- Date Of Birth: April 4, 1929
- Date Of Death: October 20, 2015
- State: Illinois
age 86 of Zion, Illinois passed away on Tuesday, October 20, 2015 at the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center, North Chicago, Illinois. He was born on April 4, 1929 in the southern German town of Krumbach, Germany to the union of Johann Anton Schwaninger and Anna Mayer. In February 1945, at the age of 15, he was drafted into Hitler’s Youth Corp., “The Volksstrum” during World War II. Hitler’s Youth Corp. was 14-16 year old youth and older people that weren’t fit for duty in the combat zone. They were formed by Hitler at the end of the war when it began to look like defeat for Germany. Hans, along with 20 other youths were shipped away to “rush, rush” basic training, which they took in civilian clothes. After six weeks of training, his company moved out for central Germany, Nurnberg, to pick up uniforms and weapons. They went by train but it took three days to go 80-100 miles because American dive bombers kept bombing them. When they arrived in Nurnberg, they found that the German Army had left camp, so they began the hike back to Augsburg and Munich. During the hike back, in April 1945, he was captured by Americans and put in a POW Camp in Heilbronn for about seven months before his release. When he went home to Krumbach after his release, it was packed with American occupation forces. Because he could speak English as well as German, he was hired to work with the U.S. military government as an interpreter for a few years. Working with the U.S. government gave him a real insight into the American democratic way of life. In 1949, his aunt and uncle O’Ttillie Mayer and William Kleinschmidt, who lived in the U.S.
