefore, we are different. Born in Germany during World War II, he dreamed about exploring the world, and at fifteen, he became a seafaring youngster traveling the oceans of the world in pursuit of that dream. At nineteen, he jumped ship in the United States and became an illegal alien. This was an exciting time, yet he realized that his future as an illegal alien would not be secure. His career at the American Express company became a major part of his life and future. He was recognized for his abilities and advanced, over time, to a VP level. His expertise in risk management and fraud prevention allowed him to give seminars to foreign government agencies, including the renowned KGB in the Soviet Union and others. After twenty-seven years at AMEX and his return from overseas assignments, he opened his own real estate company. His lifelong quest for achievement once again took on a new direction. It is the author’s philosophy and belief that we are destined to contribute to society. In his own humble way, he feels that his autobiography and philosophical views support that goal.

Book preview

Copyright 2018 By Rolf Harms .

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

New International Version (NIV)

Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

ISBN: 978-1-4907-8638-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-8640-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-8639-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017918793

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.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Trafford rev. 12/15/2017

33164.png www.trafford.com

North America & international

toll-free: 1 888 232 4444 (USA & Canada)

fax: [phone]

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1  THE WAR

CHAPTER 2  LIFE ON THE FARM

CHAPTER 3  PRAYERS FOR CHRISTMAS

CHAPTER 4  LEAVING THE FARM

CHAPTER 5  SCHOOL OR PICKING POTATOES

CHAPTER 6  DECISIONS OR WANDERLUST—GOING TO SEA

CHAPTER 7  PRIWALL, HERE I COME

CHAPTER 8  MAIDEN VOYAGE

CHAPTER 9  BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL

CHAPTER 10  FIRST-TIME EXPERIENCES

CHAPTER 11  MS PETERZWEI

CHAPTER 12  MY NEW FAMILY

CHAPTER 13  THE BLUE SHIPS

CHAPTER 14  THE SKY ABOVE AND THE WATER BELOW

CHAPTER 15  HOME FOR CHRISTMAS—OR NOT

CHAPTER 16  MORE BLUE SHIPS

CHAPTER 17  ILLEGAL IN THE USA

CHAPTER 18  THE IMMIGRATION PROCESS

CHAPTER 19  THE FUTURE IN FAST-FORWARD

CHAPTER 20  MY CORPORATE CAREER AT AMEX

CHAPTER 21  LAROC—LATIN AMERICA REGIONAL OPERATIONS CENTER

CHAPTER 22  LAROC MOVING ON

CHAPTER 23  ENTER THE THIEVES

CHAPTER 24  FAMILY MATTERS

CHAPTER 25  MY DAUGHTERS

CHAPTER 26  THE LOVE OF MY LIFE

CHAPTER 27  WORLD WAR II REVISITED

CHAPTER 28  MY FATHER’S FAMILY

CHAPTER 29  THE FAMILY REUNION

CHAPTER 30  THE LIGHTNING BOLT

CHAPTER 31  SMOKING

CHAPTER 32  MEXICO

CHAPTER 33  REALITY VERSUS IMAGINATION—OR MEXICAN GHOSTS

CHAPTER 34  EMEA—EUROPE, MIDDLE EAST, AND AFRICA

CHAPTER 35  HOME SWEET HOME

CHAPTER 36  PENGUINS—BROKEN TOES AND BITING DOGS

CHAPTER 37  BUDAPEST

CHAPTER 38  KEW GARDENS—GALA DINNER

CHAPTER 39  FRAUD ACTIVITY IN TURKEY—INVISIBLE FLYING CARPETS

CHAPTER 40  DECISIONS, DECISIONS, DECISIONS

CHAPTER 41  ASIA PACIFIC OR ELSE

CHAPTER 42  RETURNING TO THE USA WITH A RÉSUMÉ TO GO FORWARD

CHAPTER 43  FRAUD PREVENTION—WHAT DID THE KGB NOT KNOW?

CHAPTER 44  THE STORY OF THE DOVE

CHAPTER 45  A LITTLE BIT ABOUT REAL ESTATE

CHAPTER 46  WHAT IS A CAREGIVER?

CHAPTER 47  OTHER PEOPLE ARE IMPORTANT

CHAPTER 48  PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS ON OUR BEING

CHAPTER 49  WHO AM I?

CHAPTER 50  CHOICES

CHAPTER 51  CHURCH

CHAPTER 52  AN INVITATION TO AN ORDINATION

CHAPTER 53  POLITICS

CHAPTER 54  WHAT MORE IS THERE?

CHAPTER 55  THE NOW

INDEX OF PHOTOGRAPHIC ATTACHMENTS

INTRODUCTION

I s it not the storyteller who brings life to the past?

