^ ^ ^ Here is the short documentary in question. He was followed by the Gestapo, shot, fell over a cliff and broke one of his legs. He used his two skis as a sled to flee to Switzerland.
A commenter writes:
The story about escaping into Switzerland with the Gestapo at his heels doesn't square with the aeronautical engineering work he did during the war. "By happenstance, a day on the ski slopes led to him meeting the director of Maybach Motorenbau, one of Germany’s premier automakers, where he was offered an apprenticeship. That experience resulted in an opportunity to take evening classes in Munich, where he studied aeronautical and mechanical engineering for the next three-and-a-half years. Those skills landed him a position at Dornier Flugzeugwerke, an aircraft company, where he was in charge of developing retractable landing gear—a job that kept him from harm’s way during World War II.
https://www.coloradoexpression.com/featured-stories/klaus-obermeyer
Other sources indicate he left Germany by ship in 1946 after having encountered an American skier, perhaps in Garmisch, who urged him to move to the Northeast and offered to sponsor him. I find Klaus to be an inspiration for skiers and admire his accomplishments and world view. However, this story about escaping into Switzerland is at odds with all previous accounts of his life. And yet, here he is, saying it. Perhaps, having worked for Dornier, he decided to escape later in the war, then came back. It would be interesting to have a full account of the war years and immediate post-war years that reconciles these strands of his life.
A grandson of Obermeyer comments:
You are right that this short video leaves out many details, but in Nazi Germany there was nothing about being an aeronautical engineer that precluded the possibility of being pursued by Gestapo. In some cases the Gestapo would arrest a person if there was so much as a rumor that the person said something bad about Hitler. During WWII Klaus (my grandfather) indeed worked in Germany as an aeronautical engineer to avoid being sent to the front. During that time, he practiced skiing and swimming long distances to prepare for different possible escape scenarios. It was late in the war when he fled on skis. The war ended while he was still in Europe recovering from the injuries. He then returned to Germany for another year or so before emigrating to the United States.
