Klaus Wust reached adulthood in Germany during World War II. He was able to avoid service in the army but he did serve in the German navy, starting in 1944. He was assigned to a transport ship, a former English ship, that was used in the Baltic sea to transport civilians from the eastern regions to western Germany. He says that the English understood the nature of the work that the transport was doing and they arranged a code scheme that allowed the transport to do this work without interference.
At the end of the war, the transport was returned to northern ports in Great Britain. Though this activity, Klaus became associated with the work of the English in administering occupied regions of Germany. He had learned some English when growing up and he learned more while he was working with the British. He was involved in relief work of several American organizations. He had obtained a job as an editor/writer for a newspaper in Germany when he was approached by the American relief organizations to go to America for six weeks to speak to groups here. One of the groups was the Church of the Brethren which had a college * at Harrisonburg. He arrived in 1949, and the second day he was here he delivered his first speech in English.
The President of the university proposed to Klaus that he enroll as a student. His newspaper in Germany agreed to this if he would become a correspondent. His assigned beat was Washington, D.C. He bought an old car and made a weekly trip over to Washington to find news to report. The one year of school was extended to two years. Klaus needed money and the State Department was looking for people who could help administer the Marshall plan in Germany. He passed the language test and was taken on as a translator.
From the very beginning of his arrival in America, Klaus was impressed by the signs of German civilization that he saw. He asked a German professor at the college to whom he might talk to learn more. This professor said that Klaus must talk to John Wayland. Klaus contacted John and asked where the first German settlement was in the Shenandoah Valley. John said that he if wanted to start with the first German settlement, he should start with the first one in Virginia which was Germanna. The next weekend, John took Klaus over to the Germanna site. At that time, there was almost nothing being done in the field of Germanna research and recognition.
From this modest beginning, grew the work which was expressed in the book, " The Virginia Germans ". Since that time, Klaus has concentrated upon a second book pertaining to the process of emigration from all of the German-speaking lands. He says that the book is written and needs only to have references and bibliography added. This is his current activity. Unfortunately, his health is not the best and progress is slow.
He seemed to enjoy the break, and the conversation with Andreas and me. Certainly we enjoyed talking to him.
*
(See next Note, Nr. 1525.)
(18 Nov 02)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.