John Kay

WORLD WAR 2. Tilsit, East Prussia/ Germany.
Elsbeth Zimmermann is married to Fritz Krauledat. She is eight months pregnant when her husband is killed at the Russian front, wearing a German uniform.

Early 1945. On the run for the Soviet Army, Elsbeth arrives as a desperate war refugee with her nine-month-old toddler Joachim in the bombed out State of Thuringia. That part of Germany will soon be occupied by the American Armed Forces. Although, by a strange twist of fate, she will end up in the Russian zone and she is stuck behind the Iron Curtain. Elsbeth is afraid for her son’s future.

In 1949, Elsbeth will flee again. This time from the communist zone in East Germany, to a much freer West Germany. At night, in a very dangerous move, she and her five-year-old Joachim will crawl through a hole in the barbed wire.
Joachim is suffering from a serious eye affliction, but that doesn’t stop him. He follows his dream in music and less than twenty years later he will score a huge hit with Born To Be Wild, introducing a new rage with his band Steppenwolf: hard “metal” rock. John Kay, as he is called by then, will become the most distinct rock singer ever born in Germany.
This extremely atypical book gives an in-depth description of John Kay’s background. It is the story of a young man, who didn’t speak any English when he emigrated to Canada in 1958. For all immigrants who arrive completely orphaned in a foreign country, his passion is an example of what you can achieve with boldness and perseverance ... and from time to time a bit of luck.



Theo De Vos (°Duffel, Belgium 1955) was an officer in the Belgian Air Force. History has always been one of his great passions. Since he was fourteen, he has also been a huge hard rock fan, especially of the band Steppenwolf. In this book, he magically weaves those two completely different themes.