Mail Correspondence with Soldiers at War (“Feldpostbriefe”): Letter from 16-year-old German soldier Franz Krügner to his family, April 1945 (Published on 18/01/2023, most recent update on 13/04/2026)
I. The “State Youth” under the Nazi Dictatorship
Among the most shocking testimonies of the Nazi era are those of the children and young people who were thrown into the fray. Like every totalitarian system, the Nazi dictatorship immediately took control of them, elevated them to the status of “state youth,” and imbued them with its own ideology from an early age. It is no coincidence that they were often the ones who, even shortly before the collapse, still believed in the supposed victory, “fought” a battle as unyielding as it was unequal, and went to their deaths.
II. Sixteen-year-old Franz Krügner was sent to the front in April 1945
One such young man was Franz Krügner. He was drafted into the Reich Labor Service in January 1945 at the age of 16 and transferred to the Wehrmacht two months later. He sent his last letter to his parents on 07/04/1945 from Prague-Rusin (Ruzyně), where an important Waffen-SS training unit was stationed at that time and remained there until the final days of the war.
Franz Krügner wrote the following letter to his parents before going into action the next day (source: Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge, Letzte Lebenszeichen II – Briefe aus dem Krieg, p. 102 f. [translation from German language]):
“My dear parents and brothers and sisters!
The best and last greetings from Rusin are sent to you by your son and brother Franz. As I have already written to you, we are on the alert. But we have suddenly received marching orders and will be leaving here for the front on Monday or Tuesday. We were just unlucky that you could not visit me. At the most, if you get the letter in time, Dad and Mom could come immediately to Rusin to the barracks.
I wanted to send the civilian things home under all circumstances, but it is impossible. If you can’t come, I’m afraid I’ll have to sell them for food and money. I can only take the shoes and the HJ [‘HJ’ for ‘Hitler Youth’] shirt with me. I’m very sorry, but I can’t take it with me to the front. But the main thing is that we win the war, and above all that I come home ‘healthy’ again. But every bullet doesn’t hit, so now it’s just a matter of being a lucky soldier and gritting my teeth. And if I don’t have the luck to return home, then don’t despair and take comfort with the others. But, dear parents and brothers and sisters, we all trust in God, because the Almighty will take care of it.
I wish my dear little Horstl good luck for his first day at school. And good luck to Liesl for the future.
So, dear parents and brothers and sisters,
a thousand greetings from
your brother and son Franz.”
As is well known, the war was not won, his family never saw him again.
III. Biographical data
Franz Krügner, born on 06/12/1928 in Voitsdorf in the Ore Mountains, died at the field hospital on 13/05/1945, as a result of severe shrapnel wounds to the head and right hand. He rests on the war gravesite in Linz-St. Martin/Austria.
(Head picture: The graves of two 18-year-old German soldiers
at the German military cemetery Ittenbach, August 2025)
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