Page 10 THE MALDEN ADVOCATE–Friday, August 2, 2024 TYPE| FROM PAGE 1 weeks as part of the initial U.S. occupying force in that part of Germany, never even knew he left something special behind. The father and daughter never met and the soldier never even knew he had fathered a baby girl during a brief romance with a young woman, just before he was shipped out to the Pacific to assist in the U.S. occupation of a second major conquered country, Japan. The story could have ended there, as surely, many other similar mini-sagas concluded in post-wartime Europe. But the German girl’s family never stopped researching and did not ever stop trying to find out what had happened to that American soldier, in those many decades after the war. A triumphant, happy ending at Malden High School But this quest went the other way, this search bore fruit. Nearly 80 years later, the hopes and dreams of the Frellstedt and Meister families realized a triumphant, happy ending – right here in the heart of our city – at Malden High School. On a recent May morning, three natives of modern-day Germany walked through the front door of Malden High School and made a simple request. They wanted to look through some old Malden High School yearbooks; they wanted to see some Maldonian yearbooks from the late 1930s and 1940, to be precise. Three Meister family members had journeyed across the Atlantic to see if they might be able to find one piece of evidence: to be able to possibly gaze on one face, for what would be the first time ever. Leading this quest right to the doorstep of Malden High School was Conny Meister and his parents, Maritta (Frellstedt) and Jurgen Meister. Conny is the son of Maritta Meister, the youngest of three children. Maritta, who will be 78 this year, is that German girl from long ago who never knew her father. Jurgen Meister is her husband. A lifelong mission to learn about her father According to Conny Meister, THE MEISTERS’ QUEST: The Meister family visited the United States on a quest to find out more information and to find a photo of Maritta (Frettstedt) Meister’s birth father. From left: Maritta, her husband, Jurgen Meister and her son, Conny Meister. (Advocate Photo/Steve Freker) his mother had made it one of her lifelong missions to at least get a glimpse of what her father looked like. “She had never even seen a photo of her father. Our family really wanted to make that possible for my mother,” Conny Meister said. After many years of detective-like research, the Meisters’ quest brought them to Malto support den, and Malden High School, specifically. The trek to Malden came after the Meisters determined that Maritta’s father was none other than William John Voigt, a Malden man. William J. Voigt was that 25-year-old U.S. Army Private from long ago who was part of the American troops who became the occupying force in Germany in the last weeks of World War II, in the spring of 1945. Voigt’s division was stationed about 150 miles southwest of the German capital of Berlin, in eastern Germany, near Mehringen, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, from late April to late June or early July of 1945. That was some of the farthest easterly push of American troops right at the tail end of World War II, Conny Meister noted. Russian troops were quickly coming in from the east as well – from Poland – and were attempting to occupy as much of eastern Germany as possible, and succeeded in many parts of eastern Germany, except in Berlin. If not for fate, they may have never met! “Had the American troops not arrived [near Mehringen] when they did [April 1945] – and it appears it may have been a week or less in front of the Russians – then my German grandmother and my American grandfather might have never met!” Conny Meister said. Germany formally surrendered on May 7, 1945, and some divisions of the American military, including Voigt’s unit, were shipped to the Pacific in late June and early July to participate in the latter days of that region of the war, leading to the surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945. Japan’s surrender came not long after atomic bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, respectively. Not long after Private William Voigt was shipped off to the Pacific, Russian troops indeed came in and occupied the region where the Meisters lived, in Mehringen, Germany. “It was considered deep into Germany, very close to the Russian troops, when American soldiers came to our town. Historians did not realize that Americans had initially come that close to Berlin.” Grew up in Russianoccupied East Germany The Meisters grew up in an East Germany with a Russian occupation that lasted nearly 50 years; from 1945 until even after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990; the Russians withdrew their nearly 350,000 troops and 210,000 civilians completely in 1994. After World War II, the Soviet Union occupied the northeast quadrant of Germany, which included the central parts of Prussia and the capital Berlin. The Soviet occupation zone also included the German states of Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt – where the Meisters lived – and Thuringia. In 1947, the Allied powers dissolved Prussia and divided the area among these states. On October 7, 1949, the Soviet zone west of the Oder-Neisse line became the German Democratic Republic, also known as East Germany. The Soviet Union installed a communist state in East Germany and stationed a large military force there. While stationed in Mehringen, Saxony-Anhalt, in 1945, just before the war ended, the Meisters recalled, Private Voigt met Hertha Frettstedt, an 18-year-old young fraulein, and the pair struck up a brief romance. “Two young people were together for a short time and something wonderful happened,” Conny Meister said. Nine months later, in March 1946, Maritta Frettstedt was born. Conny Meister explained that, as Hertha was an unwed teen mother, his family did not fully reveal the details of the birth, with townspeople under the impression
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