In the final part of a trilogy on the life of Skipton POW Herbert Straehler, University of Leeds Lecturer Anne Buckley explains how the half-Jewish naval officer survived the Nazi years and the Second World War.

 

HERBERT Straehler was repatriated from Raikeswood Camp back to Germany with the final group of 600 prisoners of war in October 1919, and he returned to his family in Berlin.

He initially worked as secretary for a patent attorney and then for an industrial company before re-joining the navy at the end of 1920.

In 1923 he married his wife Lissy and they had two children, Rolf (born in 1925) and Liselotte (born in 1928).

 

Part one: Diaries found of remarkable German PoW escape and capture

Part two: Raikeswood Camp prisoner's Japan escape

 

Herbert Straehler was 46 when the Nazis came to power in 1933 and he was still a serving naval officer. However, he had a problem: his mother was Jewish. On his CV he credits the Head of Naval Command, Erich Raeder, for allowing him to remain in his job. However, he was given duties on land rather than being sent to sea. He was based in Kiel from 1933 to 1936 and in Berlin from 1936 to 1939.

At the end of 1939 he was transferred to Danzig (now Gdansk), where he was assigned as an inspector of companies relevant to the armament industry. In his capacity as inspector, he manged to prevent Jewish workers from being deported by declaring their work to be indispensable for the production of essential army supplies.

In 1943, Straehler was discharged from the navy by the new Head of Naval Command, Karl Dönitz. Dönitz had taken over from Erich Raeder after Raeder fell out with Hitler. Straehler's experience in industry enabled him to find a similar job as a civilian with the local Chamber of Trade and Commerce, and he remained in Danzig with his wife and daughter.

In 1945, when the Russians were advancing westwards, Straehler became concerned for his wife, Lissy, and daughter, Liselotte, and looked for a way of sending them further west into Germany. Lissy refused the places offered to them on the ocean liner Wilhelm Gustloff, saying she would not travel on a ‘Nazi ship’. (The Gustloff was torpedoed by a Russian submarine and many thousands of passengers lost their lives, including a number of Liselotte’s classmates). Eventually Lissy and Liselotte escaped on a goods train carrying wounded soldiers, arriving in Lübeck, where they could stay with relatives. Straehler himself got out later on a U-boat and joined Lissy and Liselotte in Lübeck. However, his family worries were not over: his son Rolf had been captured by American forces near Bonn, after having been taken out of school to serve in the army. He was sent to work on a farm in the south of the USA. In 1946 he was sent to Rennes in Brittany, where he worked as an interpreter until his release in 1948.

After the Second World War, as it was clear that Straehler was not a supporter of the National Socialists, he was asked to become Mayor of Timmendorfer Strand, a town on Germany’s Baltic coast. His excellent knowledge of English made him an ideal candidate to work closely with the British Military Governor. He then worked for the civic office in Braunschweig as an administrator until his retirement in 1952. He died in Braunschweig in 1979 at the age of 91. He spent the last part of his life living with his daughter Liselotte and his granddaughter Uta.

Liselotte turned 95 on April 16 this year and still lives independently in Berlin. Uta moved to New Zealand in 1981 but regularly travels to Germany to visit her family. She has shared some memories of her grandfather: “My grandfather is remembered by his family as very kind, humble and respectful person. He shared with his children and grandchildren many memories of his adventurous escape journey through China. The stories were mostly anecdotal and conveyed a sense of excitement and danger that he and Sachsse faced during the journey that brought them home eventually. He also always impressed us by his ability to speak Chinese which he put to use when talking to staff in a Chinese restaurant.”

“It is most regrettable that my grandfather’s extraordinary adventures during that time did not receive the interest and attention during his lifetime, as the events of WW2 took centre stage. It wasn’t until reading the manuscripts that the scope of this epic journey became clear to me and I wish I could sit down with my grandfather now and retrace the journey in its entirety with him - even just on Google Earth.”