There is another thought on a little known/acknowledged happening. The Czechoslovakians, along with the Poles, expelled all "Germans/German speakers" often under the most horrific conditions. Understandable I suppose but two wrongs do not make a right! Those expelled (estimated at about three and a half million), from the eastern and northern parts were mostly pushed towards East Germany - check a map. I have a friend in Leipzig who as a baby landed up there with her family. Those from the more western part were pushed into West Germany, mostly Bavaria. There are a lot of descendants of expellees there. If I remember rightly Bavaria was in the American Zone and it could quite easily be that your father's friend was one of these expellees in an area where he could easily have been stationed longer term, a German-Czech, who at that time could have thought she would one day go back and therefore insisted on being "Czech". Could you not get his military record and find exactly where he was stationed - that could narrow the search area by a lot. If you can get a map of present-day Europe you can easily see what I mean because the borders of Germany (now re-united) and the Czech Republic are pretty much the same as they were then. I am sure google would produce a map of the zones of occupation too, which could be useful. Hope this helps