7. Lebensborn Children: Guntram Weber
Another typical Lebensborn child was Guntram Weber, born in 1943. A creative writing teacher from Berlin, he had long suspected that his mother had lied about his father’s identity. He recalled sensing as a child that he was not quite normal, and that his family treated him with a certain degree of awkwardness that he could not help but notice.
He eventually discovered that the man he grew up thinking of as his father was actually his stepfather, not his biological one. However, he came to realize that the subject of his real father was taboo, and questions about him went unanswered and were discouraged. Eventually, to shut him up, Guntram’s mother made up a story about his father having been a member of the Luftwaffe who had been killed in the war.
She went on to add that his death had been traumatic, and was too painful for her to discuss. The story wrong hollow, however, and for decades thereafter, he suspected that his mother had lied. Especially after he snooped into her belonging, and discovered a silver cup bearing the inscription “Guntram Heinrich” on one side, and “From your godfather, Heinrich Himmler“, on the other.
Unable to screw up the courage to confront his mother, Guntram continued stewing in his doubts and wondering about his father’s true identity. An early break came when his sister, who had her own doubts about her parentage, discovered that she was a Lebensborn child, which made Gunter suspect that he was one, too, albeit from a different father.
Eventually, after significant sleuthing and digging, he discovered that his father had been an SS major general who had committed sundry atrocities during the war, convicted by a Polish court of war crimes in 1949, and sentenced to death. However, because justice is often elusive, he escaped to South America, where he lead a prosperous life, and died peacefully in 1970.
