Sleeping with the Enemy:
How my Grandfather Contributed to the Peace Process Ending World War 1

by Fred Strickert

World War 1 officially ended on July 2, 1921 when the U.S. Congress ratified a peace agreement with Germany My mother was born in Mayen, Germany just one day earlier. Her parents: a German woman named Elisabeth Ternes from the village of Holzfeld , and my grandfather, Alex Boyd, an American soldier stationed in Mayen to help bring about the pacification of Germany.

Among other things my grandfather was contributing to the peace process by sleeping with the enemy. He, and at least 2,897 other American soldiers. That’s the number of babies attributed to the American Army of Occupation.

I made this discovery several summers ago when I visited the Standesamt in the town of Mayen, Germany in the picturesque Eifel region just north of the Mosel River and west of the Rhine. My mother had died in 1988 and never discussed her past, only a passing comment that her father had been an American soldier. So there with a German birth registration in hand I was confronted with that reality when I read the father’s name: Alex Boyd of Tennessee, member of A company, 50^th Infantry Regiment, serial number 792 518. The significance of my mother’s birthdate July 1, 1921—the last day America was technically at war with Germany —had never phased me since the armistice date Nov. 11, 1918 was etched solidly in my mind.

A second document from the Standesamt led to further questions. Their marriage certificate had been filed just six weeks earlier May 9, 1921. This illegitimate union was a bit of a shock.Yet it was no teenage shot-gun wedding. She was 25 and he, a career soldier 29 years old. So what was this soldier doing in Mayen two and a half years later? I mean, besides sleeping with the enemy?

From 1918 to 1922, American soldiers occupied the Rhineland as part of the demilitarization of Germany following World War 1. 250,000 American troops filled the Eifel region those first six months. Then the numbers tapered off to about 15,000. They all wore a special blue patch with a red letter “A” encircled by a white “O”. Army of the Occupation.

Among them was the 50^th Infantry Regiment--my grandfather’s group--which had a special designation as a provisional regiment because it was preparing to be sent to Upper Silesia to supervise elections. However, American politics got in the way. Even though it was President Woodrow Wilson who penned the fourteen points and pushed the negotiators to the peace table, with America still technically at war until July 2, 1921, this task was postponed.

Here’s where it really gets interesting. Because the plan to send the 50^th Regiment to Upper Silesia remained in limbo, the army decided not to invest in barracks for the men. Stationed in towns like Mayen, population 12,000, they were billeted in private homes.

Several thousand American soldiers—my grandfather included—lived in enemy German homes for a period of two and a half years. The German homes, of course, were occupied predominately by German women and children. A whole generation of husbands, fathers, and brothers had met their end in the drawn-out trench warfare across France and Belgium. In the town of Mayen alone 2,309 men had served in the great war. 556 of them never returned. Many others were severely wounded. So the recipe of red-blooded American boys and a large number of male-deprived German frauleins resulted in a fascinatingly tasty intercultural dish. Add for seasoning the element of spare time and idle hands for members of the provisional regiment. Pour in liberal amounts of good German beer--at a time when prohibition ruled the stateside American landscape. With the commitment of many German women to repopulate the German stock, one never had to worry about over-stirring the ingredients.

At first, Americans did their best to stifle such activity. Major General Henry T. Allen wrote a small book, The Rhineland Occupation about his experiences as the commanding officer. He describes the official anti-fraternization policy:

"The Third Army included an order that members of the forces of occupation should confine themselves to official relations with the Germans and should limit their personal relations to an attitude of courteous tolerance."

Much more detail can be found in his reports available on microfilm. Officers did not hesitate to discipline fraternizing soldiers. Specific incidents include two reprimanded for sharing a drink of wine with German women in Koblenz and another court-martialed for an offensive encounter on the streets.

Even when anti-fraternization policies were eventually relaxed, personal feelings frowned on male-female encounters. Discussion concerning these relationships was a hot topic in the American military newspaper published in Koblenz called AMAROC (American Army of Occupation). A certain Private Clyde Teasdale wrote,

“Dear buddies, Please think twice before entering into an arrangement with a Germangirl who seeks only a free ticket to the United States? You fraulein-lovers should for humanity’s sake try and stand it a few weeks longer when you will find plenty of good, pure, noble and loving American girls left at home, just waiting for you. Think of this intermarriagable race. Look at the cripples and idiots there are in Germany. You might get one. . . It is like putting your hand in a grab bag.” In his “Dear Eddie” column for July 27, 1919, Red Brigham wrote in a similar vein. “I say, who the devil wants to risk a court-martial or their reputations, or anything else for that matter by associating intimately with any of these big brawny broad-backed beasts of burden over here? Who is there in this great assemblage who would be so base as to desire to form a friendship for women who carry themselves like a ton of lead, have feet like policemen and wear pontoons for shoes; who have hips like a bale of cotton, and faces like the last rose of summer; who don’t seem to understand that long hair if properly dressed can add a lot to their appearance and that a hat was invented as an ornament to the feminine dome, not a rain shelter or an ordinary lid to be stuck on any ole way; and—on top of these atrocities insist on wearing their stockings bagged at the ankles.”

That was my grandmother they were describing. Yet apparently these warnings were not taken so seriously by many, certainly not by my grandfather.

On the other side, the Germans were not so fond of the American soldiers. A November, 1920 Reichstag speech by German Colonial Minister, Johannes Bell criticized the American presence declaring that “conditions were becoming unbearable in the occupied area of the American forces” and that the Yanks were terrorizing towns in the Rhineland so that drunkenness had become the order of the day. “German girls are being ruined by the American soldiers,” he declared.These feelings of animosity are corroborated by Major Allen’s notes about German vigilante groups, about lists posted on church doors of suspected German women, and about sermons delivered by priests scolding the frauleins for leading the Americans into temptation.

