When Rolf was 5 or 6 he was sent to live with relatives in the Cologne countryside.  One of his first memories was watching the night sky light up during bombing raids.  At 20 or 21s a teenager  he immigrated from Bremerhaven to New York then across Canada to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory earning his way as a steward on the ship Berlin and eventually opening a Volkswagen Dealership which included Porches.

He became a Mercedes enthusiast by the time we met and became fast friends in 1989 and he had moved to Anchorage and co-owned the Avis franchise while earning his US citizenship a decade earlier.  But on road trips we took across Alaska he regaled me with stories of racing Porches (356s,912s and 911s) on frozen lakes.