A history of the Headrick family, compiled from a collection of letters.


INTRODUCTION

To bring the past to light, historians turn to many sources: the official reports of government and other organizations, the memoirs and writings of important people, journalists' accounts of newsworthy events and, sometimes, interviews with survivors of dramatic events. With few exceptions, the reminiscences of most ordinary people vanish when they die. Such an exception was the letters and memoirs of my parents, William Cecil Headrick (known as Cecil) and Edith Finkelstein Headrick. They were not famous, nor did they perform any noteworthy actions. But they lived in Germany from 1928 to 1930 and again from 1945 to 1977, two important periods in the history of that country. The were therefore participants-observers of events that affected millions of people and swept millions of others to a fate they neither expected nor desired.
To this historian's delight, Cecil and Edith lived at a time when the postal service was inexpensive and efficient and members of my family wrote to each other frequently, sometimes weekly. Most of the letters that Cecil kept dealt with personal and family matters. In perusing these letters, I chose to focus on the history they lived through, the events they witnessed, and the people and groups with whom they interacted. Toward this end, I have ignored the purely personal matters, and excerpted only those sections of their letters that helped me reconstruct the less strictly personal aspects of their lives.
I have also relied on Cecil's memoirs that he wrote in the 1970s, after he had retired and Edith had died. Cecil had an extraordinary memory for individuals he had known and events in his personal life. Putting these down on paper for posterity was the main purpose of his writing his memoirs. Like all memoirs, these are heavily influenced by his personality and opinions. In excerpting and transcribing those passages that illuminate the larger society in which he lived, I have taken these elements into consideration.
What the reader will not find in this collection is neither family history––which I have written elsewhere––nor is it the history of Germany and of Europe as professional historians have written. In these papers you will find only a few traces of events we consider important, such as the history of World War II, the Holocaust, or the political history of the Weimar Republic, of the postwar occupation, and of the Federal Republic of Germany. Instead, you will find their personal reactions to the world in which they lived, written to express their own views, but with an eye to the relatives, friends, and posterity to whom their letters and memoirs were addressed. Only when it was necessary to provide a context to their words have I added information from published sources.
I have translated all French and German sources into English. I have single-spaced the excerpts from letters, memoirs, and other sources. My own writings are double-spaced (the internet version does not have double spacing).

Daniel R. Headrick.