However, the official anti-fraternization policies, the severe punishments, the black lists, and the scolding of priests were no match when it came to active hormones and the unusual opportunity provided by the practice of billeting soldiers in private homes.

Allen writes about the dilemma presented to him by individual soldiers during the early months of occupation:

“It was to be expected that some members . . . would marry German girls, in spite of the Anti-Fraternizing Order.It is a custom among Germans of a certain class to consider an engagement the equivalent of a marriage, and a number of soldiers came forward and announced that they were engaged and admitted that their fiancees were about to become mothers. They expressed willingness to stand trial for violating orders but considered themselves bound in honor to marry the girls. This was a situation which had not been forseen when the order was promulgated. Discipline, love, honor were at stake. After considerable hesitation, the American Commander decided to permit the marriages when the soldier acknowledged his responsibility and desired the girl as a wife, and when the latter submitted a statement from an American surgeon or responsible German physician attesting her pregnancy.”

With 250,000 Americans present during the first six months of occupation, the fact of a hundred or so marriages should not be totally surprising.This led to a reevaluation of policies so that anti-fraternization orders were rescinded by September, 1919. Then a formal application procedure was put into place and the numbers increased dramatically. According to Allen’s microfilmed records, 2,122 soldiers applied for marriage from Oct. 1, 1919 to June 1, 1922. Of those 1,213 were approved. In another 776 cases, German women decided to raise their babies on their own without the help of the American fathers—well over one third of these were in the town of Mayen. All of these figures together make up 20 % of the American forces. No wonder that the original plan for a ten-year occupation force was cut short after four years.

The application procedure required proof of the woman’s pregnancy, a statement of her good character, and a one hundred-dollar deposit to pay her expenses once in America. Transportation across the sea was provided on military ships. Since there was no married housing, couples were to be sent home immediately. One such ship, the U.S.S. Cambrai which left Antwerp in May 1921, was dubbed the “S.S. Honeymoon Houseboat” by an AMAROC newspaper article because the passenger list included 169 wives and 84 children. Upon arrival in the states, soldiers were discharged from the service and sent home to begin their civilian lives with German war brides.

Because they were technically still at war, the German women were not issued U.S. passports. Instead they received a special “Military Certificate.” Rummaging through old family documents, I managed to retrieve my grandmother’s military certificate, dated Nov. 16, 1921, complete with photo and several bits of personal data. According to the note at the bottom, mother and child had been assigned for travel to the states on the S.S. Cantigny on Feb. 3, 1922. The passenger log for that ship included thirty wives and twelve children, but not my grandmother. Something happened in those intervening two and a half months.

I’m still puzzled by the Nov. 16 date on the Military Certificate since my grandparents were married a full six months earlier on May 9, 1921. According to all that I have read, their continuance in Germany was out of the ordinary. Secondly, my grandmother eventually was issued a passport in 1924 after she and my mother prolonged their German stay an additional three years. According to the exit stamp, they left Hamburg only on April 7, 1925.

So I checked with the military records center in St. Louis. The problem is that a major fire a number of years back destroyed a good portion of the records. Yet I was in luck. A partial record of my grandfather’s military history had been reconstructed. He had been a career military man, enlisting in 1911 and climbing his way up the ladder from private to corporal to sergeant. Then it all changed. In 1921, he received his first demotion from sergeant to corporal. After returning to the states alone in the spring of 1922, he reenlisted and was demoted to private. His life began to change in 1921. That’s when he married. That’s when my mother was born.

In this extraordinary story of love among the soldiers in post W.W. 1 Germany , I should not be surprised by changes in plans, U-turns, and unexpected results. Something happened which interrupted my grandparents’ plans for travel to the states. Something happened which brought separation and hardship. Something happened which derailed my grandfather’s military career. My mother’s and grandmother’s arrival in the summer of 1925 correspond to the final notation on my grandfather’s military record: A dishonorable discharge for desertion—after fifteen years of military service.

I can only speculate about reasons and details. Why did Elisabeth come to Mayen from her tiny village of Holzfeld? Was it something about the war? How was it that Alex and Elisabeth met? Was he in fact billeted in her home? What was life like for these two particular individuals? What were their attitudes toward each other as representatives of two peoples at war? What prejudices emerged? He an American, she a German. He a protestant, she a catholic. How did love bring them together? What was it like sleeping with the enemy? How, especially did my grandmother fare as an immigrant coming to America in a time of anti-German sentiment? Finally, what was it about my mother’s childhood that she preferred not to tell us? I have lots of questions about which I can only speculate.That’s why I wrote their story as a novel.

My novel begins in July 1914 with the outset of World War 1 when Elisabeth was only eighteen years of age. It is told from her perspective. I depict her as an idealistic patriotic young German woman who seeks to contribute to the war effort by traveling to Mayen where there were military hospitals and factories employing women, who faces the hardships and deprivations of the war years, who discovers the meaning of defeat and despair, and who finds her life changed forever with the arrival of American occupation forces including my grandfather Alex Boyd. So the story is one of love and war, of gain and loss. Meaning is found by sleeping with the enemy.

The title, The Lorelei, is taken from the mythical tale of the stranger who tragically sails his boat into the treacherous rocks, allured by the singing maiden along the River Rhine—located just below Elisabeth’s childhood home.

Fred Strickert, The Lorelei (Fredrick, MarylandAmErica House, Sept. 2002), 404 pages.

Dr. Fred Strickert is a Professor of Religion at Wartburg College.