WW2 German SS post Letter

[Frankyg]

Hi everyone,

I'd appreciate any views on this letter from WW2. I've got a friend translating it for me at the moment and it looks legit. I'm interested in the waffen ss stamps and the skull and crossbones motif. I think it was from a tank regiment. Are there any experts here who can positively ID them?

 

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Totenkopf

From wiki:

"In the early days of the NSDAP, Julius Schreck, the leader of the Stabswache (Adolf Hitler's bodyguard unit), resurrected the use of the Totenkopf as the unit's insignia. This unit grew into the Schutzstaffel (SS), which continued to use the Totenkopf as insignia throughout its history. According to a writing by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler the Totenkopf had the following meaning:

The Skull is the reminder that you shall always be willing to put your self at stake for the life of the whole community.[8]

The Totenkopf was also used as the unit insignia of the Panzer forces of the German Heer (Army), and also by the Panzer units of the Luftwaffe, including those of the elite Fallschirm-Panzer Division 1 Hermann Göring.[9]

Both the 3rd SS Panzer Division of the Waffen-SS, and the World War II era Luftwaffe's 54th Bomber Wing Kampfgeschwader 54 were given the unit name "Totenkopf", and used a strikingly similar-looking graphic skull-crossbones insignia as the SS units of the same name. The 3rd SS Panzer Division also had skull patches on their uniform collars instead of the SS sieg rune."

 

[A2coins]

thats a nice relic

 

[Frankyg]

They seemed to have been a proper bunch of murdering Nazis
3. SS-Panzer-Division Totenkopf

 

[DCMatt]

Very cool! I'd like to see the translation.

The letter is posted mid-May '43 from Tilsit (now called Sovetsk, Kaliningrad Oblast) Russia - not far from Kursk. That's about 6 weeks prior to the Battle of Prochorovka - where the 3rd Panzer Division took heavy casualties.

 

[Frankyg]

Thanks Matt,

If you read German I'll post the letter if you like.

 

[jewelerguy]

in my opinion it seems like a strange and bad idea to stamp mail with your armored division number. In the event of intercept or capture by the enemy, they'd know exactly who was operating in the area. based on your picture, it doesn't look aged enough to me. Personally, I'd pass on it.

 

[Frankyg]

I take your point on the security issue but I'm happy with the authenticity. I'm having trouble getting the content of the letter translated because the font that they are written in is an old fashioned style. Once I get it translated I will post the original text and a translation. Do you know anyone who can help?

 

[jewelerguy]

Do you know anyone who can help?

no, sorry

 

[trdking]

Yes please post the letter! I would love to read it It does look enticing but I do find it odd that it does not have the eagle and swazi seal on it. Is it on the other side?

 

[Frankyg]

 

[NOLA_Ken]

Personally I'd be very wary of the Totenkopf stamp. It does look like legitimate Feldpost from WW2, but the stamp could have been forged....

I would suggest contacting the Bundesarchiv in Berlin, or find historians with access to those records and see if you can find the soldiers name on a muster roll to confirm he was in that Waffen SS division.

 

[Frankyg]

Thanks Ken. I'm going to do some more research once I've had the text translated. I've sent it to a classical German translator but I was hoping that someone on here could translate. It seems that when the Nazis gained power one of the things they did was to revert to a classical German alphabet and style of lettering that was taught in all of the schools. After the war, Germany reverted to what we call modern German but it means that younger people today cannot read the old script very well, or at least that's what my German friends tell me. I kinow that anything to do with the nazis and especially the SS makes them very uncomfortable so it could be that they just don't want to read it. As far as the letter's authenticity is concerned, as I said before, I'm happy enough with it. It was 'acquired' by a British soldier during the war along with some other things.

 

[ToddsPoint]

I would join the Axis History forum and post the letter there. Tons of Nazi experts will dissect your letter. It's a European forum with many German speakers.

If you look at the envelope, there is a Feldpost number in pencil on the upper left. This is a coded number so they enemy can't discover the location of the sender.

The older German script is called Sutterlin. It is very difficult to translate if you don't know the letters. Your letter is more modern script, not Sutterlin so it should be no problem with translation. Gary

 

[namxat]

He was in the 240 Transport Security Battalion:

Transport-Sicherungs-Bataillone - Lexikon der Wehrmacht


which seems to be a Wehrmacht rather than an SS unit. The letter went from the daugher via military mail to father Hermann Rudies. Funny enough, he had his wife w/ him since daugher writes to ma & pa and it a mothers day letter. Good Hermann was older and had a good home post! (until the russian came, that is).

Letter itself is uneventful, daughter says thanks for last package (including batteries), complaisn she has facial erythrosis and says that the hole family got an occulation shot (not specfied against what as far as I can read). Oh yeah, its raining and she has planted the garden & wants rubber boots.

signed
Martha, Helene ans small Bernhardt.

 

[Frankyg]

Thank you Gary, I'll give that forum a shot (As it were lol)

 

[Frankyg]

Thank you Namxt. I've just had a similar translation that matches yours. There was another letter with this one. I've posted some pictures and it would be great if you could translate this one too.

 

[namxat]

FrankyG,

I must pass on this. German is not the problem, in fact I am native speaker.

However (and as remarked by an earlier poster), the daugher writes a fairly modern script which I can read almost fully (gets guessy around the occulation shots).

Dad is older and writes fully blown Sütterlin or Kurrentschrift, or whatever the powers that be (was!) thought that a kid should learn in his youth. I can only say it seems a letter back from Hermann to his daugther and at this time he was a bit further east in Tauroggen.

That both letters were "souvenired" by a British soldier gives hope that the family made it whollly into the west. You know what the soviets did to young german girsl before they shot them.

Greets Namxat

 

[Frankyg]

I posted pictures of the SS feldpost letter on a German Militaria page on facebook and the consensus there is that the stamp on the letter is a fake because the letter does not end in a 'Heil Hitler'. I'm surprised if the letter is not genuine because it seems that someone has gone to a lot of trouble to create it and then added a mundane content in the letter. The 240 transport Security battalion were in the area at the time in support of the 3rd SS Panzer division so I just don't know what's gone on with this. They tell me that the other letter that i posted is legit so I'd still like to translate it.

 

[namxat]

I posted pictures of the SS feldpost letter on a German Militaria page on facebook and the consensus there is that the stamp on the letter is a fake because the letter does not end in a 'Heil Hitler'. I'm surprised if the letter is not genuine because it seems that someone has gone to a lot of trouble to create it and then added a mundane content in the letter. The 240 transport Security battalion were in the area at the time in support of the 3rd SS Panzer division so I just don't know what's gone on with this. They tell me that the other letter that i posted is legit so I'd still like to translate it.

??

And every Tommy signed its most trivil letter with "Your humble and obidient Servant". Read Postcards from my Grandpa and he never signed "party line". Postcards! those were open and in far greater danger that someone read them. If they dont have more as evidence I would not believe it.

He was no SS and was only of the second lowest rank, older, w/ family and in a third rate unit. Why should he be a fanatic?

Greets Namxat