Becoming Marlis Mann: Growing Up Under Hitler, Surviving the War, Making a Life

GROWING UP UNDER HITLER, SURVIVING THE WAR, TAKING TO THE SKIES ... A STORY OF ONE WOMAN'S MARVELOUS JOURNEY TO ROMANCE AND LONG-TERM HAPPINESS. It was 1937 and the sinister red, white, and black banners of National Socialism had already begun to decorate the streets of German cities. Marlis Mann's father had lost his job when he refused membership in "the party" and had moved his family west to look for work. But, within three short years, Germany was at war and he would take them back home seeking safety. He spent 10 full years of his young life as a Russian prisoner; he held no sympathy for the new German nationalism. But he was a survivor. They were hard-working young parents trying to give their two young girls a normal childhood, but other forces prevailed. As bombs fell and thousands of their fellow citizens lost their homes and their lives, the girls' teachers celebrated every German victory and promised "the war will be over by Christmas." But it would rage on for five more Christmases. The older sister would be evacuated to safety and the younger would be pulled from her bombed-out school and later survive the strafing of an American warplane as she pedaled her bicycle home. And then everything changed. The Americans arrived to drive the German troops from their hometown and the girls, now almost teenagers, first heard the strains of American jazz and popular music from the American army encampment nearby. First one, then the other of these adventurous young girls, now young women, were drawn to the new post-war German airlines and a life in the sky when only one in a thousand was chosen for such work. The lives of these two stewardesses soon culminated in the kind of romance and long-term happiness that is still the stuff of movies and storybooks. Here is Marlis Mann's story ....