AD Hasler 1945 Photos from Europe.

ADH 1945 Strategic Bombing Survey 

Photo Chronology

by Arthur Frederick Hasler

The captions are mostly excerpted from A D Hasler letters from Washington DC, London, Darmstadt, Starnberg, Innsbruck, Salzburg and Linz.

May-August 1945.

 Note: After a search of several months, we found the negatives of Art's photographs that he took during this period. The photographs shown here have been scanned from those negatives. However, we have yet to find the photo album he made from these pictures. For this reason we don't usually know the names of the persons in the photos, but for many, we can match them up with descriptions in his letters.

In 1945, just before the Nazis surrendered, Art volunteered for the Strategic Bombing Survey with the US Army in Germany. Using his German language skills he mastered on his Mormon mission in Germany in 1933, he interviewed German civilians to determine the effectiveness of the indiscriminate bombing and complete destruction of German cities including civilian populations by high explosives and firebombing during the war.

It was an incredible experience, when he got to Hitler's Eagle's Nest in Bavaria, he was only 35 days behind it's liberation by the "Band of Brothers" of the 101st Airborne: 

Art flew across the Atlantic and back when civilians were still traveling by ship (as our family did 10 years later in 1954-55). Art got to see  both Londoners and Parisians celebrating one of the greatest events in history, the end of WWII. He saw the results of the greatest destruction of cities in history from the allied aerial bombardment with high explosives and firebombs of Darmstadt and Stuttgart and interviewed the people who had lived through it.

He saw one of the greatest migrations of displaced persons in history, on the autobahns and on the trains, He spent time in the beautiful Alps and lakes of Southern Germany (Bavaria) and Austria (Tyrol) and visited Hitler's Eagle's Nest. He met and began a life-long friendship with the subject of his greatest scientific admiration, the Nobel prize winning scientist, Karl von Frisch. He met and shared thoughts, experiences and stories with numerous Army Officers and fellow scientists. He wrote long letters every other day, many of which were typed, (see separate blog) and took numerous photographs.

I have tried to integrate his photographs from 1945 and 1955, some photographs found on the internet and his letters, to tell his story.

The text excerpted from letters of Art and his colleagues is in blue.

Haslers Madison, 1945

These are the Hanna and Kiddies that Art was writing to from Europe in 1945.

Galen and Mark were born January 24, so when Art left for Europe on April 29 they were just over three months old. Leaving Hanna with five kids including two tiny babies was a big deal.

Twins in those days were a big deal so Hanna must have had some help from friends. By June 1st she also had hired a women to help her with the kids and housework. Sylvia at age 9 must have been a good helper too, but about June 15 Hanna sent her out to Art's parents in Utah at least partly for relief from her allergies. She remained there until after Art returned,  staying about two months probably until about August 20.

 Art, On his 2 1/2 year LDS Mission, Germany, 1928

Art served a 30 month mission for the LDS (Mormon) Church in Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Austria from 1927-29. 

From the stamps on the passport we know that Art landed in Liverpool England on July 23 1927. He served his mission in Dresden Germany, Czechoslovakia and Salzburg and Linz Austria. We know from his letter to Chauncy Juday accepting his UW teaching assistantship that he served 30 months. This means that he returned in February of 1930.

Art worked diligently studying German and learned it well. He loved German and the German people and defended them even when Germany wasn't popular in the U.S.

I don't know how many times I heard him say this:

"Meine Beziehung zu der deutschen Sprache ist wie mit meiner Frau, ich kenne sie, ich liebe sie, aber ich beherrsche sie nicht."

English translation: "My relationship with the German language is the same as the one I have with my wife. I know her, I love her, but I don't rule her"

It was this knowledge of the German language that qualified him to participate in the Strategic Bombing Survey,

Twice in his letters home in 1945 he refers to returning to places he served on his mission.

Letter # 22     16 June 1945 Salzburg Austria

"It has been fifteen year since I was in the town where Mozart was born and where the famous music festival were held......"

Letter # 32        03 July 1945 Linz Austria

Letter to his dad W. T. and mom Ada Hasler in Provo Utah

"Some 15 years ago you saw this address on my mail. In the last two days I have been unable to locate my old friend, Rudolf Niedermayr who presented me with such a beautiful book on Austria when I left...... three years ago.....he had died of blood poisoning ...." 

