Legacy Matters
By 1955 up to 67,700 German children had been fathered by US soldiers. It's a scandal that even today there is no legal agreement between Germany and the US regarding paternity claims.
Like many of the children fathered by occupying soldiers, Anthoefer grew up in an orphanage in Germany without knowing his father. "In Germany in the 1950s, if you were an unwed mother, the state usually took custody of your child," he explained. His father, an American stationed in Rastadt, had wanted to marry his mother. "But as soon as a serviceman got a woman pregnant, he would be transferred, and the army would refuse to pass on any information," he said. "If you kept asking, they would maintain they no longer had any records."
As a teenager, Anthoefer was determined to locate his father. "The American authorities deliberately gave me misleading information," he said. "They just gave me the runaround." In 1971, he got a visa to visit the US and finally tracked down his father. But it was too late. He discovered his father, the mayor of a small town in West Virginia, had died just weeks previously.
After collecting enough evidence to convince the German courts this man was indeed his father, Germany recognized the paternity claim, although the US didn't. Twenty years later, Anthoefer went to court and got permission to have his father's body exhumed for DNA testing. He had to wait three years for the result, and in the meantime, he was arrested as an illegal immigrant and deported. Today, he is still barred entry to the States, which means he cannot pursue his quest to prove his parentage.
"If I can prove I am my father's son, then I am an American citizen," he said. "It's the only connection I have to my father -- the inheritance of his nationality. I belong to nowhere, and all I want is American citizenship. That's all I want."
A not-so-great Legacy.
Posted by Jill Fallon at May 4, 2005 2:13 PM | Permalink