Siegfried Hagemeyer, 87, engineer

Siegfried Hagemeyer was 15 years old and living in Berlin when Germany surrendered in May 1945 to end World War II.

Born in Frankfurt an der Oder, on the border with Poland, Mr. Hagemeyer had joined the Hitler Youth organization in 1939, after his family moved to Berlin.

"He was never called up" to military duty, though youngsters of his age fought in the last days of the war, said a friend, Marle Jo Jakubczak.

But as a member of the Hitler Youth, she said, he was a witness to history, at two parades at which Adolf Hitler passed by.

At one, in September 1937, Hitler was accompanied by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, according to a website article for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

On Wednesday, Nov. 2, Mr. Hagemeyer, 87, of Moorestown, who retired in 1991 as a project engineer at Progresso Quality Foods in Vineland, died of liver cancer at home.

Mr. Hagemeyer earned the equivalent of a master's in electrical engineering at a technical school in Berlin and arrived in the States in 1958, Jakubczak said.

In 1958 and 1959, she said, he packed paper cups for the Lily-Tulip Cup Corp. in Queens, N.Y.

In the 1960s, she said, he was a power engineer for National Sugar Refinery Corp. in Philadelphia.

He became a U.S. citizen in 1962 and, in 1979, divorced his wife, Evamaria.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Mr. Hagemeyer was a project engineer for Progresso.

Among his accomplishments there, Jakubczak said, "he figured a process, how to get the sand out of clams, to make their clam chowder soup."

For much of 40 years, she said, Mr. Hagemeyer spent the cold months at his home in Moorestown and the warm months in a mobile trailer in Strathmere, commuting to work from each location.

It was an Airstream trailer, which at times he would hook to a truck and head out for vacation visits across the nation, often to sites run by the National Park Service.

While living in Strathmere, she said, he was a great walker, often doing six miles a day on the beaches. After he sold the trailer in 2013, he would still walk two miles a day on the streets of Moorestown.

And after his 1991 retirement, Jakubczak said, he would fly to Brazil to visit a childhood friend.

Mr. Hagemeyer was a member of the German Engineers Club of Long Island.

Besides his friends of the last 25 years, Martin and Marle Jo Jakubczak, Mr. Hagemeyer is survived by his longtime companion, Patricia Kelly. He was predeceased by his former wife.

A graveside service was set for noon Wednesday, Nov. 9, at St. Joseph's Cemetery, 240 Lower Landing Rd., Blackwood.

Condolences may be offered to the family at www.lewisfuneralhomemoorestown.com.

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