These letters confirm the length of his mission as 2 1/2 years (30 months)

Letter # 2 

01May 1945 Washington (1 Page HW)

Art Hasler, C54Airplane, En Route to London, Azores, May1945

That was my guess when I tried to match up the negatives (with no meta data) with dad's letters. In the meantime we found another copy in dad's old UW lantern slide collection that was labled.  It turns out that this was Eisenhower's Plane, Sunflower II, at Frankfort am Main airport. The sunflower is the State flower of Missouri, Eisenhower's home State.

Letter # 4

05May1945 Washington

"Dear Hanna and Kiddies,

            The plane from here (Patuxent MD) takes on 2400 gal of gas, flies to N. Foundland (Newfoundland - Stevensville), refuels and makes for the Azores weather permitting. The initial load of gas is for any emergency – could take us across if weather prevented us from landing in Newfoundland. The big 4 engine transport C54 has hatches in the top and rafts to discharge passengers if forced to land on water. Each has a life belt (May West). Great Business. We left late and are having a 3-5 hour wait here. Our luggage is checked, mine is 25 lb under the max permitted."

VE day celebrations in-trafalgar square London, 07May1945
                              (found on the Internet)

VE day celebrations Piccadilly,  London, 08May1945
                              (found on the Internet)

Letter # 4

continued 09 May London 

"The celebration last night (VE Day) was impressive, fairly orderly. People released their feelings by walking, walking, walking. Great streams poured out upon the sidewalks. Piccadilly Circus, Regent Street, Trafalgar Sq. (Square) were like Times Sq. on New Year’s Eve. There was occasional rowdiness & drunkenness, but most were well behaved. The middle aged were obviously incensed by those who misbehaved. One heard groups singing “There will always be an England” almost at every corner. It is a (Early World) War II song, I was told – haven’t got the words."

            "We were fortunate to be laid over at another European capital (Paris) for the night of the 1^st Announcement of V-Es day. There was little celebration, no crowds or excitement except from G.I.s. "

On May 7, 1945 Art landed in Paris on VE day as a volunteer..... (Documented in his letter to Hanna. "The whole plane wondered why Paris was crazy celebrating". They could not make London due to weather and arrived the next day when London was celebrating. "The English waited a day" he commented in his letter) The timing is another amazing happenstance of his lucky life.

            Letter # 11

15 May 1945 Somewhere In Europe (2 Pages HW - Deciphered and typed by AFH)

Somewhere in Europe

15 May 1945

Dear Hanna and Kiddies:

            "First impressions of my field work are satisfactory, and above all I want to assure you that I sense no more danger that what might befall me on a trip to the Brule (Trout stream in NW Wisconsin). After supper tonight, one of my colleagues and I took a walk along a country road on the outskirts of a city. Many natives were busily cultivating their small gardens – some were setting out cabbage plants, here & there I saw peas in blossom, carrots peaking thru and iris in full flower.

            On the highways everywhere, planting or plowing was underway – women working in the fields as they used to. Saw a little boy, Sylvia’s age (9 years old), leading a horse for his daddy who walked behind guiding the plow.

            Wish you could see how beautiful the landscape appears in Spring – there is still great areas of beauty. On the other hand, I can only agree with correspondents that it is beyond imagination that some towns could be reduced to rubble so completely. Censorship forbids me to comment on atrocities, etc. Needless to say there are thousands of fine honest & kind people left and by no means are all paganistic barbarians.

            Non fraternization is still in force for the troops. Our project is approved and well planned, so we will proceed – I am glad to be here & would not miss the experience for anything.

            We have (a few) hardships. It is rough and dirty riding in a jeep or a truck, but at night we expect to have good safe places to rest. Our lodging is secure, cots are good and I have a new sleeping bag. The food is adequate – more meat that one gets in D.C. Have not been in this exact spot before, but passed through places today that I visited hurriedly in 1928 after leaving your mother."

Greetings

Daddy

 Darmstadt Following RAF Firebombing, Sept 1944

      (found on the Internet)

Art arrived in Europe on VE day, May 7, 1945. We have the almost daily letters he wrote home from May through August 1945. He spent his first night in Paris and then witnessed the VE celebrations on May 8th in London the next day. He spent the first 6 days in London getting trained and outfitted then traveled two days by plane and jeep to his first duty station in Darmstadt Germany.

