The story of SS Rottenführer Günter Prange

[Monuir]

Feldpost 17 - East, 27.4.42

Dear Parents!

I received your letter from the 27.3.42 today, and I was very pleased to hear from you once again. I am sure you will have noticed by now that I am not in Germany but still in Russia.

Still in M. by the Sea of Azov at the Vehicle Repair park (H.K.P.)*1. I am waiting for a replacement engine.

I sent 100 RM home from here on 25.4. I hope they arrive soon. Please take the money to the bank.

On the whole I am reasonably well again. I am lying in the dispensary with a slight pneumonia. I had a fever of more than 40˚. Here I can recover thoroughly. I get a good long sleep, have enough to eat, a comfortable room and radio. So please do not worry.

I was very pleased that Hans-Peter got such a good report. Does he already know what he wants to do when he has finished school? -

What is your news? Are there still so many girls walking about there? Just wait until I come home on leave! Even if it takes another year. But then the fun can begin.

I want to close now and send you best regards.

Heil Hitler!

Günter


1 H.K.P. (Heeres-Kraftfahr-Park) = military unit responsible for the repair of vehicles.

*The passage underlined was underlined in red in the original letter.

© Copyright D. Linoubli "Monuir" 2012 - Do not copy or republish pictures or text without permission

[Monuir]

Feldpost 18 - East, 18.5.42

Dear Parents!

I have received your letter from 23.4.42. I was very pleased to hear from you that the post is so fast. We now have the option to send 8 letters every month with Air-Feldpost. –

There is nothing new here. I am still at the Vehicle Repair Park (H.K.P1). My engine has not arrived yet. The weather is very beautiful. I am already as brown as a Negro.

How are things with you? How is work going? How is Hans-Peter? Does he get up to as much nonsense as I did at his age?

I want to close now, and send you best regards!

Heil Hitler!

Günter


*1 H.K.P. (Heeres-Kraftfahr-Park) = Military unit responsible for the repair of Wehrmacht vehicles.

© Copyright D. Linoubli "Monuir" 2012 - Do not copy or republish pictures or text without permission

[Monuir]

As you can se on the absender on this feldpost, Günter have been promoted to Sturm.

Feldpost 19 - 4.8.42

Envelope: Feldpost

Stamp: Feldpost 9.8.42

2 further stamps: Feldpost Number 29707C

Familie

Ernst Prange

Walsrode i.Hann.

Moorstraβe 29

Sender: SS Sturm.1 G. Prange 29707C.


Dear Parents!

Please do not be offended that I have not been in touch for so long. Unfortunately one cannot always do as one might like. –

I am quite well. I have arrived back with my unit today. I was on the move for 4 weeks and had many good experiences. I am sure you will already have heard from some quarter that we are no longer in Russia.

My intentions of sending money home are sadly over. Here I had the opportunity to partly catch up with many things I had been deprived of for so long. I spent my birthday like I had not done for a very long time. I will never forget these days. Please do not be angry. I certainly have not forgotten you. But during transport we are not allowed to write. –

When I arrived here the joy was great of course. Such a mountain of post. And especially the cigarettes for which I want to thank you very much; also many thanks for the birthday wishes.

I only want to reveal to you the thing I was most pleased about at a later date, when the time is right. For today I remain with warmest regards

Heil Hitler!

Your Günter.

© Copyright D. Linoubli "Monuir" 2012 - Do not copy or republish pictures or text without permission

[GEORGE]

riveting thread, how i enjoy reading of gunthers news, so sad for his parents he was lost.such is war........sad. george

[StefanM]

A very interesting thread, thank you for having the letters translated and posting them here.

It is easy to get drawn in by the outwardly ordinariness of SS-Rottenführer Günter's "soldier's life" which he writes about in the letters to his family and to forget the implication behind Günter's blasé statement in his first letter:

I am well. We are stationed in a castle which used to belong to a Jew.

and to contextualise Günter's comments of a later letter:

Feldpost 17 - East, 27.4.42

I am sure you will have noticed by now that I am not in Germany but still in Russia.
Still in M. by the Sea of Azov at the Vehicle Repair park (H.K.P.)*1. I am waiting for a replacement engine.

