Objekt des Monats
Jedes Objekt in der Sammlung des Deutschen Auswandererhauses erzählt eine ganz persönliche Auswanderungs- oder Einwanderungsgeschichte. In dieser Rubrik stellen wir Ihnen jeden Monat ein anderes Objekt vor – eine Fotografie, ein Dokument oder ein persönliches Erinnerungsstück.
March 2024
Turtle shell, 1940s
Historical Context
In September 1940, Benito Mussolini requests military support from allied Germany against Great Britain in the struggle for Italian colonial territories in North Africa. To stabilize and defend the so-called ‘Berlin-Rome Axis’, Adolf Hitler promises his support, and under commander Erwin Rommel, National Socialist military troops land in Tripoli in early 1941.
After initial successes of the so-called ‘African campaign’, various large-scale British attacks, combined with a difficult supply situation for the German units and ultimately the reinforcement of more than 100,000 British and American soldiers, forced the ‘Axis Powers’ to capitulate in Tunis in 1943. About 135,000 German soldiers were taken prisoner by American troops.
Short Biography
Wilhelm Ernst is born in Hamburg in 1923. In 1937, he begins his apprenticeship in the turning trade at the company Gebr. Leser-Armaturenfabrik, which he completes in 1940. Until his enlistment in March 1942, he works in his trained profession. During the National Socialist African campaign in Libya, Wilhelm Ernst fights in the infantry until he falls into American captivity in 1943.
In November 1943, he arrives at the first POW camp Breckinridge in the US state of Kentucky. He is transferred to three more camps until he is handed over to British captivity in 1946. In 1947, he is repatriated to Germany and initially stays with his brother’s family as a so-called ‘late returnee’ in Quickborn, Schleswig-Holstein, near Hamburg. There, Wilhelm Ernst will settle down with his future wife and the mother of his two daughters.
Although Wilhelm Ernst is passionate about cars, handball, and is generally a very sociable person, he will never be a family man. His marriage is finally divorced in 1979, and his daughters describe their relationship with their father as ‘always difficult.’ Wilhelm Ernst is buried in Ohlsdorf Cemetery in Hamburg.
Significance of the Object
The turtle shell is one of the objects that Wilhelm Ernst’s daughter receives by mail from his second wife after his death. He brings the object from his time as a prisoner of war, presumably from Arizona, back to Germany. His family remembers that he kept it lovingly throughout his life. It is not passed down to the family whether he kept the turtle as a pet or if he only found and preserved the shell. The object symbolizes not only the personal memory of his time as a prisoner of war but also shows that this part of Wilhelm Ernst’s life is of particular significance to him.
He will later describe his stay in the USA, where, like many other German prisoners of war, he works in the kitchen at the base, as pleasant and an ‘adventure.’ He lives in good conditions in the USA, with plenty of food and well-maintained accommodations that have modern amenities. Additionally, he receives some form of payment from the state.
The USA is unlike any other country in its efforts to fulfill the ‘Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War’ made in 1929. In contrast to his time in American captivity, Wilhelm Ernst speaks of the British internment with only one thing: ‘It was terrible.’
Do You Also Have …
… a story of emigration or immigration in your family that you would like to share with the German Emigration Center together with the related objects and documents for its collection? Then please contact Dr. Tanja Fittkau by phone at +49 471 / 90 22 0 – 0
or by e-mail at: t.fittkau@dah-bremerhaven.de