At the beginning of 1945 the family fled from Königsberg to Dittmansried in the Allgäu region. The German eastern territories fell to Poland and the USSR, the Albertus University of Königsberg ceased to exist, and my grandfather was unemployed. My grandmother, a qualified teacher, now temporarily earned the family's living.

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The German population that had not yet fled from the territories beyond the Oder and Neisse rivers was expelled, and ironically, for the first time, there was a clear territorial separation of ethnic groups, as my grandfather had advocated – with the difference that the border now ran much further west than he had recommended.