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German Soldiers in the Soviet Union
Letters from the East
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Front and Back Covers
The book begins with the following quotation from Goebbels:
"Lying enemy propaganda never tires of accusing us of giving the German people a false or incomplete picture of the battles in the East. They are best refuted by letters from our soldiers."
Chapter 1
German Soldiers as Witnesses against Bolshevism
The homeland hears about events at the front in an unbelievably short time. German radio often brings reports in the evening of deeds of arms that occurred only a few hours earlier, and the German newsreel includes pictures brought by air directly from the battlefields. The German people have almost direct contact with the accomplishments of their soldiers through the words, pictures and reporting of modern news media. Past generations could not feel so closely bound to their family members.
Still, the best and most personal source of news in war is and remains the letter. That which the husband or son, the brother or the bridegroom puts on paper during a brief rest is not only longed for and treasured news from a beloved and irreplaceable person, but also a testimony and a report from one heart to another, one that speaks the right language. During World War I, the letters from the soldiers in field gray recorded the experiences and the integrity of determined fighters who were willing to give their all. During this war too millions of German soldiers have reported their powerful experiences. Every family carefully preserves these letters. In party local groups, within National Socialist organizations and in factories, these letters from comrades are passed from hand to hand as eyewitness reports of upright German men.
This pamphlet is a random sample of such letters. They were sent to us by citizens of every class and region. Many of them included this note: "As I read this letter, I thought that others had to read it too."
Yes, that is true! There are millions of German citizens who do not have that direct contact with the front. They need to read these letters. They all deal with a theme that is particularly relevant today for the entire German people: What does the Soviet Union really look like?
Sometimes people think the Führer's propagandists exaggerate, though actual events have proven that what they say is even less than the full truth. One thinks of the role of the Jews in unleashing this war or the horrors Poland committed against ethnic Germans. Some citizens who complained then about exaggerated reports of persecution and suffering today complain about 60,000 graves, victims of Polish murderers!
But the most convincing proof of the difference between what was said and reality is clear from the revelations about Bolshevism. This unmasking is particularly important, because millions of German citizens put their faith in the lying words of Jewish-communists. They were told that within the borders of the Soviet Union there was "the workers' paradise, the true home of the workers of the world." When National Socialist newspapers and books spoke of the social betrayal in the Soviet Union, or of the horrible mass murders, the misery of children, the hopeless poverty of the entire population, some doubted these well-founded and carefully considered statements.
Now there are millions of reliable witnesses in the middle of this "worker's paradise." They cannot be doubted. They are not traveling along carefully prepared streets, nor can Intourist guide them through a carefully selected factory. They must march meter by meter through the country. They fight for each village and each city, they see face-to-face the people who were for nearly 25 years the objects of Bolshevist domination.
Now these German soldiers write to their dear ones at home. They write what they have experienced an hour before. The letters are not always literary masterpieces. But they are as genuine as the men who wrote them.
Some soldiers do not conceal the fact that they were not always National Socialists. There are even letter writers who faced legal penalties for their support for communism in the past. Nearly all of them remember the communist phrases and doctrines of the System Era . They did not march into the Soviet Union expecting to find everything bad, rather they were eager to see how things really were in the land of Lenin and Stalin. They reported what they saw, often in hastily written letters.
These letters are lined up here like a company on the front. They are not on parade, rather ready for battle. Some soldiers and some letters are large or small, broad or narrow, intelligent or less so, sparse or enthusiastic. We see in the newsreels the faces of marching soldiers who greet us, sometimes tired and exhausted, always however with a clear, confident look and in the firm conviction that they are in the service of a good cause. These letters are the same.
They are only a small part of the enormous material available. There will certainly be some citizens who say: "We have received better and more interesting letters. That is fine. We can agree. We have chosen only letters that were clearly written with no expectation of later publication, letters that give an idea of what has impressed our soldiers.
Those Germans who read these letters, and those who wrote them, ask the question: "What would have happened to our women, mothers and children if the Bolshevist tanks and murderers had overrun our homeland?"
Surely many more reports of the Führer's great campaigns will reach the public. Even now the whole nation is waiting for the hour when the secrets can be revealed and the deeds of those made clear who today are unknown heroes.
None of those later reports will surpass the immediacy of these simple soldiers' letters, which are being published even as the fighting army is in the midst of bloody battles on the wide plains of the East. Perhaps some of the letter writers will read this small book in the hospital. Perhaps one or two say their last words in these letters.
That is why these letters move us so deeply. They demonstrate that this decisive battle did not come from the lust for power or conquest, from political vanity or excessive fanaticism. That is what our enemies say. But these letters show that the culture of Germany and of Europe hang on this battle. It will decide whether subhuman Bolshevism destroys all that which is noble and holy to Germans, or whether the German soldier and his brave allies will build the foundation of a new era of peace and freedom.
The soldiers whose letters here reach the public believe, along with all their comrades, in the necessity of the struggle and in the certainty of victory. Who can be less confident than these men who not only stared the world enemy Bolshevism in the eye, but also defeated it wherever they encountered it!
