|
| Affiliation | Democratic |
|
| Name | Arch O. Tetzlaff |
| Address |
Prairie Village, Kansas , United States |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
May 06, 1926
|
| Died | October 04, 2009
(83 years)
|
| Contributor | Wishful Thinking |
| Last Modifed | Politicoomer
Sep 15, 2023 08:00pm |
| Tags |
German -
|
| Info | At one point in the 1960s, Arch Tetzlaff, MD, Pearson’s
opponent in the 1972 general election, was a member
of our Rotary Club. I recall asking Tetzlaff about his
experiences growing up in World War II Germany. My
memory is that he told me he was a member of the Hitler
Youth organization (the “Brown Shirts”), as German
boys were expected to be. He said near the end of the war
German Army ranks were so depleted that he and other
Hitler Youth boys were pressed into service manning
antiaircraft batteries around Berlin.
Mr. Kimball then understandably asked where the article’s
author got the information that the Democratic Party’s 1972
nominee was “a former German Luftwaffe pilot.” He wrote:
It would appear that the Luftwaffe was in ruins by 1945
with the allies ruling the skies over Germany, let alone
sending young boys to pilot aircraft; further Tetzlaff did
not include such service in his memories.
In response to Mr. Kimball’s queries, the article’s author,
Dave Seaton, one-time press secretary and legislative aide
to Senator Pearson, explained: “It was widely reported that
Tetzlaff was a Luftwaffe pilot. However, the information from
your correspondent is interesting. I got the idea Tetzlaff was a
pilot in the German Air Force from many comments by Senator
Pearson and his staff members during the election, and from
press reports with the same information.”
Unfortunately, those “press reports” have not been
uncovered, and it seems unlikely that Tetzlaff, a respected
Kansas City anesthesiologist for many years before his death
at Weatherby Lake, Missouri, on September 30, 2009, would
have been piloting military aircraft at age eighteen. He
was born in Danzig on May 6, 1926, and raised in Berlin,
Germany, where the family moved in 1931. Nevertheless,
according to his Kansas City Star obituary, October 4, 2009,
Dr. Tetzlaff’s high school years were interrupted by “service
in the anti-aircraft defenses of Berlin; followed by service in
the German Wehrmacht, where he underwent training as an
Artillery Reserve Office[r] applicant during the last year of the
war; followed by time as a POW in Russian prison camps.”
Tetzlaff graduated from the University of Hamburg Medical
School in 1951 and moved to Wichita, Kansas, in 1953, where
he completed a one-year internship and three-year residency at
St. Francis Hospital.
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