Ulrich Stoll's father, a studied agronomist, did not agree with his son's choice of profession. He told his son to start off with a reasonable profession. In 1940 Ulrich Stoll began his apprenticeship as a draughtsman, and engineer-trainee at the Heinkel Aircraft Factory in Rostock.
But the war destroyed Ulrich's plans for the nearest future. In 1941 he was drafted into military service. Due to his asthma, he was appointed to be a military painter on the home front until 1943.
This did not correspond to his abilities and so in 1943 he decided to apply to the ministry in Berlin for deployment as a painter on the front. He received positive feedback for his works.
As a result of this positive reaction of the ministry, he enlisted himself directly, and to the horror of his family, to the elite unit "Panzerdivision WIKING" on the East Front. Apparently, he had lost faith in the propaganda and wanted to distance himself from the wartime atrocities in his home country. Instead, he consciously accepted the ever-present danger of death.
His artistic skills soon made him honoured and recognized within his unit.
Especially because his paintings pictured the horrors of war in an almost surreal way, his works differed from the official propagandized standard of art.
