Frank Oberle

The German-language translation of the autobiography of Frank Oberle, born Franz, in Mörsch, Germany. At age nine he relocated with his parents to Poland where, having been placed within a Nazi youth indoctrination program, he fled the Russian advance and survived on grass and stolen eggs. He walked 800 kilometres to his ancestral village on the edge of the Black Forest, only to be rejected by his remaining family. He emigrated to Canada at age 19, then sent for his teenage sweetheart. As Frank Oberle, he became a logger, a gold miner and a rancher, then a municipal mayor, then an MP for Prince George-Peace River. His twenty-year political career culminated in a Cabinet appointment in 1985 as the first federal Minister of State for Science and Technology, followed by a stint as Minister of Forestry. From his home base in the new community of Chetwynd, Oberle was later elevated by Brian Mulroney to become the first German-born federal cabinet minister.