War & Peace

My childhood was lined with war tales told by the losers. My grandfather, singled handedly, lost WWl and yet he came back with some pieces of metal, some converted into more or less shiny medals others discretely lodged in various body parts. Medals for losers ... strange ... apparently he wasn't happy with the outcome.

His son, my father, was drafted just 2 decades later. So it wss his turn to lose a war and he did. Good on him! Unlike his father he thought that you could lose a war more effortlessly.

After the war he ended up with a brand new parachute. He thought that jumping out of a fast moving plane hanging from a large and very visible object was a silly idea especially in a war situation. He thought this high risk sport, even higher during a war, would make him too easy a target.
Good thinking. His parachute was converted by a master tailor into an evening dress to be worn by the director of the Argentinian National circus, Trude Sarasani.

My father wss the absolute anti-hero. He taught me to stay clear of patrotic nonsense, flags, anthems and most of all guns and other dangerous devices.

He spent the last months of the war that wasn't his planning his surrender. At the time surrendering to the Americans seemed to be the best option as they were just mercenaries without any emotional wounds. The place to surrender had to be as far away from any real fighting as possible.

The Bavarian Alps did not just seduce by their natural beauty but by the fact that only the Ameticans would reach this place close to the Ausyrian border, a place where serene Peace dictated the actions. There wouldn't be any nasty action. The Ametican officers had no intention to damage their future residence.