Mail Correspondence with Soldiers at War (“Feldpostbriefe”): German soldier Hans Braukmann in March 1942 on the dead and wounded on the Eastern Front (Published on 21/07/2025)
Hans Braukmann, who fell in Russia on 21/08/1943, describes dead and wounded German and Russian soldiers in the northern section of the Eastern Front (source: Dollinger, “Kain, wo ist Dein Bruder? Was der Mensch im Zweiten Weltkrieg erleiden musste – dokumentiert in Tagebüchern und Briefen“ [“Cain, where is your brother? What people had to endure during the Second World War – documented in diaries and letters”] (1983), p. 129; translation from German language):
“The tank destroyer rolls up. Infantrymen crouch on top of it, you can see their exhaustion, the hardship of the mission. A few seriously wounded are lifted out. Filthy and pale, mostly head wounds. We jump in and help. The doctor does a wonderful job. Then there are three dead bodies behind the turret. I join them, their leaden bodies still warm, their eyes blinking as if thinking about something strange. It’s hard to believe that life has escaped from these bodies. Two carriers wade carefully through the snow. The tautly hanging canvas sways on a birch pole. They set it down with infinite care. The doctor pulls the tarpaulin apart and turns around – too late. The torment of the carriers, their long journey through snow and bushes and fire, is in vain. What the carriers achieve borders on the superhuman. What a burden a lifeless body is. I like the doctor, who hardly speaks, but has his own way of caressing, of looking into the eyes, which makes the wounded fall silent. They are all silent, mostly with a strange resignation in their facial expression. How much the human face retains of its peculiarity even in destruction. Later, I saw a dead Russian in the forest whose entire back of his head had been torn away by shrapnel. Only his face and forehead had remained intact, like a mask. There were three vertical wrinkles in his forehead, as if he was thinking hard about something – and through his eyes you could see into the void, into the open sky…”
(Head picture: Cross on the German military cemetery Kruchten-Schwarzenbruch,
inscribed “Unbekannt” [“Unknown”], September 2024)
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