Göttingen had been spared the structural damage from bombings that most other German cities suffered during the war. It was a university town in a valley along the Leine River, just south of Hanover. Göttingen was conservative in values and politics, and renowned for being the home of Georg-August University, founded in 1737, which was also the city’s largest employer. The university was one of Europe’s leading institutions for science and mathematics and churned out a substantial number of Nobel laureates in the twentieth century. By all accounts, the town’s citizens had embraced Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party.11

Despite the presence of a university, which usually would include a population of forward-thinking scholars, Göttingen favored right-wing ideas over left-wing ones, particularly during Hitler’s rise to power in the 1930s, when the Hitler Youth, SA, and SS were embraced by the community. Like in other German towns during the Third Reich, the small population of Jews was persecuted in Göttingen. Professors at the university were forced to leave and the local synagogue was burned down in 1938. Denazifying the city after the war wasn’t going to be a quick transformation.12

For Frederick and Elinor, moving in with Karl and Margarete brought with it a host of uncertainties. Not only would Frederick be introducing his non-German-speaking African American wife and son to his non-English-speaking parents for the first time, but they would all be living under the same roof.

Frederick’s communication with his parents had been just short of nonexistent during the war. Charlotte remembered that the family did receive one letter informing them that he had been taken to the United States as a prisoner of war, but they had no contact after that. Frederick hadn’t spent any significant length of time with Margarete and Karl in years. Many unpalatable scenarios could have resulted from the move, but Elinor reassured Frederick that it was better to test the situation rather than look back with regret. More than anything, she never wanted him to struggle in the United States wondering what could have been and to resent her for denying him a chance to run his father’s company.13