Is it not he who stimulates the imagination of the listener to visualize that which perhaps otherwise may never be known?

In this case, it is I who will now put pen to paper to record events in my life that were significant to me and that hopefully will be of interest to the reader.

While most of the recollections or memories are my own, some of the information provided are of events or experiences passed on by my parents to me or others because I might have been too young to remember or know about its content.

There is little doubt that a portion of our waking time is spent thinking about what has been. Good, bad, or indifferent, our memories of the past tend to become entangled with the present and, therefore, often influence the decisions we make.

It is my belief and philosophy that our experiences in life influence who we are or who we become and, therefore, continually, in some way, shape our destiny as we age and grow.

In many ways, I view my life experiences as a kaleidoscope of frequently changing patterns and directions. I am grateful for the never-ending parade of people and events that have helped make life interesting for me.

1

THE WAR

I remember the penetrating sound of sirens announcing the imminent arrival of the bombing raids. Allied American and English warplanes pounded the city and nearby areas with wave after wave of deadly attacks. The rat-a-tat of antiaircraft armaments mixed with the sounds of exploding bombs followed. The evening sky was bloodred from the fires of the burning city.

My brother and I stood at our upstairs apartment window and watched as we waited for my mother to come home from work on a nearby farm. I was barely three or four years old, and most of what I remember from that time related, in some way, to the war and the subsequent occupation by the English in that part of Northern Germany, where we lived.

On one occasion, a plane hit by antiaircraft cannons was flying directly at our house, it seemed, and only in the last moment did the pilot manage to pull the plane up and over the house, only to crash in the field behind it. I do not remember this incident, but I was told that my brother and I were immediately found hiding under our dining room table, where my mother had a tablecloth that covered the table to the floor.

Another sad story that I overheard my mother share with a friend a few years after the war was about an incident that happened on a day during the period that the Allied fighter planes and bombers were attacking the area near and around Hamburg. Despite the risks of being on the open road, my mother had to go to work on local farms to earn food for her to bring back for my brother and me.

On one such day, she was bicycling down the road when an air raid by the Allied approached in the distance. The airplanes dove to the road and opened fire at anything moving in their path. My mother had dropped her bicycle and jumped into a roadside ditch for cover. She ended up on top of a decapitated body lying there, obviously from a prior air raid. Somehow, her fear of being killed herself enabled her to endure the horror without jumping out of the ditch until the raid had passed.

I remember hearing my mother cry about this horrible experience as she spoke about it, and I knew this was not something I should mention that I had overheard.

I do recall my confusion about how it was possible that people could deliberately dive their aircraft and machine gun on innocent civilian women and children or local farmers who surely could not do anything to defend themselves and almost certainly could not pose much of a threat to those airmen, who would be welcomed like heroes when they returned home to their own country. I remember thinking that they must really hate us, but how can a six- or seven-year-old really rationalize or understand the horrors of war?

Another story about the war was told to me by my mother herself.

Hitler, the German Reich Fuhrer, demanded that the people attend his mass rallies when he visited various cities. His Gestapo rounded up the people from surrounding areas and compelled them to attend. My mother, on one of such mass meetings, found herself standing in the front row, directly in front of Hitler.

She described the event to me in this way: It was like being the rabbit in front of a coiled-up snake, unable to move in mortal fear. She said she was shaking like a leaf in the wind, and so was everyone else around her. She did not remember a single word he said but had carried the image of his penetrating eyes and his powerful presence with her for the rest of her life. This man had the incredible power of influencing the masses against their own free will. My mother was convinced she was in the presence of absolute evil.

The magnitude of the Third Reich’s invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II is almost unbelievable were it not for the facts in evidence now readily available in the archives of many nations.

Operation Barbarossa marked the beginning of Germany’s invasion of Russia in June 1941. Nearly four million German soldiers invaded the USSR along a front line of almost 1,800 miles. The German panzer divisions swept across the Russian planes at incredible speeds. This was the largest invasion in the history of warfare. There were some six hundred thousand motorized vehicles and over six hundred thousand horses.

All this was part of General plan Ost (the Eastern plan). By the end of 1941, the German casualties were eight hundred fifty thousand soldiers, killed or wounded or missing in action. This accounted for nearly 95 percent of all German losses in the entire World War II period. The Russian Red Army losses were over three hundred thousand dead with millions more missing in action.

While the German people had little or no knowledge of the realities and the atrocities of the war in Russia and the concentration camps that were established, it is equally certain that when the truth became known much later, the majority of the German people for generations have shared in the national shame and guilt and the stigma that has attached itself to the German persona.

