Maria's Story

About the Book

Maria's Story...is an oral history as dictated by Maria Wolf Stella about people and events sought by academic scholars to authenticate studies of Germany's Nazi era. Her father's imprisonment and then enforced unemployment led to meager meals at home, discrimination in school, and, for Maria at age 14, an order to report for work in a war material factory. Throughout, she faced wartime terror and carnage as bombing raids around the factory increased in frequency and destructiveness. Maria survived shock, heartbreak, and grief from the bombing of her village. She survived being strafed by a fighter plane, a tank bombardment of a bunker which she alone occupied, and the sniping by a lone hidden rifleman while searching for her sister. Eventually, even her sunny disposition could not dispel feelings of despair and foreboding for the future.

World War II introduced a new form of warfare with primary casualties shifting from battlefield soldiers to civilians in cities, followed by a cold war era filled by the murder and genocide of millions by communist governments. An introduction to the book written by Robert Stella, outlines a national intercontinental ballistic missile defense system to shield the nation's city dwellers against incineration by H-bomb warheads. Ten appendices, also by Robert Stella, provide new perspective to World War II events; an eleventh reviews essentials of a U.S. Ballistic Missile "Star Wars" Defense System.

About the Author

MARIA WOLF STELLA

Born a happy child, Maria's joy in a good clean life never faded. At age eight, her peaceful Hansel-and-Gretal-like village life changed to the chaotic existence Hitler hammered into German society before World War II. Although denied schooling beyond the 7th grade due to her father's refusal to join the Nazi Party, her keen mind and refined sense of right from wrong enabled her, as a teenager, to thwart fascist propaganda. Later, as the wife of a diplomat, she remained true to her convictions, fending off "communist gobbledgook" about its inevitable triumph.

ROBERT A. STELLA

Robert Stella served as science advisor to American ambassadors in Brussels, Seoul-Korea, New Delhi, and London. The U.S. Army sent him to engineering college during World War II and the Battle of the Bulge for accelerated infantryman lessons on attack tactics by Hitler's Waffen S.S. troops. Robert's technical work focused exclusively on nuclear and missile technology research and development.