Against the Wind
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Product Details
Publisher: Transatlantic Books
Release Date: September 30, 2025
Formats: Paperback, Ebook
ISBN: PB: 979-8-218-71197-9; EB: 979-8-218-71198-6
Trim: 6 x 9
Page Count: 380
Memoirs of a German Immigrant and an American ER Doctor
Horst and Sue Freyhofer
The story of a family forged by history, held together by love, and driven by a fierce determination to survive.
Horst Freyhofer was born in 1938 in Düsseldorf, Germany, and survived the Allied bombings that reduced his city to near rubble. In 1963 he came to the Unites States in search of a better life.
Sue was born in 1944 in Bauxite, Arkansas, a small mining town still reeling from the Great Depression. An ocean away from Horst’s upbringing, her life followed a different path—one filled with her own struggles, joys, and hardships as a young single mother.
When Horst and Sue met in 1973 at UCLA during a time of political upheaval and societal change, they found in each other a shared resilience and a quiet defiance of the hands they’d been dealt. Together, they determined to make a better future for themselves and build a new family: one rooted in compassion and perseverance and secured with an unshakable bond.
Against the Wind is the powerful autobiography of two determined people whose struggles span the globe from post-WWII Europe and small-town America to the tumult of Vietnam-era protests in California, to years of living in Mexico, marriage in Arkansas, and, eventually, finding a place for their family to grow and thrive in New England. This is a story of survival, ambition, change, and the enduring strength of love.
About the Authors
Horst Freyhofer was born in Düsseldorf, Germany. Eventually Horst immigrated to the US, where he received a PhD in intellectual history from UCLA under the tutelage of one of America’s leading thinkers, Hayden White. Horst has held various professorships in the US, including visiting professor at Middlebury College in Vermont. Before his retirement in 2006, he was a full professor at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire.
Sue Freyhofer was born in Arkansas and holds an MD from the University of Arkansas. Before retiring in 2013, she held the position of medical director at the Moses Ludington Hospital in Ticonderoga, NY.
Horst and Sue split their time between Kansas City and Berlin and are the proud parents of three sons.