When I was old enough to understand, I learned that my father, who was a soldier in the panzer division, was killed in the invasion of Russia.

In any event, during and in the early years after the war, it was, for most people, more a battle of survival rather than a philosophical question of past failures. Fortunately, I do not have too many personal recollections of the war years except for the bombings of Hamburg. But I do remember the panic, like running for the protection of the bunkers at the outset of the air warning sirens. For the most part, I sensed the fear of people around me, but at my three to four years of age, I cannot really say that I experienced that fear myself. I was too young, I guess, to really understand what was happening all around me.

One thing I know for sure: my mother suffered immeasurable hardships during and after the war as a result of the things she experienced during that time. Fortunately, my mother had the fortitude to be the parent to me and my brother that, in many ways, made up for the lack of a father figure in our lives. One thing is certain: she never gave into the constant struggle to try to do her best for us in all circumstances. As a result, it is my fervent belief that most of the values I hold dear and my general concepts of right or wrong are attributable to my mother’s teachings.

This then was the backdrop to my early life during the war years and in the postwar era. The absence of a father in my early life, coupled with the difficulties I saw my mother endure during these years, did greatly influence my thoughts and the decisions I made early on in life. Most definitely, it did have an impact on my decision to leave home at the age of fifteen to seek employment by going to sea.

Image_001.jpg

2

LIFE ON THE FARM

W hen Germany lost the war in May 1945, the main Allies—United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union—jointly occupied parts of Germany in the years that followed. The British occupied the northwestern part of the country. Unlike the Americans in the south of Germany and the Russians in the east, the British occupation was possibly less noticeable in their assigned occupational areas than other Allied forces in other parts of Germany.

On one hand, this was a good thing for the local population as we probably were able to return to a near-normal way of life as it was before a lot sooner than any others. On the other hand, the eastern occupation of Germany by the Soviet Union and the resultant east/west division of Germany had devastating effects on the German people. In effect, Germany became a divided people for many years to follow.

As a little boy in the western part of the country, I, of course, had no idea or understanding of just how fortunate we really were to live in that part of the country, which was perhaps impacted the least by the occupation of the German nation; however, one thing was certain and clearly impacted everyone: widespread poverty in evidence everywhere. Food was scarce, and most of the children in our town, as was probably true everywhere, had food on their plates only because their parents or grandparents went without. Everything was rationed and strictly controlled.

Toward the end of the war in 1944, my mother had a heart attack and was taken to a hospital in Hamburg, and word was sent to my grandmother that my brother and I were alone in the apartment we lived in. Our landlady was taking care of us as best she could.

I remember one day my aunt Erika arrived to take care of us and to get us packed up for our relocation to my mother’s birthplace, the family farm where she grew up. The big day arrived. Aunt Erika had arranged for transportation to the train station. There were soldiers in uniform everywhere. My brother and I were physically lifted and passed through the open windows into the train, while Aunt Erika was given space to enter and joined with us in a compartment crowded with soldiers all around us.

Once we arrived at the farm, my grandmother, who was the matriarch of my mother’s family and who ruled with an iron fist, as it were, took over. My brother and I were now members of the Lupinenhof family. The farm, Lupinenhof, in the town of Schafflund near the city of Flensburg, now became our new home. The general location of our area was in the northernmost part of Germany known as Schleswig-Holstein.

Looking back at my childhood, Lupinenhof is where I grew up and where, perhaps, most of my memories come to mind when I reminisce about my early youth. I believe that I, for the most part, was a happy child, although there were difficult times for me to deal with.

From the very beginning of our arrival, I immediately loved all the animals that were there, and I was assigned specific chores to feed the animals, clean their stalls, and, in general, attend to most anything that had to do with them. This was usually not a problem for me because I did like being with and around the animals.

I collected eggs from the henhouse and fed the chickens, ducks, and geese and other animals. I learned to milk the cows at a very early age, probably seven, and had to help doing the milking on a regular basis. I herded cows from the fields to the barn and back, fed them and milked them, and spent hours pumping water for them. I groomed the horses and fed them and learned to put on their harness and to work with them to pull the wagon and plow the fields.

I also worked in the fields, weeding to ensure the crops of potatoes, carrots, and rutabagas were not overgrown with weeds. I chucked hay and helped in the moor to dig up peat, which was then cut in squares and laid out in the fields to dry in the sun. Peat was an alternative fuel that we used in stoves and ovens for heating and cooking because coal was not readily available.

