John Pfeffer, who was 82 when he died April 24 at his Denver home, embraced the country whose military he once fought against, becoming a U.S. citizen shortly after emigrating from Germany following World War II.
He was born Johannes Pfeffer in Neenstetten, Germany, the son of peasant farmers who coaxed a living from their meager patch of land in southwestern Germany.
He was 10 when Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany, portending changes unimaginable by residents of tiny Neenstetten. Like most German peasants, the Pfeffers worried less about politics in distant Berlin than they did about harvesting enough food to get through the winter.
As Hitler gained power, the Pfeffers and their peasant neighbors became involved, sometimes unwillingly, in the Nazi regime. Pfeffer and his classmates joined the Hitler Youth. At age 17, he was conscripted into the German army.
Pfeffer fought in France, Russia, the Ukraine, and finally in Germany during the war’s waning days. American forces captured his platoon at the Elbe River, where the Germans had retreated from the Russian army.
Pfeffer rarely spoke about his years as a soldier. When his sons asked him about that time, his face closed. For a German teenager, becoming a soldier wasn’t really a choice: those who refused to fight faced prison or worse.
Hitler’s unsuccessful push for the Third Reich left the impoverished Lutherans of Neenstetten in straits more desperate than before the war. When Pfeffer finally returned to his parents’ farm, he found devastation. The buildings were rubble. The cows and chickens were gone. One of his three brothers was dead, a war fatality. With all Pfeffers lacking work, the ruined farm couldn’t support them all.
Pfeffer decided to emigrate to the United States. A fellow Neenstetten villager in Idaho volunteered to sponsor him, enthralling Pfeffer with descriptions of the abundant ranch land.
Pfeffer envisioned transforming himself into a cowboy, picturing thriving cattle under wide western skies. In April 1950, with the equivalent of $30 in his pocket, Pfeffer boarded a ship bound for the United States.
When he arrived in Idaho, Pfeffer’s sponsor took him to see a bit of land studded with sagebrush.
“The guy told him, ‘You can dig this up and plant potatoes,”‘ son Max Pfeffer recalled. “True story. Dad cried at that point.”
Sympathetic countrymen gave him enough cash to buy a bus ticket to Denver, where Pfeffer found a job washing dishes at a local Reese House diner. He spoke so little English that when he ordered a meal, he just pointed to something on the menu and hoped for the best.
Pfeffer enrolled in English classes and U.S. citizenship classes at Emily Griffith Opportunity School. His citizenship teacher urged him to wait, pointing out the waiting period required for aspiring naturalized citizens, but Pfeffer shook his head.
“I can’t wait,” he said. “In five years, I’m going to be too busy for this.”
Max Hummel, a caterer who owned a delicatessen on Seventh Avenue in central Denver, hired Pfeffer away from the Reese House. Pfeffer became one of Hummel’s head chefs. Pfeffer met Berte Geiselhardt, another native German from a predominantly Catholic village about 12 miles from Neenstetten.
They signed their marriage certificate with their new Americanized names – John and Bertha – and became naturalized citizens.
John Pfeffer played soccer on a German league team, and the Pfeffers rarely missed a dance at the Turnverein club in Denver’s Capitol Hill. They discussed both U.S. and German politics at the dinner table. Pfeffer maintained the old European custom of wearing dress slacks, a jacket and good shoes even for menial tasks.
By the mid-1950s, they bought a farm in Fort Lupton. One heifer at a time, they built a herd of Holsteins that they sold at a handsome profit. They used the money to buy a Brighton restaurant from a Chinese immigrant returning to his homeland, and operated Pfeffer’s Inn from the late 1950s to the early 1970s.
They sold Pfeffer’s Inn to buy the Via Venice in north Denver, near the old Denver Broncos training camp. During training season, football players and trainers crowded around the tables, ordering big Italian meals.
In 1984, the Pfeffers sold Via Venice and retired. John Pfeffer joined a health club where he faithfully worked out and socialized with other retirees. He never lost his interest in politics, and never missed a chance to express his firm opposition to war. He found war movies too disturbing to watch.
“Dad wasn’t ashamed of being German – he was proud of being an American, and determined to come here, and make a life here, and never look back,” Max Pfeffer said. “He always told his sons that he came to this country with more than we did. He came with a suitcase, and we came naked.”
Besides his wife and son Max, survivors include sons John Pfeffer and George Pfeffer, both of Denver; sisters Katrin Moll of Beimerstetten, Germany, and Marie Oswald of Hofstetten, Germany; and two grandchildren.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-820-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.