Darmstadt had been firebombed during RAF raids on the night of the 11th and 12th of September that decimated the city and killed over 14,000 residents. So when dad arrived there eight months later, he got to see the results and hear firsthand the stories of those terrible days.

Darmstadt in Ruins, May 1945

"This large city was burned and blasted completely in a 55-minute raid last September. Thousands were burned in their cellars. In spite of this terror it is surprising that it did not break their resistance and more surprising that they were able to go about their work within a few days "  

Kids in Rubble, Darmstadt, May1945

This picture Art took, best captures the spirit of his stories of arriving in Germany just after WWII had ended.  The three little girls are standing with one of Art's colleagues in front of a huge pile of rubble. Each girls is holding something round, an apple maybe? Art always had chocolate and gum for the kids, but not usually fruit. One girls is holding a milk can. When we lived in Munich for a year in 1954-55 we had cans just like that one. There was no prepackaged milk in bottles or cartons, You would take the can to the Milcherei (milk shop), the shop keeper would place it under the spigot and pull down a big lever until the can was full.

Art arrived in Germany just after many German cities had been totally destroyed by allied bombing. Art shared his K-rations and chocolate with the children. He walked down a street with virtually all buildings destroyed on either side (see Darmstadt description above). Then out of a basement under the rubble, a little girl emerged, perfectly dressed ready to go to church. I didn't see this exact story in his letters, but I remember it from "sitting on his knee" at age 5.

Letter # 12

Darmstadt 17May1945

Dear Hanna & Kiddies            

"On the way to work we pass along a street where not a single house stands complete, a few walls are up with a rusty radiator dangling.  If bombs hit Madison not this much would be standing because of the lumber construction. Germans living in the city, I don’t know where, cellars no doubt, are pressed and clean. Their passion for cleanliness has not been destroyed by the dust and rubble surrounding them. Even the little kids are well dressed and clean. They look well, but none is fat. The ration is one wiener-sized piece of meat per week."

Hamburg Destroyed Wagon Jeep 1945

Letter # 17

Starnberg (Bavaria) 30May1945

"In Darmstadt, a man told me he watched his daughter run toward him, but the flames from the burning houses consumed her before his eyes."    

Art & Fellow Officer Some Where in Europe May1945

Nazi Autobahn 1945

(found on the Internet)

Letter # 17

Starnberg 30May1945

"The Autobahn is a new concrete super-highway with 4 lanes divided by a 20 foot grass parking. All railroads or crossroads go either over or under it on concrete pillar overheads or "underheads; " a beautiful piece of modern engineering   


I remember driving with my dad in 1950 to NYC. Five years after the war, the Pennsylvania Turnpike was the only superhighway in the United States.

It wasn't until former General, Dwight Eisenhower, was elected president in 1953 that he initiated the Interstate Highway Act in 1956, that the US began copying the limited access highways the Nazi's had built and that he had seen during the war. It took 35 years until 1991 when the US system had the same nationwide coverage the Hitler completed in Germany almost 50 years earlier. Of course the US system was much bigger.

Refugees Baby Carriage Autobahn Germany 1945

(found on the Internet)

Flüchtlinge, Deutschland, 1945
(Art Hasler Photo)

Literally (The ones who are fleeing) an actual photo that Art took that Galen found this in his old lantern slide collection in the Center for Limnology's deep storage facility in Stoughton WI.

Letter # 17

Starnberg 30 May

"Along the margins of the highway streams of people trudge along with packs on their backs, or towing wagons, pushing carts and baby carriages loaded with clothes, and personal belongings. Some ride bicycles, with packs on the handlebars, on the cross bar, and on the fender, plus a loaded Rucksack (back pack) "   

Major Hasler, Colleagues, Jeep Convoy, 30May 1945

Approaching the Alps Late May 1945

Letter # 17

Starnberg 30 May

Dear Hanna & Kiddies

"Yesterday we left Darmstadt and arrived in Stuttgart on the first leg of our journey to Innsbruck and Salzburg, Austria. We left about noon arriving at l600 hours. Our convoy consisted of two jeeps with a trailer each--personal: one officer, (a captain) two enlisted men, (sergeants), and four civilians with assimilated ranks. In the trailers were our duffle bags, musset bags, B4 bags or grips (suit cases), canvas cots, emergency gasoline, and rations."

