Brothers together after 67 years

Peter Hans Beschorner and Klaus Mueller during their meeting

A Norfolk man has met the German brother he never knew he had after 67 years apart.

Peter Hans Beschorner, of Thorpe St Andrew near Norwich, applied for information about his Jewish father stored in a German document archive.

Unbeknown to him, his brother Klaus Mueller, 76, was also searching for details about his father, who fled Nazi Germany and made a new life in Britain.

Now the pair have met in Berlin and Mr Mueller said it was "a great day".

Fled to Britain

Both men had no idea the other existed until they were contacted by staff at the archives.

Their father, Hans Beschorner, had not been allowed to marry Mr Mueller's mother and was held in the Dachau concentration camp when Mr Mueller was aged six.

With the help of the Quakers he was later freed and fled Germany without even a suitcase to begin a new life in Britain.

It was there he began a new family and had another son, Peter.

Mr Mueller grew up in Communist East Germany without knowing anything about his father, who died in 1979 aged 69.

Now following their reunion Mr Beschorner, 67, has been helping him to fill in the gaps.

Sharing memories

Mr Beschorner, a musician, said: "I'm 67 (and) I've spent my whole life not knowing I had a brother."

He added: "All of the lovely times that I had with my father Klaus should have been having.

"One of the things my father used to do every night from my earliest recollection was to sing me a few little songs as I lay in my cot and I think 'well that could have been Klaus'.

"Klaus could have been listening to those little lullabies when he was a little boy."