[German]
Karl Ellinger was born on May 18, 1882 in Alfdorf-Haselbach in Baden-Württemberg, about 50 km east of Stuttgart.
He was a social democrat and a "freethinker," i.e. he was not a devout Christian but an atheist.
At a shooting festival he won first prize, a picture of Kaiser Wilhelm. It was natural for him to exchange this first prize for a beer glass, third place.
He emigrated to Norway and lived in Kristiansand. He did not have his children baptized, and they were teased for it. But some of his children said that they hid the fact that they had not been baptized in order to be confirmed.
When German troops invaded Norway on April 9, 1940, it was natural for him to become a "Jøssinger," in Norwegisns i.e. he opposed the occupation. He had to watch his son-in-law Gabriel (Gabbi) Lund being shot by a Nazi. That's why Solfjellsvei in Oslo, where he lived, was renamed "Gabbi Lunds vei".
His only son, whom he learned German from (while fishing), became a German soldier. But when his son visited his relatives in Haselbach in a German soldier's uniform, he understood for the first time that the war could not be won because there was too much opposition among the Germans. That was not true, of course: Most Germans were not as clever as my relatives. On the contrary, Hitler's senseless orders were followed in blind obedience to authority until the end.
PS: About 80 years later, I followed in his footsteps and emigrated to Norway.