In October 1941 between 6000-10,000 Jews of Mariupol were killed by the Nazis in a mass shooting that took place in the Azov region. Their mass grave is located near the village of Agrobaza, just five kilometers from Azoz in the Donetsk Region.

Mariupol could easily have been the "Still in M. by the Sea of Azov" in SS-Rottenführer Günter's letter.

[Monuir]

Feldpost 20 - O.u., the 26.8.42

Dear Parents!

As I still have some time before the curfew, I will quickly write a short letter. I do hope that the letters with the coupons and the request to get me a peaked cap etc., have arrived by now. Just don’t believe that I will be able to go on leave in the next few days already. That could take several more weeks. There is merely a chance of it at present. But as I said; anything is possible with the L.A.H. and happens unexpectedly.

I am generally quite well. I have found somebody from Osterholz – Scharmbeck in our company. He knows the Brünjes family, too. I was very pleased about that.

Apart from that there is nothing new. I will close now, with warmest regards.

Heil Hitler!

Günter

© Copyright D. Linoubli "Monuir" 2012 - Do not copy or republish pictures or text without permission

[Monuir]

Feldpost 21 - O.u. the 20.11.42

Dear Parents!

Have received the parcel and the letter from 10.11.42, and was very pleased. The cake was still nice and fresh, and tasted first-rate. I am always in the market for cigarettes. But you know that. I want to thank you for them most warmly. –

You write that yet again several of my friends have been back on leave. Of course you cannot know what a series of curses this sets off from me. But tell me, what do you make of the fact that I don’t come? I mean, 20 months without leave is a bit thick after all. –

You write that you still have films for me. Please keep those for me. I intend to take my camera along on my next engagement. I will collect both things myself if nothing else comes up. You have received the kilo-coupons anyway.

I did not send any to H. Warnecke. I still have not found Herm. Bortels. Can you not find out anything more precise, which branch of the service or unit he is with? As it is, I just don’t know where to look for him at all.

Dear parents, I want to close now, and send you warmest regards.

Heil Hitler!

Günter.

© Copyright D. Linoubli "Monuir" 2012 - Do not copy or republish pictures or text without permission

[Monuir]

Happy third advent everybody!

Also would be interesting if you could post your thoughts about Günters letters. I personally found the last letter shocking, to learn that he had not had leave for 20 months...

Remember to check in every day in the SS x-mas calendar! One new feldpost from Günter will be posted every day

Feldpost 22 - O.u., the 8.1.43

Dear Parents!

I have arrived here safely. Please don’t hold it against me that I did not write immediately. I arrived in Paris with a 7 hour delay. Therefore no time remained for writing. Yesterday nothing came of it either. I did not forget the gas mask this time. I had tied it firmly onto my belt. The only unpleasantness was that the train was so badly heated. We had to wear our coats. The train stopped in Löhne for a few minutes. I went out onto the platform, but found no Hoppenstedt.

Here everything is the same as always. There is no snow here.

I want to close now, and send you warmest regards.

Heil Hitler!

Günter.

© Copyright D. Linoubli "Monuir" 2012 - Do not copy or republish pictures or text without permission

[Glenn66]

I note that his letters are always very brief, after the opening and closing greetings there is no much he says. Perhaps Gunter was a man of few words?

[Monuir]

I note that his letters are always very brief, after the opening and closing greetings there is no much he says. Perhaps Gunter was a man of few words?

Well I would say most feldpost looks like this. There is not very much of what they do that they can actually say. So if he can not write about the things he does it might be hard to come up with things to write. Also counting in the mental trama of being in the chaos of world war 2 might be hard to one day be in hard combat, losing friends and sanity and the other day write a letter to your parents.