Happy birthday from Germany: When Mills turned 100, even chancellor wished him well
DECATUR – Days before his 100th birthday in May, World War II veteran George Mills fell ill and was forced to spend his birthday in the hospital. Once he returned to his Decatur home, a box of birthday letters from Germany — the nation that once held him as a prisoner of war — was waiting for him, including one from the nation’s chancellor.
Mills’ friends from Germany, Tobias and Katharina Kreuzmann, organized people from their community to write letters and cards for Mills’ birthday in honor of his sacrifices for their freedom.
“To get that many cards and to get that many people to do that, you know, it didn’t take him one week, this took him time,” Mills said.
The Kreuzmanns met Mills in 2019 when he visited their museum, Museum Hurtgenwald 1955, during his trip to Europe to attend events commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge. After sharing meals and stories together, the three became good friends and talk regularly despite the ocean between them. The Kreuzmanns even planned to come to America before COVID forced them to cancel the trip.
Tobias Kreuzmann said Mills is a nice, lovely man and that he cannot put into words how special he is. Because Mills is the only veteran of the Battle of Hurtgen Forest to have visited the museum, Tobias Kreuzmann always has many questions for him about the battle, and Mills is always happy to answer them.
Since the couple was unable to visit their American friend and hero, they decided to do something special for his birthday on May 23.
“I am sorry from the bottom of my heart that I can only write you a letter on this great day,” their letter read. “How I wish I could congratulate you in person.”
A 1939 graduate of Decatur High, Mills went ashore in France 23 days after D-Day in June 1944. He was a member of the 109th Infantry, 28th Army Division. He and 200 other Allied soldiers were taken prisoner by Nazi units in a large farmhouse in Fouhren, Luxembourg, on Dec. 18, 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge. Mills was liberated by U.S. forces April 13, 1945.
Hundreds of Germans wrote Mills thanking him for fighting for their freedom in letters, cards, and social media comments.
“All these cards are saying, ‘I thank you for what you did 75 years ago.’ Now I’m an American soldier, out there killing Germans, and there’s Germany talking to me and telling me that what we did … pleased them,” Mills said. “I can’t get over that that many people, who don’t even know me, would send me those letters.”
Mills was able to show the letters to visitors only recently after being released from a medical rehabilitation facility.
Many of the letters are handwritten and most of them were written in English.
“Congratulations George!” Anne and Pascal from Cologne, Germany, said in their letter. “It’s an honor for us to write you. We heard … that you was a soldier in the Second World War. When I was a child my grandparents told me a lot of this horrible war.”
Tobias Kreuzmann even wrote to Angela Merkel, chancellor of Germany, to request that she write to Mills. Merkel wrote from Berlin to wish Mills a happy birthday and a fulfilling life.
“Your life was shaped by an eventful century in which you witnessed the tremendous political and social changes in the world,” Merkel said in her letter. “I would like to take the opportunity of your special day to express my appreciation for your life’s work.”
Mills’ pastor, Christopher Campbell at Southside Baptist Church, asked him about his 100th birthday during a home visit, and Mills expressed how much more the letters mean to him than all of the letters and notes he has received from senators and presidents over the years.
“He said the ones that mean most to him … that a whole community overseas would take the time to write him a happy birthday card,” Campbell said.
The Kreuzmanns still hope to visit Mills in the fall, but Mills has done his best to thank them for their gift from 4,500 miles away.
“I hope I’ve thanked him enough because he really went out of his way to do all that,” Mills said.
