THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, December 21, 1994 TAG: 9412210036
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E5 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
I NEVER MET Pvt. George Merganthaler. I simply heard about him 15 years ago while riding on a bus with some other Americans through Luxembourg.
George was only 24 when his company in the U.S. 1st Army's Keystone Division battled the Germans across Normandy during World War II. In November 1944, his company arrived in Eschweiler, a little village with a population of 200.
They say George was tall, dark-haired and friendly. He was the only son of a wealthy family in Rye, N.Y. His grandfather Ottmar Mergenthaler was the inventor of the Linotype machine.
George's division had suffered some of the heaviest casualties of the war when his company arrived in Eschweiler. The Germans had pulled out of the town by the time they got there. Most of the GIs were exhausted and welcomed the brief rest.
George was a Catholic and struck up a friendship with the village priest, who offered him a place to stay in the parsonage. George was a Princeton University graduate who had intellectual tendencies. Some evenings he and the priest would talk until late, discussing the news or listening to his host's collection of classical records.
During the day, when he wasn't performing his military duties, George got to know many of the people in the village. He spoke a little German and a little French and communicated with them better than most GIs
The thing the people remember George for best was his kindness to the town's children.
``He got packages from home with food and sometimes candy in them,'' an old villager told me. The man wore a beret and was wide-eyed with wonder. ``He was like Santa Claus,'' the old man said. ``He shared whatever he had with the children.''
On the 16th of December, 1944, the ground shook with the sound of German artillery as the Battle of the Bulge, the bloody German counteroffensive, began. Villagers gathered what few belongings they could and began to evacuate the town. George moved among them, hurriedly saying goodbye and telling them not to worry.
``It isn't so bad,'' he reportedly said. ``We'll drive them back.''
Six German divisions were hurled against the Keystone Division (the 28th) at the beginning. In the next few weeks, more than 19,000 Americans would die in the Ardennes region.
Eschweiler's citizens didn't return to their village until February. Their worst fears were realized. The village had been shelled badly and the homes had been looted. Among the casualties of the brutal combat had been the village church, St. Mauritius.
The stone church - the most revered structure in the village - had been nearly demolished. One wall was gone, the stained-glass windows were shattered.
George never returned to Eschweiler. For weeks the villagers wondered what had happened to him. Then, on March 24, they found his grave near a meadow outside the town. Just a cross with his helmet hanging from it. George's body was removed and placed in the village cemetery, with nearly every adult in Eschweiler praying at the gravesite. . . .
I looked at George's face in the summer of 1979, during a visit to Eschweiler's St. Mauritius with a clutch of Americans. None of us will ever forget the small gray, stone church or what we saw there.
When the people of the town restored their church, they remembered their friend George. A parishoner led us proudly down the aisle toward the altar and showed us a mural painted on the wall behind it. The scene depicted there was Christ feeding the multitudes. And beside Christ, standing shoulder to shoulder with the apostles, was a robed figure. The figure's face was that of George Mergenthaler. George was easy to spot. He was the only one wearing a crew cut.
Not far away, in a corner of the church is another tribute set in the multicolored glass of a small, arched, multicolored window. It depicts the Seal of the United States with the motto underneath: E. Pluribus Unum.
From many, one. by CNB