Heidi Langbein-Allen didn’t set out to write a book.
The Poway resident wanted to translate her father’s memoirs from German to English for her family. His time in Hitler’s Army was especially poignant.
Willi Langbein was taken away from his family at the age of 13 by the Nazis during World War II in 1943. This was all under the pretense of protecting him and the other children. Their real reason was to turn him into cannon-fodder for use against Adolf Hitler’s enemies, according to Langbein-Allen. It was the final days of the war, and they were ordered to stave off the relentless Russian Advance. They were not expected to return alive, she said.
“I thought his story was relevant and worth telling,” Langbein-Allen said. “He survived against all expectation.”
“It’s a rare of what was going on on the other side.”
Langbein was seriously injured in his first battle and almost died. His unit was trying to get to the American side of a demarcation line. Armed with four bazookas, Langbein made it to the line in Austria with the remnants of his unit.
“They crossed the bridge the day before the Americans arrived,” she said. “It is war. The Americans were not kind.”
When he made it out of the war, Langbein, who was 6 foot tall, weighed about 90 pounds, she said. He was nursed back to health in a British hospital.
“The odds were really stacked against them. Most of them didn’t make it,” Langbein-Allen said.
Langbein recorded 16 tapes for the family recalling his life, including his childhood. Then in 2016, Langbein was in a retirement home in Spain and wasn’t doing well.
“It hit me. Time was precious,” Langbein-Allen said.
Alongside the tapes, Langbein-Allen started interviewing her father about his life. This all turned into “Save the Last Bullet: Memoir of a Boy Soldier in Hitler’s Army.” The book, released last month by Casemate Publishers, is available on Amazon and at Barnes and Noble. A chapter of her manuscript was included in the San Diego Writer’s Association 2021 anthology A Year in Ink.
Langbein-Allen, who works in international business, is half German and half Spanish. She was raised in , and Spain. She lives in Poway with her husband, a retired U.S. Navy veteran, and their two children. She is currently working on her second book, a historical of her Spanish family.
Langbein-Allen mentioned her project about her father to a work colleague who happened to be a writer. He suggested she get the memoirs published. She then went to a writer’s group.
“I was petrified,” she said, adding that she was afraid of criticism.
She later took a writing class.
“I didn’t realize I really have knack for it,” she said.
While compiling the memoirs, Langbein-Allen would talk to her father about releasing a book.
“I’d say, ‘I’ll make you famous yet,’” and he’d laugh. He would chuckle,” she said.
Her father, who lived in Valencia, Spain, died in 2018. He spent his adulthood as a high-ranking NATO official. His vision was a united Europe and he spent the rest of his life working toward that. He became a lawyer who worked for the German government before working with NATO. He last served as the head of NATO ’s legal division.
“He dedicated his life so that wouldn’t happen again,” she said.
In 1979, the vice president of Belgium awarded him the Medal of European Merit.
The story ultimately is one of hope, she said.
“Even in the midst of destruction, there is hope and there is always a way,” Langbein-Allen said. “He believed in the good of humanity.”
Personally, she said, having a book is surreal.
“I still think its happening to someone else. It’s strange. It’s wonderful,” she said. “I’ve looked up a couple of times and said ‘See, I did it.’”
