Dietrich Klassen

This is an edited transcript of a recorded conversation between Ed Klassen and his father, Dietrich Klassen, around 1990. Both Ed and Bob Klassen made light edits to improve readability and re-arranged so that the events are in chronological order. As this was recorded from a verbal account, the spellings for some places are likely not correct. 

Born in 1914

Dietrich Klassen was the first-born to Heinrich H. Klassen (my grandpa) and Susanna Friesen Klassen in 1914 in the same year that WW I started.  They had a car, an Opel, at the time.Soon after the start of the war, Henry (Dietrich’s father) was drafted by the Russian government.  As a Mennonite, he didn’t have to bear arms but was allowed to serve as an orderly at a nearby hospital (Ohrloff).  

Since he (his dad, Henry H. Klassen) had donated some money to the hospital, he received special treatment.  The servants in the hospital also served as his own servants. However, bandits made life difficult and dangerous for estate owners.  The family lived part- time in the city where the hospital was located.   The Russian Army gave up in 1917 and yielded Ukraine to the Germans.  Dietrich’s father quit the hospital and went back to the estate.   

Estates burning

In 1918, Dietrich Friessen, his wife Susanna’s father, died.  At the funeral they received a notice via telegram that many people had been murdered in Friessenthal (the Friesen estate).  The Klassens got in the car and drove back, about 30 miles. However, when they got close to home they noticed that their own estate (Widnaja) was burning.  A big convoy of oxen and horse carts and their employees were leaving.  They found out that, the night before, the manager had been murdered by a band of Bolsheviks.  They had burned all of the grains.   All of their inventory was destroyed.   They rode the horses until they died.  Even at only 4 years old, he (Dietrich) remembered it well.  The Klassen family then fled to Blumstein, a village about 12 -15 miles from Widnaja, which was not far from Reimerhof (one of two grandfather’s estates).

Family Emigration to Canada

In 1923, grandfather (Heinrich A. Klassen) died in 1923 in Halbstadt, near Reimerhof.  The Klassen family stayed in small villages in the Ukraine until they emigrated to Canada in July, 1924.  During this time, they suffered along with other Mennonites and locals from bandits, heavy taxes, famine and plagues. Along with thousands of other Mennonites they emigrated from Ukraine. The Klassens settled near Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in August, 1924. (With seven other families, they purchased a large farm, Schwager Farm #2 and lived communally for several years before splitting up into individual farms). The family (of Henry H. Klassen) farmed until 1939.

Trip to Germany

In 1937, Susanna Klassen died and two years later, Dietrich’s father decided to sell the farm and move to Ontario in 1939. This move soon led to a disintegration of the family. His father lived by himself near St. Catherines and re-married in 1940. Dietrich’s younger brother (my Dad) worked on farms and in factories until enlisting in the Canadian army in 1943. Deitrich’s three sisters found employment in Toronto and two of them, Erica and Agnes, lived together and Margaret lived on her own.

Instead of staying in Ontario in 1939, Deitrich went on to Germany to see if he could collect on holdings that his grandpa (Heinrich A. Klassen) had owned before WW I, including a large set of shares of the car manufacturer, Opel.  He went to Dresden, Germany to visit Maria von Stauffenberg (half sister of his father). He also met her husband, Berthold von Stauffenberg. 

At first he didn't think about returning to Canada.   However, World War II broke out soon after he had arrived and before he could make up his mind about returning. He didn’t have any money and needed work.  Then, after war broke out he couldn’t leave. He found work at the Volkswagen plant.  He was employee #62 in Fallersleben.  He met his future wife, Alma, in October of 1939, shortly before Alma’s birthday of October 28.   They had met on a train. One month after they were married, he was conscripted into the German Army on July 15, 1940.

World War II

He was trained in a Berlin boot camp.  From there he was sent to southern Norway.  Then, in the spring of 1941, his unit was shipped back to Poland and into holding positions.  The area there was already occupied by Germans.  Then from there, his unit crossed into Russia in June, 1941 (as part of Operation Barbarossa).  They went all the way to the southern part of Moscow taking the same route that Napoleon took.  The route followed through Kiev, Minsk, Bryansk, Tula, then east of Tula (town unknown).  The siege of Moscow lasted for a year and a half. Then in November, 1942 it rained heavily and because of no hard roads, they got stuck with their big trucks.  They laid down to sleep and it snowed heavily overnight and that’s when they started to freeze. 

In late fall of 1942, the German army began to retreat from Russia. Just before the retreat started, Dietrich’s legs were frozen and he was sent to a hospital behind the front. He also had heart trouble.  He was sent to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, then to Warsaw, Poland, then to Hamburg, Germany.  He was on medical leave for a long time (almost two years).  Then he was sent to a resort in Czechoslovakia.   Then he was sent back to Berlin for release papers since he was considered disabled.  They gave him 2 weeks vacation while they processed his papers.  While waiting for these papers (June of 1944), Hitler was almost killed and Dietrich was ordered to go back to Berlin.  The German army didn’t know what to do with him.  They couldn’t send him back to the front. So he worked on constructing a rail line for 5-6 weeks with prisoners.  Then he received a call to go to Italy .  He spent a good year there supervising a construction outfit.  He didn’t have much to do other than ride a truck.  It was not hard work, very easy going and good food.  

War was over May 8, 1945.  He was first held by Americans for a couple of months and then held by the British in Rega, Italy. He was in a prison camp.  They didn’t believe he was just a Sergeant.   The British thought the papers were falsified.  He was put into the worst camp.  They were starved as retribution for the concentration camps.  About 400 men were in this camp.  The camp administrators would bring out a large mound of fresh food each day, put it in the hot sun, and let it spoil.  The German prisoners then had to shovel the spoiled food to be thrown away.  The daily ration was a can of spam, 3 hard cakes, and a cup of tea for 4 men.   He weighed 196 lbs when he went into the camp and just 136 lbs after four months. Before they released him, they put him in hospital and fed him nothing but oatmeal and slices of white bread. He finally received a medical release. He was able to leave Italy a year after the war was over (in June, 1946).  

Alma had received notice that he was alive. He was able to return to Germany and her.  He hadn’t seen her in about 2 years.   They had written to each other but never received each other’s letters.  

In Germany, he worked for Allied Military Intelligence (AMI) as an interpreter for British officers. They took his Canadian passport away and gave him a German one.  Volkswagen had paid Alma while Dietrich was away in war. Afterwards, Volkswagen couldn’t take him because he was still working for Allied Intelligence.   When he left AMI he was transferred into a garage.  He was also an interpreter for an officer who was in charge of garages and workshops.  When the officer went on vacation, Dietrich took his job. That’s when he met Eddie Shroeder.  They gave him a motorbike so he could get through the forest and when he got injured in an accident, no one wanted to employ him anymore.  

Dietrich and family eventually left Germany and arrived in the U.S. on December 12, 1952.