Discharge paper

[ReiseReise]

I was interested to find Opa's discharge paperwork in amongst his service papers. It turns out, with the state of unemployment after the war, it may have been better if he stayed in the Marine, but that is all hindsight. It's hard to get around seeing a Reichsadler stamp on the same paper as an official US military stamp!

[Ludwig]

1945 there was no Kriegsmarine to remain in...
And about the German and the US stamps, I think it was no big problem, as the swastika was used everwhere. A pair of SS runes on the other hand, would have been a little bit more difficult to show...

[ReiseReise]

Indeed, all of the German governmental systems still in place had yet to be "de-Nazified".

My grandfather apparently tried to join the navy again after things had, um, "settled down" a bit (and employment was tough to find), but by then he was too old for most jobs, and too young for others, so there was no place for him . That must hurt a soldier.