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Germany (1921)
Sources:
Joan Hurley (niece) / USA
Lübecker Zeitung No. 129 from 27. Mai 1942
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Heinz Adolf Hermann Ziegler was born on June 27, 1921 in Lübeck. He was the first child of Dorothea, called Dora, née Schnoor, and Gustav Ziegler. His parents had married a year earlier in the Protestant St. Matthew's Church west of the Trave and Lübeck's medieval old town. Here in the west of the city, more precisely in the Sankt Lorenz district, the Ziegler family lived in an apartment at Ludwigstrasse 67. The 25-year-old father worked as a carpenter and took his master craftsman's exam during this time. The young mother — she had just celebrated her 19th birthday — looked after their child. Just two to three months after the birth, she became pregnant again. On May 28, 1922, she gave birth to a daughter, whom her parents named Ursula. On November 12, 1924, the mother died at just 22 years of age. According to her granddaughter Joan Hurley, she died of late effects of childbirth. In the obituary, the widower wrote: "On Wednesday, after a short, serious illness, my dear, good wife, the devoted mother of my children, our dear daughter, sister and sister-in-law, Dora Ziegler, passed away." She was buried in the Vorwerk cemetery. The lines reflect the widower's shock at the unexpected and early death of his wife. Suddenly he was left alone with his three-year-old son and two-year-old daughter. It is not known exactly who looked after the children. The father's in-laws probably helped, as his own mother had died the year before. In December 1926, he remarried. His 24-year-old wife Martha, née Petersen, was a trained typist and had previously been married to a police sergeant. She lived in the neighborhood. She herself had no children and was now looking after her stepchildren.
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1 A clue to this is provided by the death register, which does not list his occupation as a master carpenter, but gives his occupation as "husband".
2 The father of her mother.
3 Margaretha Sarin, née Schnoor (the mother's older sister) had emigrated in 1923 and married the Lithuanian emigrant Victor Sarin in New York.
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The global economic crisis that began in 1929 hit the Ziegler family hard. Like millions of other men, the father probably lost his job1. Ursula Ziegler later recalled that the two siblings often went hungry to bed during the long period of crisis. She remembered, for example, that they had chicken legs to eat, or that they picked apples from the gutter to eat. In May 1934, Heinz and Ursula Ziegler, now twelve and eleven years old, also lost their father. He was buried in a pauper's burial plot in the Vorwerk cemetery. The two orphans were now in the care of their maternal grandparents. In 1937, at the age of 15, Ursula Ziegler emigrated to America to live with her aunt at the request of her grandparents. One possible reason for this step may have been the political developments in Germany. Her grandparents certainly wanted to know that she was safe and were worried about how long they would be able to look after their granddaughter themselves. Her grandfather2 bought her a ticket for a crossing on board the steamer New York from Hamburg to New York City. In the Atlantic, the ship got caught in an autumn storm with heavy seas. In New York, Ursula Ziegler was picked up by her aunt Margaretha (Marg) Sarin3. They traveled together to Greenwich, Connecticut, an upscale suburb of New York, where she lived with her aunt and uncle and later married herself after the war.
Heinz Ziegler, however, who was called Hermann by his family, stayed in Germany. He grew up to be a tall, slim man. He was reserved and shy, which is why he was often teased by other boys during his childhood. He was also pressured to join the Hitler Youth. He did not want to, but after he had been beaten several times, according to his sister's recollection, his grandparents advised him to join for his own protection, and so he did. After leaving school, Heinz Ziegler completed vocational training as a confectioner. In 1939/40 he volunteered for service in the Navy. His father had already served as a soldier in the Imperial Navy in the First World War. However, he apparently did not go to sea there, but rather fought as a member of a marine pioneer company in coastal defense and later in the trenches of the Western Front. He was awarded the Hanseatic Cross of his home town for his bravery. So Heinz Ziegler followed in his father's footsteps.
The Second World War had already begun when Heinz Ziegler began basic training at the beginning of June 1940. He was trained for a month with the 11th Schiffsstammabteilung. He was then assigned to the battleship Bismarck with most of the other recruits. As this was not yet completed, he first went to Gotenhafen to live on a barge. By chance, the former passenger ship requisitioned by the Navy was the New York, on which his sister had emigrated three years previously. In August 1940, Heinz Ziegler finally came to Hamburg to board the Bismarck. The next few months after commissioning were dominated by training service. In May 1941, the Bismarck finally sailed. Heinz Ziegler was not to survive the sinking. He died on May 27, 1941, at the age of 19, exactly one month before his twentieth birthday and one day before his sister's birthday. Her sister learned of her brother's death in the USA. She did not speak much about her brother later on, the pain was probably too deep. But she remembered him with pride for the rest of her life.
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