Small paper grouping

[rbminis]

Congrats on getting this grouping Mo!
Very nice friends you have.
Ralph.

[ObKrieger]

Congrats on getting this grouping Mo!
Very nice friends you have.
Ralph.

Thanks! They are very good friends indeed.

[HPL2008]

This phrase struck me as odd - "a bullet through the heart" - and i wondered is it likely to be literal, or is it a German euphemism for "died quickly and without suffering", or even a stock phrase written by an NCO who has written too many of these letters to be sincere any more?

It was not unusual to use "Herzschuss" [gunshot wound to the heart] or "Kopfschuss" [gunshot wound to the head] as the official cause of death in documents sent to the next-of-kin of fallen soldiers even if they were actually killed in other - more gruesome or slower - ways.

(This applied to letters like this one or Wehrpässe, which were closed and mailed to the surviving relatives after a soldier's death.)

The reason was to spare the relatives from additional grief, because being shot in the heart or head implies a mercifully quick and relatively painless death giving at least a small amount of consolation through the thought that the lost loved one didn't have to suffer.
Imagine losing a dear husband, brother or son and having to read "crushed by tank treads", "burnt by flamethrower" or "bayoneted in the gut" as the cause of death...

Whether Gefreiter Weisensee really took a bullet to the heart or suffered some other kind of fatal wound, we will never know.

[ObKrieger]

It was not unusual to use "Herzschuss" [gunshot wound to the heart] or "Kopfschuss" [gunshot wound to the head] as the official cause of death in documents sent to the next-of-kin of fallen soldiers even if they were actually killed in other - more gruesome or slower - ways.

(This applied to letters like this one or Wehrpässe, which were closed and mailed to the surviving relatives after a soldier's death.)

The reason was to spare the relatives from additional grief, because being shot in the heart or head implies a mercifully quick and relatively painless death giving at least a small amount of consolation through the thought that the lost loved one didn't have to suffer.
Imagine losing a dear husband, brother or son and having to read "crushed by tank treads", "burnt by flamethrower" or "bayoneted in the gut" as the cause of death...

Whether Gefreiter Weisensee really took a bullet to the heart or suffered some other kind of fatal wound, we will never know.

Thanks again Andreas. If he served in a security unit, wouldn't he be behind the frontline? Perhaps he could have been killed in a air raid or by artillery. You are right though, we will never know.

I have been trying to locate family in Germany, and I have found a couple of potential matches from Gefreiter Weisensee's hometown of Gilching, Bayern. I have sent them messages and am now awaiting responses. This is something that I would really love to send or show to a descendant of his. Hopefully I can find someone with a interest; I have noticed that most of the Germans who I have met are not interested in hearing about their ancestors' Third Reich military service.

[KSH]

This phrase struck me as odd - "a bullet through the heart" - and i wondered is it likely to be literal, or is it a German euphemism for "died quickly and without suffering", or even a stock phrase written by an NCO who has written too many of these letters to be sincere any more?

Rob

Maybe it would not be so very odd if you actually read the German correctly. The phrase "durch Herzschuß gefallen ist" does not mean in any way that a bullet passed through the heart. The word "durch" here does not speak of a movement through anything, it merely attributes the cause of death to a shot to the heart. In this capacity the word "durch" is perhaps better understood in English through the word "by". As in "death by (literally in German - through) poisoning." All German syntax and translation aside, Andreas/HPL explained everything perfectly above


Hochachtungsvoll,

Kenneth S-H.

[Paul D]

Mo the Security units behind the lines were quite often involved with Police and even Combat units in sometimes heavy fighting against Partisans so his fate could lie in such an engagement plus as the war continued they became more and more involved in frontline combat due to losses in manpower !!

[Battery Command Post]

It was not unusual to use "Herzschuss" [gunshot wound to the heart] or "Kopfschuss" [gunshot wound to the head] as the official cause of death in documents sent to the next-of-kin of fallen soldiers even if they were actually killed in other - more gruesome or slower - ways.

Thanks for the clarification on that. That's exactly what I thought. The same kind of euphemism is also common in the equivalent English writings, where soldiers are reported killed by a "bullet through the heart" or some similar clean, quick and heroic end.

Rob

[Battery Command Post]

Maybe it would not be so very odd if you actually read the German correctly. The phrase "durch Herzschuß gefallen ist" does not mean in any way that a bullet passed through the heart. The word "durch" here does not speak of a movement through anything, it merely attributes the cause of death to a shot to the heart. In this capacity the word "durch" is perhaps better understood in English through the word "by". As in "death by (literally in German - through) poisoning." All German syntax and translation aside, Andreas/HPL explained everything perfectly above

I didn't misunderstand "durch" at all. The phrase "bullet through the heart" is a common English euphemism for a soldier's death. I meant it as a translation of "Herzschuß", which is fairly obvious if you actually read my post.

I may be many things but I'm not stupid.

Rob