Major Hasler, Colleagues, Jeep in the Alps, June 1945

"We have (a few) hardships. It is rough and dirty riding in a jeep or a truck, but at night we expect to have good safe places to rest. Our lodging is secure, cots are good and I have a new sleeping bag. The food is adequate – more meat that one gets in D.C. Have not been in this exact spot before, but passed through places today that I visited hurriedly in 1928 after leaving your mother" 

Hasler,  Colleagues Jeep Bregenz false color June1945

Galen found this in dad's old lantern slide collection in the Center for Limnology's deep storage facility in Stoughton WI. It looks like it has been colored artificially by hand.

Detigs Haslers Hiking at Fischbachau 1955

Photo taken by Art 10 years later showing the beauty of the Bavarian and Austrian countryside that he recounts in his letters in 1945

"Wish you could see how beautiful the landscape appears in Spring – there is still great areas of beauty. On the other hand, I can only agree with correspondents that it is beyond imagination that some towns could be reduced to rubble so completely. Censorship forbids me to comment on atrocities, etc. Needless to say there are thousands of fine honest & kind people left and by no means are all paganistic barbarians."

 Corpus Christi Procession, Munich, 11 June 1945

(found on the Internet)

Frauen Kirche and battered Munich.

Art went through Munich only 10 days earlier and saw the Rathaus and central city much as it appears here. Miraculously the towers of the iconic Munich Frauen Kirche survived the bombing. 

He saw firsthand the terrible destruction of Darmstadt and Stuttgart and must have seen what we see above. We know that von Frisch expected that his house in the suburbs would be safe even if his lab at the Universität München built by the Rockefeller Foundation was in danger. Art visited the partially destroyed lab on June 1st. von Frisch moved his extensive library on animal phycology to his home. Unfortunately his house suffered a direct hit, The house and library were completely destroyed except for a milk can hanging in a nearby tree. von Frisch moved to his family home in Brunnwinkl Austria just east of Salzburg and continued his work.

Munich  was substantially rebuilt as a result of the Marshall Plan and the Wirtschaft's Wunder (economic miracle) by the time our family spent 12 months there 10 years later in 1954 and 1955. I recall the main nave of the Frauen Kirche and numerous buildings in Munich were still in ruins or under construction. Building cranes had sprouted all over Munich. We did see the famous Trümmerfrauen (rubble women) in action in a few locations pulling brick after brick out of the ruins and stacking them for reuse.

Letter # 18

Vmail from Innsbruck 02June1945

........."Yesterday I visited in Munich and at Freising where the Ag (Agriculture) Station is located. I spent the morning with Prof. Dr Jacops at the Zoologists Institute in Munich. It was hit by bombs several times and burned, but the walls still stood and part of the roof keeps out the rain. It had just rained so that the part that was hit, let water in freely so that the halls were wet.... Many of the buildings all around are badly damaged. Munich as a whole is bad, much worse than I expected, because it was so far away from England...... The famous Rathous of Munich still stands and houses the military government."

Salzburg, Austria

17 June 1945

"When I called on him at the University of Munich I was informed that he had left there to live at his summer home, because his own home had been ruined by a direct bomb hit. The assistant director of the Zoologisches Institut in Munich gave me a letter to take to him when I got Salzburg. This I did——it was the first news he had received from the Institut since before the surrender"

 Nazi Sticker, Innsbruck, June 1945

Most of the letters Art wrote from Innsbruck were on Nazi stationary. The sticker above was on one of his letters. See the explanation below

Letter # 19

On Nazi Stationary

Der Reichsgesundheitsführer (Regime Health Director) 

Innsbruck, Austria

5 June 1915

Dear Hanna and Kiddies:

"The offices where we carry out our duties are frequently those used by the Nazi government officials; consequently the storerooms have quantities of stationary which we use for note taking. I have taken the liberty to "liberate" this sheet to write a note."

