Albert Wass - Youth

Youth

Albert Wass was born in Válaszút (today Răscruci) at Bánffy castle. His parents divorced early, and was mostly brought up by his grandfather, Béla Wass. He received his baccalaureate from the Reformed Church Secondary School in Cluj-Napoca on Farkas Street and subsequently earned a diploma of forestry from the Academy of Economics in Debrecen, Hungary. He continued his studies of forestry and horticulture in Hohenheim, Germany and Sorbonne, France, where he received additional diplomas. He returned to Transylvania in 1932, as his father fell ill, then he had to attend obligatory military service in Romanian Army, later settled to run the family estate in the Transylvanian Plain.

His first wife was his cousin Baroness Éva Siemers (1914–1991) of Hamburg. "Due to pressure from my family, I had to marry my cousin in 1935 (...) this was the only way to avoid bankruptcy of the family lands", Wass wrote later.

He had six children (Vid, Csaba, Huba, Miklós, Géza, Endre); Csaba died at age 3. Huba Wass de Czege, born in 1941 in Cluj, had a significant career in the U.S. Army, achieving rank of brigadier general. He is known as a principal designer of the "AirLand Battle" military doctrine., and took part in the planning of Desert Storm against Iraq in 1991.

Wass started to write poems, short stories and articles. His first books were published in 1927 and 1929 in Cluj. In 1934, his novel Farkasverem (Wolfpit) was published by the Transylvanian Guild of Arts. In 1935, he was accepted member of the Transylvanian Guild of Arts, and at the same time he was the first young Transylvanian to be awarded the Baumgarten Prize.

After the Second Vienna Award (1940 30 August), northern Transylvania was re-assigned to Hungary, so in 1941, Wass was nominated as primary forest monitor in the Ministry of Agriculture for the area near Dej.