MWSA Review

The Enchanted Suitcase is a story of survival, adaptability, and personal growth despite being at the mercy of forces beyond the personal control of the main character. Karlhienz Stoess was an NCO in the German Army in World War II. He never saw combat, except peripherally at the very end of his service when the British attacked his bunker on the Normandy beach and took him captive. This was followed by several years of incarceration in a German POW camp in the U.S. This book consists of Karlheinz's writings during the war and his incarceration, and some from later in his life, as translated and described by the author, his daughter Helga Warren. It provides valuable insight and perspective on a little-known aspect of the war, the experience of German POWs in American custody.

Karlheinz is seen to be a sensitive and intelligent man who was determined to create a stable family life following the war. Through determination and hard work, he achieved that goal. Luckily, he left us contemporary writings that provide insights into his life a German soldier and POW. Helga Warren has done a monumental job of translating these from handwritten German to English.

The Enchanted Suitcase is an important source of first-hand information on life as a German POW in America. It also provides glimpses of post-war life in Germany for ordinary Germans. It is a recommended read for those interested in expanding their knowledge of World War II.

Review by Jamie Thompson (July 2024)
 

Author's Synopsis

Unexpectedly finding her German father’s World War II memoirs in an old suitcase transports author Helga Warren to romantic Paris in wartime, surrender from inside a German bunker on the beaches of Normandy, behind the barbed wire of a prisoner of war camp in Aliceville, Alabama and on to the start of a new life in America.

The author discovers a man full of enthusiasm and the fervor of

youth—and a marvelous writer—revealing unseen sides of the father she thought she knew. A whole new world opens up, all because of a sheaf of tattered papers in the bottom of what can only be called an enchanted suitcase.

One of the few eyewitness accounts of the little-known history of German prisoners of war in America during World War II, Karlheinz Stoess’s story gives us a glimpse into the life of what was known as a Scheuerfrau or “scrubwoman” of the Wehrmacht—an ordinary German soldier at the crossroads of history.

Format(s) for review: Paper and Kindle

Review Genre: Nonfiction—Memoir/Biography

Number of Pages: 239

Word Count: 63,120