Living “under the Radar” in 1945

As recalled by:

Peter Schaper; September 1, 2015

Last night during dinner at Coco’s, spurred on by a remark about my life in 1944/45 in Berlin made by Muck in his last email, I proceeded to tell Mike about “peeling potatoes and salvaging German Marks from a bombed-out mint”. He said he had never heard this story and urged me to write it down along with some of my other war stories. So, in ...

From Bremen to Berlin, October 1944 to January 1945

Berlin-Friedenau, January 1945

Report by Peter Wolfgang Schaper (Wölf)

On Sunday, October 8, 1944, in the evening at about 11 :00 PM. our doorbell in Bremen sounded. A gentleman, who introduced himself as a member of the Jewish Community, stated that he was charged by the Gestapo (German Secret police) to inform me that I was to report on the next day at 12:00 o’clock in front of the police ...

“Curse you, Red Baron!”

War Scar on Forehead

July 10, 2017

So my daughter Janet asked me: “you have this scar on your forehead – what’s the story behind it? Does it relate to World War II?” About eighty years later, I have to admit that it is indeed a “war story” about Berlin Germany in the early 1940ies, but Colonel Oliver North would hardly be interested in it.  My friend and buddy, Karl-Heinz Binias, ...

On a lazy spring evening in 1949 Peter W. Schaper, Pete, and James E. Plemel, Jim, were sitting in their room on the 3^rd floor of Cary Hall NW at Purdue University supposedly studying. Somehow there were too many distractions on this Saturday evening and the two Seniors decided that they had enough money in their pockets to drive Jim’s Model A Ford over to Columbia Park in Lafayette, IN, where evening dances were held for the young people for ...

Wolfy Boarding His First Flight on American Airlines at LaGuardia Airport in 1947

Destination: Washington, DC – Achim Weyl’s house.

The year 1947 was my senior year at Kingston High School in upstate New York and the family was helping me to decide where I would like to go to school to become an aeronautical engineer. As most high school seniors I had many schools to choose from. There was of course CalTech, but my biggest problem was ...

My “Comment” on Mary Alice Rausch/Schaper Biography –August 25, 2016

-Peter W. Schaper

On August 1, 2016 I finally posted this biography of my loving wife, 4 ½ years after her death. Now, a few weeks after the post, I have decided that, several intra-family conversations later, there is a lot of history in this post relating to Mary’s and my life together, but very little information about Mary’s life as a “Rausch”, in other words her childhood. ...

Perpetuating Fine Arts

I started this blog with a tale of my care-free years during my early childhood in the Buchenstrasse. It is now high time to write about the person who was responsible for making my adult life a time of extreme happiness and great love: Mary Alice Schaper, my best friend and loving companion, the mother of my six children and truly the foundation of the great family we raised in the USA. I hope you enjoy reading this biography of ...

That’s what Jessica asked me yesterday, July 27, 2000 in Kauai. Well, the answer is, yes, I did and it is one of my treasured memories. Not because he was world famous, but because of the kind person he was. But that part belongs at the end of this story. It begins really around the time after World War I, with my mother, when she was a young girl, just out of college, I guess and having a great time ...