Looking back, it is amazing for me now, to remember all the things I learned about and that I was involved with. While I thought at the time that I never had any time for myself or to play with other kids, I realize now that this was not true. In reality, I remember that I had an opportunity to go fishing in our town’s millpond on many occasions even before we moved away from the farm and then later on when we lived in town.

The local miller who owned the grounds surrounding the mill, including the lakes and the river feeding them, had been a friend of my grandfather. He did not normally want kids around the millponds and lakes, yet he allowed me to come there whenever I wanted. This then became my favorite place away from home. I was always alone there with just my cane fishing pole, line, and hook with a homemade bobber, which was just a cork from a wine bottle with a goose feather stuck through it. I often sat there for many hours, losing myself in my dreams of faraway places and adventures of the unknown. The fish I caught were few and far between but made for a wonderful meal whenever I could catch some. I never had much patience, but fishing seemed to be the exception when I had the opportunity to be there.

I also remember ice-skating and playing hockey in the winter months. There were a number of places around the town where fields had been flooded and then frozen solid, thus becoming the playground for kids with skates. Whenever I had free time in Lupinenhof, I often roamed the fields and woods surrounding the farm, hunting for rabbits with our dog, Bello.

Yet despite the happy times I enjoyed on the farm when we lived there, I often felt an undercurrent of emotions difficult for me to understand. This was brought about by my grandmother’s apparent displeasure of my presence or in the things I did. All my family, for the most part, was very loving and kind to me. My uncle Karl seemed to especially enjoy my presence. He ran the day-to-day operations of the farm and taught me much of what I needed to know and do in the performance of my chores and assigned duties. My aunts also were especially loving. They often came to my rescue when I had done something, which displeased Oma, my grandmother.

When my mother eventually recovered from her heart attack, she was released some six months or more after having been hospitalized and obviously had to come home to Lupinenhof, which was now our home. Upon her arrival, she was immediately taken to task about my lack of discipline. Since Uncle Karl was the only man in the family who had returned from the war at that time, my mother and some of my aunts as well as the children all had assigned tasks and duties to perform. There were many days that I did not see my mother until suppertime when she came home from working in the fields or similar.

One thing that often became a ritual for her to perform on demand by my grandmother was the spanking she had to give me because I had done something to displease Oma. Usually, this was probably, for the most part, deserved because I was a very spirited kid who showed no respect for Oma’s authority and, thus, invariably challenged the otherwise unopposed power she enjoyed as the head of the family. Thus, the frequent spankings I received on demand at the end of the day as a result of my misdeeds and disrespect often became a very painful experience for both my mother and me. My mother had no choice but to administer the punishment I had earned whether she actually agreed to it or not.

Oma, reigned supreme, and my mother and her two boys lived here on the farm at her pleasure. My uncle Karl and my mother’s sisters, my aunts, rarely challenged their mother’s authority. However, one day one of my aunt’s friends who frequented the farm with his visits, in his efforts to ingratiate himself with Oma and knowing that I was not one of her favorites, reported to her that he had observed that I was stealing things from the farm and was selling them to a visiting scrap iron dealer who traveled around the rural areas and farms to collect the scraps available.

For Oma, this was the coup de grâce or perhaps the final straw in my misdeeds, which now required an especially severe punishment to be administered to finally teach me the lessons I obviously had failed to learn until now. With much fanfare and great delight, she demanded that my mother administer the necessary corporal punishment that this especially serious infraction demanded. My mother, not being aware of anything to the contrary, was very surprised that I would commit an act that I clearly had been taught to be a sin. In this instance, she probably agreed that my punishment needed to be extra severe to correspond to the gravity of the situation. I, on the other hand, not having been aware of any wrongdoing, was screaming and protesting with all my might that I was being unjustly punished for something that I had not done.

Normally, for the most part, I was resigned to my ritualistic spankings because, I, in part, felt guilty and also knew that I often had deliberately defied Oma’s authority and, thus, realized that punishment was to follow. In this instance, however, more than at any other time, I knew that my punishment was unjust, and I was not going to submit to it just to satisfy my grandmother’s whims. Finally, my uncle Karl interceded and explained that he had especially given me permission to go through a pile of rubble behind the barn, which contained various old scrap iron pieces and electrical insulated leftover copper wiring from the recent conversion to electricity in the farm. He told everyone that he had given permission for me to allow the scrap iron dealer to take these items and that the few pennies earned were mine for cleaning up the area and getting rid of the junk. Thus, my honor was redeemed, and my integrity was restored. Rolf is not a thief, and he was unjustly accused.

However, the damage to the status quo could not be restored. My mother, perhaps for the first time, to my knowledge, confronted her mother’s previously unquestioned authority and decided we could no longer live on the farm. I was about