George J. Beichl, 96, chemistry professor, former POW

George J. Beichl, 96, of West Philadelphia, a chemistry professor for five decades at St. Joseph's University, a prisoner of war during World War II, and a former president of the German Society of Pennsylvania, died Friday, Feb. 6, at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

Born Aug. 20, 1918, in Brewerytown to immigrants who met in Philadelphia, Dr. Beichl was raised with a focus on education.

On his deathbed, Dr. Beichl's father, a saddler, said he wanted his son to do more than work with leather.

"He said to my grandmother, 'Don't let him be an apprentice. Let him do something better than that,' " said Beichl, Dr. Beichl's youngest daughter, Lisa.

Dr. Beichl's mother took a job doing laundry, refusing to turn him over to state care.

At St. Joseph's Preparatory School on a scholarship, Dr. Beichl managed to find mischief - "He was in trouble a lot when he was in high school," his daughter said - but also excelled at schoolwork. He went to St. Joseph's University for his bachelor's degree in chemistry, graduating in 1939.

In 1944, he was drafted into the Army, and was sent to Germany the next January as an infantryman.

A month later, Dr. Beichl's mother received a telegram informing her of his death, which was reported in The Inquirer of Feb. 22, 1945. Another telegram followed: He was merely missing. He'd been taken prisoner.

As Dr. Beichl later explained, his unit had been in a forest when it came under attack, with almost everyone being killed in the bombing.

Dr. Beichl began praying, his daughter said.

A fluent German-speaker, he became an informal translator in Stalag 12-A, where he befriended a guard who gave him extra food and tea, along with a book in German and a pencil. In the margins, Dr. Beichl began keeping a diary of his experiences.

He was freed when Allied planes bombed the train as he was being transported. The now-freed prisoners gathered in a field, where they arranged their bodies to spell out "POW." The planes veered off when they saw the prisoners' sign.

Back in the United States, Dr. Beichl continued his contribution to the war. While in the Army, he had received a letter from Columbia University with an invitation to join work "of a highly secret nature."

He spent the rest of the war in Los Alamos, N.M., working on propulsion for the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb.

After earning his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1953, he returned to St. Joseph's, where he taught chemistry, chairing the department for more than 20 years. He retired in 1989.

"It wasn't that he thought he was giving you knowledge, but rather teaching you how to find it, and the right way to go about finding it," said E. Peter Zurbach, a former student and colleague of Dr. Beichl's.

He was president of the German Society from 1974 to 1993. In 1977, he helped found the national organization now known as the German-American Heritage Foundation of the USA.

Besides his daughter, he is survived by his wife, Isabella; daughters Isabel Beichl, Karen Rotondo, and Christine Cheshire; and three grandchildren.

A viewing is scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 11, from 6 to 9 p.m., as well as from 9 to 10 a.m. the next day, at Old St. Joseph's Church, 321 Willings Alley. A Funeral Mass will follow.

Contributions may be made to the German Society of Pennsylvania, 611 Spring Garden St., Philadelphia 19123, or to the tuition aid program at St. Joseph's Preparatory School, 1733 W. Girard Ave., Philadelphia 19130.

856-779-3220