You have one, don’t you? I
mean, how hard is it to choose? OK, this is about misperception and how you
don’t know who you think you know.
People in your life will
mislead you or you can do it to yourself. The bad guys are all around us and
some of them look like good people. Our social media doesn’t help as it
perpetuates ignorance through jingoism.
You’ve got all those
Hollywood stereotypes, like Colonel Klink or Sergeant Shultz on “Hogan’s
Heroes” or maybe you like the film versions of famous Nazis. Hitler is so easy
to caricature, that funny little Chaplin-like mustache and all the
goose-stepping armies.
Unfortunately, in real life,
Nazis can almost appear to be human. They have families, jobs, companies, and,
as in my case, you might work for one.
No, I didn’t know that I was
working for a Nazi. It took almost 30 years to find out. Still, it was an
experience I’ll never forget, mainly due to the discipline demanded by my
former employer. He didn’t take no shit, want to talk, or hang-out after work.
Group therapy involved riding moto-cross.
I was a young, impressionable
lad, living in a foreign country. Belgium is a lovely little place that most
Americans now know for its beer. In the late 1960s it was known for NATO, the
Common Market (later to evolve into the European Union), and great moto-cross
riders.
After school was out, summer
of my junior year, 1970, I went to work for one of the local BMW dealers. Which
was beneficial in that I apprenticed at a usable trade, made a few dollars ($5
USD per week), and tried to learn French and Flemish, since English wasn’t
spoken at the shop. When working in a foreign language you have to pay close
attention, otherwise the boss is liable to do something that could injure you,
inadvertently, of course. I found this out when the maestro scorched me with
hot slag while cutting the rusted muffler off a BMW sedan with a welding torch.
Ya, ve vil make you tough, heh?
Of course, I wanted to know
how the maestro came to work on BMWs.
There was some small talk,
very little, during our afternoon tea and biscuits (cookies to Americans). The
other apprentice helped with the translation, when I couldn’t decipher the
conversation. It turned out that he had been a Luftwaffe mechanic during World
War II, working on Focke-Wulff Fw 190
fighter aircraft powered by 41liter BMW radial engines. I didn’t question how
that happened to him.
After all, Vietnam was on,
American youth were being drafted into the military. Something I knew about
first hand, as I was a military brat, attending a DOD high school, run by an
Army colonel. I figured that when the German Wehrmacht invaded Belgium, he got
drafted into service. I really don’t know how he came to join the Luftwaffe.
He was all business, even
down to his relaxation. On the weekends, a huge, 500cc Rickman Metisse
moto-cross bike was wheeled out and taken to a gravel pit behind NATO.
Christian, the Belgian apprentice, had a Husqvarna 250 to ride. That left his
retired, 1953 DKW 125 street bike, converted to run in the dirt. I bought it, a
$50 dollar deal. There went my summer earnings, all in one shot.
We would take the bikes out
to the pit and ride them on Sunday. A great experience for a kid like me. The
maestro had been the Belgian moto-cross champion in the mid-50s, so he was no
slouch on the bike. I learned a lot about riding from him. Tips and tricks that
would later save my life more than once while riding on the street. Like when I
had to go off-road into a ditch to avoid an asshole coming at me head-on,
shaking his fist at me.
All things pass, the summer
ended, back to school. I rode some more during the winter, but after I
graduated my parents went back to the USA. The US Army hired me for a clerk in
1971, so I didn’t work at the BMW shop that year. The DKW went into storage,
something about not being able to take it back to the USA with our personal
goods.
Twenty-five years went by. My father went to Europe on a business trip. He stopped in at the old BMW shop. It
was closed but the maestro was still there, living above the shop with his
wife. He wanted to know when I was going to get my old DKW. He had saved it for
me all of those years. The old man told me about it when he got back to the
USA.
It was another couple of
years before I returned to Europe. My life was good, I was working as a
technical writer, making decent money. Before the writing job, I had worked for
a BMW dealer in Ohio. They gave me a good deal on ordering a new BMW M3 in
1998. 45 years old and I had never owned a new car, so I special ordered this
one.
I flew to Munich, picked up
the BMW at the factory. Drove the hell out of it for two weeks, smoking the
Autobahn to Vienna, then back to Germany and over to the Netherlands. Where my
employer had the prospects of a new contract. I then cruised down to Brussels,
the old high school, and the BMW garage.
The street had changed, shops
were gone, exteriors upgraded, new row houses built. I found the garage, parked
the car and went upstairs to the apartment. Knocked on the door.
A woman answered it. She was
older, but not the wife. I asked her about the maestro with my fractured
French. She immediately began ranting at me, screaming about “…that Nazi!” I
was shocked, blown back by her tirade.
She was his daughter. I had
never heard about her. It was obvious that she hated her father and didn’t want
to discuss him. I asked about my motorcycle. She screamed some more about, “I
have nothing to do with him. It’s not here, I don’t know anything, go away!”
I shook my head. All these
years. I never had any idea that the man who taught me how to work on BMWs,
ride motorcycles, and generally be disciplined in my work was a Nazi. I mean,
he was a Belgian. I thought they all hated the Nazis.
You never know, someone you
know could be one. I found out the hard way.
The only question I have is;
was the daughter telling the truth?
Time to look into some World War II
records.
