Love, war & remembrance

A forbidden love between a POW and his work supervisor led him to return to Germany 55 years later.

By TIM GRANT

© St. Petersburg Times, published October 31, 1999

CARROLLWOOD -- It was 1945. She was a beautiful 23-year-old German named Paula Vorholzer. He was one of six American POWs who were assigned to work for her at a post office in Landshut. What no one else knew was that Bill Cottrill and Vorholzer were in love.

They stole fleeting kisses in dark rooms and behind trucks and storage crates. She sneaked him extra food and allowed him to rest during the dawn-to-sundown work days.

On their last night together, she helped the 21-year-old Cottrill and 47 other American prisoners escape hours before they would have been killed by retreating Germans.

Once they reached a swamp where the Americans would be safe, Vorholzer gave Cottrill a handgun, some photographs of herself, a gold chain from her neck and one last forbidden kiss.

Cottrill promised her he would come back. It took 55 years, but the retired law office manager kept his word.

"She was a true friend at a time when I was in need and she put herself in great danger to help me," Cottrill said. "All these years, it has always been my dream to go back and renew our friendship and see if she needed anything now that I could give."

Immediately after the war, there was too much going on, and too little money, for Cottrill to return to Landshut. And he had met his wife, Peg.

They married on Oct. 31, 1948 in Clarksburg, W. Va. They raised two children on his salary as a retail furniture salesman in West Virginia and later as an office manager for Cunningham Law Group in Tampa. Now they enjoy a comfortable retirement in suburban Carrollwood.

In July, Cottrill, 75, and his wife returned to Germany as part of a tour group. They took a side trip to Landshut to find Vorholzer. With them, they carried the gold chain and the photographs that Vorholzer gave Cottrill in the swamp.

"More than anything, I wanted to hear her side of the story," said Mrs. Cottrill. "I just thought it would be really neat to meet someone who affected his life so much and could have really made life hell for him if she'd been so disposed."

After checking into the Kaiserhof Hotel, Cottrill found three Vorholzers in the telephone book and asked the desk clerk to place a telephone call to the first one. To his surprise, it was Paula's nephew and he spoke good English. But after the excitement of finding each other, the nephew gave Cottrill bad news.

Vorholzer was dead.

She took her own life in 1955 after a failed marriage, her nephew told Cottrill. He was so devastated, he was ready to end the trip he had been waiting on for half a century.

"That was the first time I'd ever seen him cry over this period of his life," Mrs. Cottrill said.

Cottrill had been a member of U.S. Army Infantry, Company K, 115th Regiment, 29th Division. He was one of 82 American soldiers who survived a German attack, but he was captured on Oct. 4, 1944, near Achern, Germany.

"I remember we got into quite an argument as to who would wave the white flag," Cottrill said.

On his first night in captivity, Cottrill said, a German soldier took his graduation ring saying he needed it for a filling in his tooth.

From Stalag 12A in Limburg, he was shipped to Stalag 7A in Moosburg, about 40 miles from Munich. Cottrill was among hundreds of American POWs packed in a train to Munich each day to work in the rail yards and clean the city after bombing raids by the American and English air forces.

"In a situation of this nature, you have absolutely no freedoms," Cottrill said. "Anything you do out of line, you are subject to severe discipline.

"Regarding medical attention and prison camp food, there was little or none of either. Those who became ill were sent out for treatment, but were never seen again.

"We learned to hide our sickness. As for food, I weighed 156 pounds when captured and a big 98 pounds when liberated."

Cottrill said their breakfast consisted of coffee brewed from burned wheat. Around noon they were served a cup of hot water soup normally made from rutabagas. Around 4 p.m. they were given a loaf of bread made of sawdust and molasses. The single loaf was shared by 15 to 20 men.

"It was almost like a brick," he said. "You could build a house with it."

After three months, Cottrill was assigned to a work party in Landshut loading and unloading boxcars for the German postal service. From Dec. 24, 1944, until his liberation on April 29, 1945, he worked under Vorholzer's direction.

Cottrill began to learn a little German from her, and she picked up some English from him. Eventually, she relied on Cottrill to relay her orders to the other five POWs on their work crew.

Before long, Cottrill said they became attracted to each other.

"She would sneak me food," Cottrill said. "She gave me the first meat I'd had since I was captured. Every day she'd give me an apple or some nuts or whatever she had, which was very little. She would basically share her lunch with me."

For Cottrill, his relationship was an insurance policy for getting favors and food, but it could have been a death sentence for them both if they were caught.

They risked their lives for the brief but passionate kisses and embraces they shared outside the glare of German soldiers and other POWs.

In early March of 1945, Cottrill said, Vorholzer was taken away for a three-day interrogation by German officers. They were concerned about her smiling too much and laughing with the Americans.

After three days she returned, and the couple had to be more careful than ever.

Her last risk for Cottrill was her biggest. As Allied troops advanced toward Landshut, Vorholzer, with the help of another postal employee, broke Cottrill and 47 of his cellmates out of the prison camp.

One American who chose not to leave was later killed by retreating German soldiers, Cottrill said.

Years after he had been married, Cottrill said, he obtained an address for a Vorholzer through the American Embassy in Germany, but the letter he wrote went unanswered.

His trip to Germany, while disappointing, did provide the closure he had sought. He said Vorholzer's relatives welcomed him and his wife like long lost family. They talked about the war, the rebuilding of Germany, his life since World War II, and Paula's tragically short life. Cottrill's story even became a feature article in the Landshut newspaper.

He had intended to return the gold necklace to Vorholzer. He did what he felt was the next best thing: He gave it to her nephew's wife, so it would remain in Germany.

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