Art Entertainers, Hafelekar, Austria, 03June1945

High above (7000 ft) Innsbruck Sunday 03 June 1945

Schublade Dance, Entertainers, Hafelekar, Austria, June1945

Schublade Dance, Entertainers, Hafelekar, Austria, June1945

Art , Entertainers, Hafelekar,  Innsbruck, June1945

Art holding accordion with  Schubdade Entertainers Hafelekar Innsbruck Austria 03une1945

Letter #19

05June1945 Innsbruck (2 pages)

"Sunday one of my colleagues and I took the Drahtseilbahn (funicular railway) which is arranged in 3 different sections in order to attain 3 levels on the mountain. The peak we reached was Hafelekar 2300 meters (over 7000 ft.) This does not seem high in comparison with Mt. Timpanogos, but the rise from the valley (Innsbruck) is about 5500 feet. At the second level the Tyroleans were skiing, as were several GI's. On the cable car with us was a small circle of native Tyroleans in costume. The boys had leather shorts (Lederhosen) with elaborately embroidered suspenders—in fact the embroidery extended onto the pants too. The coats were gray, bordered with green. The customary green hat with the beard of a mountain goat hung right angles from the band. On the side of the hat they carried the mountain insignia; Edelweiss, medals won in skiing, hunting or climbing. In addition they had badges of organizations dealing with conservation and protection of the flowers and wildlife of the mountains. The girls were dressed for climbing, had big ski-like shoes with metal cleats and hobnails. Their dresses were not as elaborate as the Sunday and Holliday dresses 1 told about before, still they had the gray or green coat bordered with the contrasting color. Two of the young men carried an accordion and a banjo. 

When we reached the top they put on a dance (Schublade Tanz," the national Tyrolean dance, cleverly executed by peasants”) for us--the kind you have seen in the movies (Tirolean Dance (1907)) where they slap their heels, knees, head, etc. It is a real folk dance and you could see the others look on with admiration; they are proud of their traditions as one can suspect. All of them were sturdy, well developed legs, from the climbing and skiing; deeply tanned and rugged in appearance. Apparently they were happy, probably happier than they had been for years because the war was over and at least the danger and death part of their existence has been lifted."

Hanna, Sylvia, Detig's: Dirndls Munich 1955

Photo taken by Art 10 years later that shows the beauty of the Bavarian and Tyrollean traditional costumes.

Art, Climber, Germany 1945.

Another great photo of Art, this time in his army helmut that Galen found in his negative archive. It looks like he is out on a hike with a very serious climber dude.

Major Hasler, Colleagues, Jeep in the Alps, 15June 1945

Art enroute to the Brenner Pass

Colleague, Brenner Pass Alps,  15June 1945

Major Hasler, Colleagues, Brenner Pass Alps, 15June 1945

Art & Colleagues, Hitler's EagleNest, June1945

Art, Plunder, Fluss, Hudson (one of them is the photographer)

Eagle's Nest, Berchtesgaden, Germany, 17June1945

Letter # 23

17 June 1945 Salzburg (3 pages - OCRd and corrected by AFH)

Salzburg, Austria

17 June 1945

Dear Hanna and Kiddies:

"Today has been so filled with events worthy of detailed description; I hardly know where to begin. 

This forenoon Messrs. Plunder, Fluss, Hodson and I took a trip of some 15 miles to Berchtesgaden, the elaborate Bavarian retreat of Adolph Hitler, the late Führer. Because this has received so much attention in the press and elsewhere, I shall not attempt to describe it myself, but will give a little account at the end of this letter which was written by Paul Hodson when he returned from Berchtesgaden this noon. I shall proceed to tell in as much detail as I can, the events of the afternoon which are extremely important and interesting to anyone who is a biologist."

Page 3 (Paul W. Hodson’s letter about visiting the Eagle’s Nest)

Today four of us went to Berchtesgaden (By four of us, I mean four of us on a team of seven). Hitler had quite a place. It is simply fantastic. The setting is the green, majestic Bavarian mountains. After a drive of several miles, in low gear, right up the mountain, we came to Berghof, Hitler’s home It had been bombed to bits; the outside walls are for the most part intact, but the inside is completely gutted. There is not much to see here because of the damage inflicted by the bombers. A little farther on is Goering’s  house. Notably there is still to see his giant bathtub that is the size of a baptismal font, and refrigerator, which has room for enough ice cubes to cool the whisky and soda of a regiment. Then farther on are the barracks, that is, what is left of them. What remains shows the tracings of good camouflage. But the bombers certainly did a good job of blowing everything to h -----.

