Join the Coronado Historical Association for our final Wine & Lecture this Spring, Save the Last Bullet. Heidi Langbein-Allen’s father, Willi Langbein, was thirteen when the Nazis took him away from his parents under the pretense of protecting him. The real reason was to mold him into cannon-fodder for use against the Russian army. Willi was sent to the Eastern Front at age fourteen in the last days of the war to stave off the advance of the Russians. Neither he nor his classmates We expected to return alive from the final battles of the Third Reich. Having survived the war against all odds, Willi returned home to find everything he knew destroyed. Numb and confused, he was mandated to serve one year of forced farm labor, putting his life on hold. After his release, he gradually realized that all he was taught to believe in was a lie and sinks into depression. Eventually, he began to heal through a fortuitous friendship with a kind British soldier. Through him, Willi glimpsed his future: he can do his part to ensure that the evil he witnessed is never again repeated. Ultimately, he succeeded by earning the Medal of European Merit in 1979 for his contribution to the advancement of democracy in Europe. Join us for this moving lecture of Willi’s story, told from his perspective as a child soldier in the Nazi army. You will be moved by this story of innocence lost and despair, but also of grit and determination, and of hope restored.
