Nosing around in another life

The subject of nazis. If you live in Germany, there is no way to avoid it, which is a good thing, really.

To wit: a forum by members and families of US servicemen about the innocuous topic of internet service on a base could not stay clear of the subject either.

Said one exasperated member: how do we manage to devolve into that nazi thing again?

We, long before there were the K-landnews, were drawn into "that nazi thing" through the simple question: would you like to buy some furniture?

That's what the neighbor asked one day, explaining that this old lady her father cared for had to be moved into an old folks home because she could no longer live alone and had no relatives.

We went to have a look and got some dining room furniture, but only after we doubled up on the asking price, going from next to nothing to not quite next to nothing. It was very nice, real wood furniture from the late 1960s.

Then the caretaker ran into another old lady, they were talking in a low voice -- in the countryside, that's a sign for major secrecy. When she had left, he decided to confide.

I am still trying to find out more about this man who died recently and left several clubs 10 000 Euros each. I want to know if it is money taken from Jews.

Two sentences as a time machine.

He explained that the man had died and that there had been a delay because the town could not issue a death certificate. The man had used a different name.

Wooha, where was that going?

He had used a different first name and had changed the spelling of his last name, but eventually they had buried him and found his inheritance of 40 Euro Grand going to clubs he had been a member of.

The question was, how can I find out more, he said. I would like to make sure the money was not ill-gotten spoils of the War.

So, we offered to have a quick look.

The changed name threw us a little. Germany is different from the US in the leeway you have with your name.

So, we did some digging, using the real first name, the fake first name and the alternate last name spellings.

We found that the central investigation office of nazi crimes in the Southern city of Ludwigsburg is still active. It makes sense because the perps are not getting any younger, it is a now or never situation.

We did some more research of our own and found where our mystery man was born as well as a couple of other things. One of which was that the estate had not contained any objects attributable to Jewish ownership in or before the War. Our concerned citizen could not corroborate that the man had belonged to the SS. When the war ended, the man had been in his mid twenties, young enough for war crimes but - not being from a privileged background - not young enough to be a serious profiteer.
After the war, he had had a normal job until retirement, making the size of the estate fairly modest. The altered spelling of the last name was nothing more than changing the German "funny ß" to two s'es, one of the few changes so common that it is not a red flag.

So, we gave the concerned citizen our findings and pointed him to the German central investigation folks if he wanted to try and get more and better answers.

Still, we did ask ourselves if we had done enough.