Lorenz Hemicker

He tried to, but I think what he felt was that I wanted to find the truth.

I wanted to confront myself and wanted to confront him with a thing.

And I also wanted to give him a kind of relief.

I know that's impossible, but I tried to help him and he appreciated that.

I think it's a combination of things.

On the one side, he was a phantom for me.

I never met him.

I had never a personal relationship to him.

But on the other side, I also felt, especially in school, that there was something special with him.

Because I've been growing up in a kind of no man's land.

I'm not the grandson of Heinrich Himmler or anybody of the big...

of the big Nazis.

But on the other side, most of my school comrades grew up with the knowledge or the imagination of a knowledge that their grandfathers hadn't been Nazis.

And in my case, it was obvious.

There was something.

There was something big.

So I had to defend myself to a certain extent in school, though I never felt guilty.

But the teachers always asked me, what about your grandfather?

And what do you think about National Socialism?

One time more than the others.