His Mother and his Step-grandfather

Herbert Frahm is raised by his mother Martha Frahm, a sales assistent in a cooperative store, and his step-grandfather Ludwig Frahm, a truck driver who works for the Dräger Factories in Lübeck. Willy Brandt will later say about his mother: "She was a very simple and straight woman full of sense of duty. She has given me on my way a sense of decency, duty and charity." He values his step-grandfather, whom he calls "dad", as a "very simple but truly great person – loyal as gold." Only after the Second World War Willy Brandt will get to know the name of his real father: John Möller, a schoolteacher from Hamburg.
In 1934 – a year after Hitler's seisure of power – his step-grandfather, a social democrat, will commit suicide in dispair of the political development in Germany.