I knew a guy once who was a German soldier in WWII. He was captured by the Allies and ended up in a Western US POW camp. He was from Silesia, which had been German with lots of Poles living there for centuries but is now part of Poland. He saw what was going on at the end of the war and lied about where he was from, going West. Someone he befriended in the camp ended up sponsoring him to emigrate to America.
Great guy. Always had a cold beer for you.
Sounds like a German brother in law I used to visit (married to my wife’s sister) who died a few years ago. He would bring out the beer and a big lump of limburger cheese that looked like it was alive but smelled like something that had been dead for a few days. Nicest guy in the world. But I passed on the cheese.