The fantastic part is "The Eagle's Nest. This lies four miles above Berghof- and is right on top of a mountain peak. We went 4 miles up a steep winding road of excellent mountain-road construction passing occasionally through stone lined tunnels. The jeep was in low gear the entire way – on the sides of the road over the first few turns wide areas of the trees were blasted and splintered to the stumps by bomb explosions.

The last mile we had to walk. There is an elevator, but the huge copper doors before it were locked and marked "off limits." The Eagle Nest is amazing. I was puzzled by my own alternating reactions. On to one hand I was impressed by the strength and grandeur of this (if the bombing is excepted) of this impregnable mountain fortress. The walls of stone are about six feet thick. As one walks inside he sees a big motor, which lifts the elevator. Upstairs is the council or living rom. At one end is a massive fireplace. Big easy chairs, in which Hitler and his henchmen sat, are before it. In the center of the room is a low round table about 14 ft in diameter.  There are low comfortable chairs all around it. It is easy to imagine how maps were laid out on this table during a council of war. The room is round so that this table is a circle within a circle. All around the room are large windows looking out on the enchanting panorama of Königssee, which is a clear blue lake in a pocket of shaggy stone mountains; the town of Berchtesgaden with its quaint houses and red roofs; and the snowcapped Alps in the hinterland.

The second reaction is one of protest - a protest that an individual should build such a monument to himself at the expense of a people, at the expense of all people. I found myself constantly thinking back on what must have been the scenes of such a few weeks ago and wishing that I could have transposed myself to those fast fading weeks, to sit quietly and unobserved on the far side of the big room while momentous decisions were made, decisions which condemned a nation to utter ruin. A few days ago in Bregenz, I was told that the city went un-bombed until the day before the end. Many other cities were completely bombed to pieces during the last few weeks. The decisions of Hitler, quite likely at the Eagle’s Nest, were responsible for this. And so at the Eagle's Nest I found myself protesting, protesting at the insane determination of a man with power who had transposed himself to the mythology of the Götterdämmerung.

Paul W. Hodson

Karl von Frisch, Art Hasler, Brunwinkl, 1945 

Galen found this in dad's old lantern slide collection in the Center for Limnology's deep storage facility in Stoughton WI.


His letter of June 17 1945, Art describes traveling from Salzburg only 27 km and 30 min to St Gilgen, Wolfgangsee and Brunnwinkl to visit his idol Professor Karl von Frisch. In a three page typewritten letter he describes in detail, meeting von Frisch and observing him working with his honeybees. He had only a bee hive, a stop watch, a pan of sugar water and 5 colors to dob on the thorax of the bees. With these primitive tools, his imagination and keen sense of scientific observation he learned enough to win the Nobel Prize.

Karl & Frau von Frisch Wolfgangsee near Brunnwinkl 1955

The picture above of von Frisch was taken 10 years later in 1955, but in his letter of June 17 1945, Art describes traveling from Salzburg only 27 km and 30 min to St Gilgen, Wolfgangsee and Brunnwinkl to visit his idol Professor Karl von Frisch. In a three page typewritten letter he describes in detail, meeting von Frisch and observing him working with his honeybees. He had only a bee hive, a stop watch, a pan of sugar water and 5 colors to dob on the thorax of the bees. With these primitive tools, his imagination and keen sense of scientific observation he learned enough to win the Nobel Prize.

Art Hasler, Karl von Frisch, Wolfgangsee, Austria, June 1945

Karl von Frisch, Wolfgangsee, Austria, June 1945

Chalet, Austria, 1945

Letter # 21

11 June 1945 Innsbruck 

"The beautiful wooded or meadow mountainsides, spotted with little sheds in the fields and picturesque houses with exaggerated roofs, and painted front exposures were a sight"   

Karl von Frisch & Home Brunnwinkl Austria 1945
(Found in Art's old 4"x4" limnology lantern slide collection

This picture and the one of Art earlier appear to have been artificially colored by hand. The foliage had been colored green, the sky light blue, and the flowers appear to be little dabs of red paint.

If you compare this picture with the one below 10 years later, the garden appears to have become quite overgrown during the war.

Karl von Frisch & Home Brunnwinkl Austria 1954

Karl, Karl von Frisch and daughters Leni & Marie, Munich 1954

Karl Hasler and his namesake Karl von Frisch with daughters Leni Pflüger and Marie.

