Translations:Otto Eckart (Da VIII 23)/8/en
World War I started in 1914. On August 3, Otto Eckart was drafted into military service in Kiel, but already deferred from military service six days later, as he was considered "indispensable". He returned to Munich and immediately took over the management of the factory in Zamdorf. The Eckarts’ canning factory supplied the army with food, mainly canned meat, and dried potatoes. The company also supplied the Ottoman Empire, an ally of the German Empire. In the spring of 1914, Otto traveled to Istanbul on business in order to conduct negotiations with the Turkish Ministry of War. He was drafted again in October 1914, this time to the XII. battalion of the Seewehr (sea defense). In November, he was admitted to a hospital in Kiel due to severe appendicitis. After a severe course of illness and surgery, he was discharged from hospital on December 22 and spent the Christmas holidays with his family in Poing. After a short time in Munich as instructor at the 1st infantry regiment, Otto returned to Kiel in 1915. His family followed at the end of that year. They lived in cramped conditions for a short time, until they were able to move into a spacious apartment in the street Norddeutsche Strasse in 1916. Otto also bought a farmer’s cottage in Raisdorf, near Kiel, to ensure the family had enough food which was scarce in times of war. In 1916 – the family had moved again and now lived in a villa on the street Bartelsallee in Kiel – a tragic accident happened. During a walk, the horse ridden by Otto shied. This caused a confusion in which the five-year-old Lisbeth Eckart, who had accompanied her father, was hit by a passing streetcar, and so seriously injured that she died shortly afterwards. Anita Eckart had stayed at home; she was heavily pregnant at that time and less than one month later, on November 14, 1916, Klaus Eckart was born.[1]
- ↑ Eckart, Otto and Kamp, Michael: "Die Geschichte der Familie Eckart. Von Franken nach München und Hawaii" (The History of the Eckart Family. From Franconia to Munich and Hawaii), Munich 2015, pages 229–237.