I'm talking about my last year of high school. I heard he was just another nasty, "thinks the world owes him a living" preppy like 95% of the other guys there.
My dad was mostly in France, almost never made it. His boat across the English Channel was torpedoed and he was the last man to make it off before it sunk, although I was never clear of there were others that went down with the wreck. He had taken French in high school and college, so he was sort of at home there. He was radio operator at Patton's camp the night of his fatal accident, said he had never seen such pandemonium. Saw Germany briefly, but not much of it. It wasn't even awkward when I announced I had a Grman girlfriend, and when it got "serious," and it was time for the parents to meet, it never even occurred to anyone to think of "former enemies." My wife's dad was never much of a fan of the military anyway. He had been a farm boy, got drafted at 17, sent to Stalingrad as cannon fodder, came back at age 18, hating the Nazis even worse than before. He counseled my wife's brother on how to be 4F for the West German military, and indeed, he never was inducted, assigned to civil service. His most urgent wish was for all his grandkids to be girls, who were exempted from military service. He got his wish, too. Nowadays, there is no more compulsory military service in Germany.
Germany has its good and bad points. The much-praised social safety network has its holes in the net, though I don't see much of it, luckily for me. Some of my wife's friends are not so fortunate, and live at subsistence level. Yes, they have that here. The bureaucracy here is oppressive, and the justice system is out of whack. The only people who will not be punished for breaking down your door at 3 AM are the German IRS and gangs of organized criminals, who almost always walk free if they are not German. On the other hand, our new next door neighbor bribed the city authorities to let him build a monstrous ugly house twice as big as any other in the neighborhood--adjacent to our house!! Now the guy lives all alone in a "look at all my money" house--fenced in and obstructing everyone's view of everything. They also let a 50 year old family business of Italians that ran a mom and pop (literally) ice cream café be kicked out by a greedy landlord who told them 48 hours before their lease ran out to pay double or get out. They had to leave, and both died soon after of broken hearts. We miss them terribly still keep their photos in our kitchen. Now, an ugly office of a cheap travel tour chain is in there. We refuse to set foot in the place.
Mindful of their past, the Germans are reluctant to convict ANY foreigner of anything, including murder. On the other hand, they think nothing of letting their tax people take 102% of someone's (as in my) income due to lazy government accountants not bothering to read the double taxation treaty, and just saying "gimme it all plus interest." At least their accountants have no shortage of work.
The weather usually sucks, but we love the 3 times a week open air farmers markets, the close-knit circle of friends we have are golden, and the public transportation makes up for the clogged highways.
Yin and yang, like anywhere else, I guess.
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