A childhood full of deprivation in East Prussia

William Alexander's family (he was born with the name Wilhelm) lived in that time in sparsely populated East Prussia. At these days, when noble landowners such as the Counts of Dohna,7) those of Finckenstein8) or Döhnhoff9) ruled there. Agriculture made them rich and powerful, and East Prussia was a bulging granary. The large and stately two-story manor houses still bear witness to the former wealth of the “blue-blooded people,” as the simple rural people derisively called the rural and moneyed nobility. Of course, the common people, around three-quarters of whom worked in agriculture and were therefore directly dependent on the nobility, lived much more modestly. Their houses were small and one-story, they usually only had a simple clay floor, a small cooking area, a sparse oven, and they usually used sacks filled with straw to sleep on after a hard day. The Alexander family lived in a village called Rautenberg,10) consisting of a collection of around three dozen small, mainly one-story houses. There was a small train station with a single track in the direction of Tilsit, which is around 40 kilometers away, a blacksmith, a hairdresser, a saddler, a small school, on the upper floor of which the teacher also lived. There was also a post office, a church and a small shop for the essentials: sugar, salt, pepper and flour. That was it already. There was no real doctor, there was no pharmacy, no cobbler and certainly no electricity. Electricity did not reach Rautenberg until 1927, and the generator that produced the electricity for the sparse street lighting was from then on looked after by the local blacksmith. There was an old police officer there, but it was a rough time with tough guys back then. And if there was a dispute between the neighbors, for example because one of them moved the boundary stone to the neighboring property a little in his favor, then they usually settled it directly among themselves. With your fists or with a shotgun. That's how it was back then. There wasn't much of a fuss about it. If someone in the village was „shot down," as William reported many years later, there would simply be one fewer of them there in the future.

Already in those days, modern agricultural techniques were being developed in East Prussia, which were partly responsible for the high agricultural yields. William's father, also called Wilhelm, worked as a construction manager at the time and implemented these techniques. At times, up to 200 workers were under his command and they built the most modern drainage systems and pumps to remove water from the moors11) and thus gain new arable land. They also built paths and canals and cleaned the rivers. The mother, her name was Ida, born Pasanau, looked after her two-year-old son Paul and looked after the small house. They also had a modest piece of land leased to the local landlord, which they managed for their own use. They grew the bare necessities and kept a few cattle, chickens and geese. In addition to a few dogs, the Alexander family also owned an aging horse.

In the summer of 1914, the mother became pregnant with William. At the same time, the drama of the First World War was brewing on the world stage, at the end of which 17 million victims would be mourned. After the assassination attempt on the heir to the Austrian throne in Sarajevo on June 28, the German Reich promised Austria in July that it would stand by Austria's side, regardless of how Austria would react to the assassination attempt. Armed with this “blank check,” Austria then declared war on Serb