Letter # 23

17June1945 Salzburg (visit to von Frisch )

"Mr. Plunder and Mr. Hodson decided to remain at home during the afternoon excursion. Mr. Fluss, a former Austrian Army officer (World War I) and man of means, jeeped with me to St. Gilgen, 27 km. from Salzburg, in the region called the Salzkammer Gut. The object for the "target" was to pay a professional call on Prof. Karl von Frisch, famous zoologist of the University of Munich, a man whom I have admired for several years because of his outstanding research on the sensory abilities of fish, bees and some other animals. When I called on him at the University of Munich I was informed that he had left there to live at his summer home, because his own home had been ruined by a direct bomb hit. The aissistant director of the Zoologisches Institut in Munich gave me a letter to take to him when I got Salzburg. This I did——it was the first news he had received from the Institut since before the surrender.

We drove through the little, quaint village of St. Gilgen, inquired for Brunnwinkl, drove down a narrow road along the beautiful Wolfgangsee, admired the angular, wooded mountains that shot up several hundred feet around the lake and then stopped at the top of the hill' where a path led down to the lakes edge. There we saw some old Bavarian type houses, walked down to them and inquired for Prof. v. Frisch. His wife took us out to him where he was busy at work under a little shelter continuing his observations on distance perception and transmission in bees. He was leaning over, watching a colony of bees in glass case as they swarmed over the large enclosed cone. Here and there among the mass of bees was a bee” with l, 2, 3, 4 or 5 different colors dobbed on the thorax. He was watching them, counting and pushing a stopwatch. As he observed, in between counts he proceeded to tell us about the experiment. It happened that the bees were feeding at a sugar feeding station 700 yards away; after we finished the observations I walked over the hill to the station (a 15 minute walk) there sat his laboratory aid with her paint sticks, marking the bees as they lighted on an elevated platform on which was a shallow watch-glass of sugar water. The work, so he proved to me has showed that, the bees find this feeding station and return to the hive to notify their co-workers who get the scent and fly or follow him back to where he got the sugar. To notify his colleagues the bee makes two types of dances; the Rundtanz (Round Dance), - or the Schwänzeltanz (Little tail dance). The experiment was done with the latter group. When the Schwänzeltanz is done, the bee goes around in a circle and wiggles his hind end, he makes these rotations at different rates depending upon the distance the food store is from the hive. The farther it is the slower the rotations. The bees at that moment were

rotating 5 times in 15 minutes which he said was characteristic for that distance. It was strange to see these bees fly in the hive door get among"

Major, Arthur Davis Hasler, Salzburg, 1945

Major Hasler, US Army Uniform, taken in a professional photo studio in Salzburg Austria

Art was stationed in Salzburg from June 16 to June 27 1945. Once again extreme luck strikes Art. He is stationed only 30 km and 30 min from Brunnwinkl where the subject of his admiration, Nobel Prize winner, Professor Karl von Frisch is studying his honeybees.

Fishing Nets Attersee June1945

Men with Fishing Nets Austria 1945

Letter # 27

Salzburg 24June1945

"Today, I spent the forenoon with Prof. von Frisch again. We took him in our jeep and went on the Attersee to see Dr. Eisele."

Karl von Frisch, Dinner Party, Brunnwinkl, Wolfgangsee, Letter of 24July1945

Displaced Persons Overcrowding Train Germany 1945

(found on the Internet)

Displaced Persons Overcrowding Train Germany 1945

(found on the Internet)

Art Sylvia Fritz Madison 25August1945

Art in his army uniform. He had just returned from the war, on August 15.

Sylvia had just returned from two months in Utah with Art's folks and I had just celebrated my 5th birthday on August 21

Letter # 45

l8Augustl945 Madison,  (Letter to Sylvia in Utah)

Wednesday (August 15), Ada and I were picked up (in NYC) by the Pres. of Sarah Lawrence College, Harold Taylor, a former Wisconsin colleague who had just been made president. He took us about the luxurious campus and well-planned buildings, and then to the train. Mel met me at the Air terminal Where he saw me off in a big limousine for LaGuardia Field, We left at 1400 and arrived in Milwaukee at l800.

A two-hour lay over and then on to Madison arriving at 2200. As I stepped off the plane I heard some one call Daddy, Daddy--it was little Fritz and with him stood Mother and Bruce --what a grand reunion. But we missed you and are counting the days until you will be with us.