By George Solly
This article was published in the December 2022 edition of Soul Search, the Journal of The Sole Society
I was very interested to hear Rosemary’s talk on the Land Army at the Annual Gathering as my mother had been in the German equivalent and had done other war work during WWII.
My mother was Ingeborg Dora Minna Anna Auguste Oberheide, born 1924.
She was compulsorily enrolled into the league of German Girls (the Bund Deutscher Maedel) and then worked in the German Landarmee in the East Frisian Islands as well as the Messerschmitt factory for aircraft production. Meeserschmitt of course produced a large number of planes for the German air force during WW2.
And how did my parents meet? My British father Kenneth Solly was manager of an Officers’ Club at Schloss Bueckeburg in Germany in 1947. Nearby in Hameln my uncle Walter and aunt Roeschen were running the family hotel with my grandmother Irmgard Oberheide. My father was ask to set up and run a special reception for a minor royal at the Schloss with the request for
an ice fountain flowing champagne! Stumped, he asked his local contact, Walter in the nearby town if he knew anyone who could create such an ice carving. Walter volunteered his sister (my mother) and the rest is history !