From the Harrisonburg, PA, " Daily News Record ":
Klaus German Wust, 77, died Tuesday, May 6, 2003, at the Woodstock Memorial Hospital.
From the obituary in the paper, from the discussion that Andreas and I had with him this past winter, and from some of the stories which have circulated about him, I offer the following.
He was born in 1925 at Bielefeld, in Northern Germany. During World War II, he turned 18 in 1943. Every time that the army approached him about service, he kept saying that he was entering the Navy. Eventually, the Navy did take him and he was assigned to ferrying refugees from the regions on the eastern Baltic Sea to the west. The British were aware of what his ship was during and they sent word to their Navy and Air Force not to disturb the ship. With the fall of Germany, he was a Prisoner Of War for a while in England. His ability to speak both German and English caused him to be assigned in Germany as a liaison.
When he was able to pursue personal activities, he became a reporter for the Bielefeld Freie Presse. When an opportunity arose for a one year scholarship at Bridgewater College in the Shenandoah Valley, he applied and was accepted. His newspaper gave him a leave of absence for the year. John Gott, who also attended Bridgewater College, says that when Klaus got off the train for Bridgewater that his first question was, "Where can I buy a beer?"
As a part of his scholarship, he was to give talks to interested groups. His first assignment came the day after he arrived. He proved quite good at this and impressed the Dean of the school who urged him to continue beyond the one year at Bridgewater. He arranged with his paper in Germany to be a Washington reporter for them. He bought a used car and traveled down to Washington, D.C., every week to obtain a story.
When he arrived in the Shenandoah Valley, he was amazed at the influences of German culture that he saw. He asked himself how this came about and proceeded to find out by reading and talking to people. Research and writing were his main activities. (I was always amazed about the obscure documents that he found in Switzerland and Holland. There were facts about which I could say, "I read it first in Wust.") His book, " The Virginia Germans ", was outstanding and has gone into several printings.
As time went by, he expanded the scope of his research. At his death, he was at work on a book on the whole process of German emigration. He said that he had brought it to the point that it was essentially complete and lacked only the final footnotes and references. Whatever condition it is in, I want to obtain a copy of it.
Perhaps his last public appearance was the Germanna Foundation Reunion last July. In the Shenandoah Valley, it seems as if everyone knew the man and wished him the best. It was like they were saying, "He was one of us." They had nothing but the best wishes for the man.
All other stories and tales about the man are welcomed here.
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.