A SINGULAR EDUCATION
A German Bachelor in New York (1964-1974)
by
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"So what about you, Günter? What brings you to America?" It was April 1964 and the five other diners with whom I shared a table on the S.S. France looked up at me expectantly. I had just heard each of their stories: Walter Licht, a German master jeweler seeking employment; a Dutchman on a business trip; a young banker from Switzerland being transferred to a branch in New York; and a middle-aged French couple on vacation. Now it was my turn. I could have told them how I had dreamed of coming to the United States ever since I had read Billy Jenkins dime novels about the Wild West when I was in my early teens. Or how impressed I had been with the many CARE parcels my mother and I received from a farm family in Pennsylvania while we were living in a refugee camp in West Germany. How, I had wondered, could farmers afford such generosity? And then there were all those Hollywood films in which well-dressed middle-class folks drove around in sleek cars roomy enough to seat six. I could also have told them how, after the Berlin Wall went up in 1961, leaving more than half of my relatives trapped in the Soviet Zone, my father had warned me to leave Europe at the first sign that Soviet tanks were rumbling westward across Europe. Yes, I could have told them all that. But one thing was certain. I couldn't tell them the truth. Unlike them, I wasn't coming for economic reasons or as a tourist or out of fear of a Soviet onslaught. I had left behind a well-paying job in Germany and there was no job waiting for me in America. Other than my clothes, my only worldly possessions were a Green Card, a $99 Continental Trailways bus ticket good for ninety-nine days, $400 in cash, and the address of the Proctor family in California. I had met Bob Proctor when he was working in Germany for a year and his parents had graciously agreed to be my sponsors. If I were honest with myself, I had no prospects in America at all. In fact, the real reason I was coming to the United States was that, at the age of twenty-six, I was about to put nearly seven thousand miles between me and a beautiful, but emotionally unstable, young woman named Charlotte who desperately wanted to marry me despite my insistence that I was not ready to settle down. When Charlotte had seen me off at the railroad station in Cologne, she had made me promise to return to Germany in a year or two. Since the whole situation did not make sense, even to me, how could I explain it to a group of perfect strangers?
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About the Book
A SINGULAR EDUCATION: A German Bachelor in New York (1964-1974) recounts the turbulent first decade that German-born author Gunter Nitsch spent in New York City. Fresh off the boat in April 1964 as an idealistic twenty-six-year-old confirmed bachelor with just $400 to his name and no prospects, his journey of discovery eventually takes him to elegant receptions and white tie events at fine hotels, as well as to a Head Start classroom in Harlem, to the home of an unrepentant Nazi on Staten Island, to a wild clothing optional party in Greenwich Village, to sit-ins at Hunter College, and even to a cockfight in the South Bronx. Along the way several people unexpectedly offer him help; many others insist on blaming him for World War II. With self-deprecating humor and the unique perspective of a recent German immigrant, A SINGULAR EDUCATION is set against a backdrop of the prejudices -- against African-Americans, Jews, anyone, in fact, considered "the other" -- that remained deeply ingrained in the American psyche at the time.
About the Author
Gunter Nitsch was born in Königsberg, East Prussia, in December 1937. By the time he was reunited with his father at the age of thirteen, he had lived in Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and in both the Soviet-Occupied Zone and the British-Occupied Zone in Germany. After he came to the United States in 1964, he obtained a Bachelors degree from Hunter College and an MBA from Pace University while studying at night. For most of his professional life, he worked as a marketing consultant to American and German firms at the German American Chamber of Commerce, followed by eight years at Bayerische Vereinsbank AG in New York City. Since his retirement he has devoted his time to writing. He and his wife live in Chicago, Illinois.