These letters touch on every aspect of life. Everything that concerns soldiers has been set on paper. Naturally the purely personal and family matters have been edited out, as have military details that could be of use to the enemy. We were able to select only the most interesting sections of letters. In each case, the name of the sender and his military address is given, often also the address of the receiver. That should bring pleasure to the writer who sees his words in print. It should also make it impossible for doubters to question the genuineness of the letters.
Chapter 2
The Worker's Paradise
The most frequent theme in the letters is a discussion of the "Soviet Paradise." Communist agitators spread this idea for years to the masses of Europe. Moscow claimed it was "a hell for exploiters and a paradise for workers." The words of German soldiers are a blow to the face of the Bolshevist world deceivers.
Worse than Hell
Lieutenant Otto Deissenroth, Military Post Number 12 827D writes to local group leader Kemmel in Altenau (Mainfranken)
In the East, 30.7.1941
Dear Comrade Karl !
I write this letter from the desolation of a Ukrainian forest village, 40 kilometers from Kiev, which we hope to capture in a few days. The fruitful land of the Ukraine is all around us, but 20 years of Bolshevist mismanagement have brought it to ruin. The poverty, misery and filth we have seen and experienced in the past weeks is indescribable. You back home cannot imagine the terrible results of Bolshevism in this fruitful land. Everything that we formerly read in newspapers and books pales in the face of the terrible reality. Our eyes look in vain for some sign of construction, for a trace of progress, for a bit of culture. We yearn for the sight of a clean house, an orderly street, a few tended gardens, a few trees! Wherever we look there is filth, decay, desolation, misery, death and suffering! Everywhere we see the ghost of Bolshevism in the tortured look of farmers, the blank stares of captives, the hundreds of murdered people, the farm houses of impoverished buildings and ruined houses. I sometimes think it is all the work of the devil. The land was rich when it was inhabited by German, Ukrainian, Czech and Polish farmers. Then Bolshevism came, and with it enormous misery. Everything that was prosperous or cultured was killed or burned. I spoke with dozens of people whose family members, fathers, husbands, brothers and sons perished somewhere in Murmansk, Siberia or the icy north. Thousands died during the great famine, particularly in 1932-1933. Thousands more ended up in prisons and jails. The misery of those freed from Bolshevism is indescribable. Any free expression was prohibited, any movement banned. Everything in nature that was beautiful, good and free was destroyed. Everything created by God was exterminated! They took the blessing from the land and the soul from the people. They reduced them to the level of animals, impotent, miserable enslaved animals with no hope of life who did not know if they would be alive tomorrow, who lived from hand to mouth, and were happy only when someone killed them. Hell can be no worse that this "Soviet paradise." There is no hope of salvation. What Bolshevism has done to humanity is a sin against God, a crime one cannot begin to understand. Every German who formerly thought Bolshevism was a worthy idea and who threatened we National Socialists with death and bloodshed only because we didn't believe in this nonsense should be ashamed! We were right! We are all shaken and moved as we face this misery, this suffering, this hopeless Bolshevist life. They stole everything from these people except the very air they breathed. The land they inherited from their fathers became a collective, the property of the state, and they became slaves worse than those of the darkest Middle Ages in Germany. They had a tiny plot of land of their own, and even that was heavily taxed. They had to report to the collective's commissars each morning, work the whole day, even Sunday, with no free time. They belonged to the state. They were supposedly paid, but rarely saw the money. They got 33 kopeks a day, about a third of a mark. They owned no plow, no spade, no wagon, no yoke. Everything supposedly belonged to everyone, everything belonged to the state. The Jews and party bigwigs lived in prosperity, the farmers had only hunger, misery, work and death. No one felt himself responsible for the soil, no one felt the love we Germans have for our homeland, for the soil that is ours. The knowledge of blood and soil had died out. I spoke with 30-year-olds who did not understand the concept of property. They had been educated in Soviet schools. That explains why they had no sense of culture, no need for it. Their homes are empty, cold and desolate, much poorer than in Poland. No pictures, no flowers break the desolation. The art of cooking also disappeared, given the food shortages. The daily diet consists of milk and bread, along with a bit of honey and a few potatoes. When one see this dismal poverty, one is reminded that these Bolshevist animals wanted to bring culture to us industrious, clean and creative Germans. How God has blessed us! How justified is the Führer's claim to European leadership! The poorest German village is a pearl in comparison to these ruined Russian villages. Sometimes as I face the thousands of murdered people that we found in the cities and villages, and in the numerous occasions where we found women and children wailing over the corpses of their family members, or when they asked us to free their men who had been hauled off just before we arrived, I see the Führer before me. He saved an enslaved and raped humanity, giving it once more divine freedom and the blessing of a worthy existence. The last and deepest reason for this war is to restore the natural and godly order. It is a battle against slavery, against Bolshevist insanity. I am proud, deeply proud, that I may fight against this Bolshevist monster, fighting once again the enemy I fought to destroy during the hard years of struggle in Germany. I am proud of the wounds I suffered during the election battles in Germany, and I am proud of my new wounds, and of the medal that I now wear. It is as if the people here are awakening from a deep sleep. They cannot yet believe in their new freedom; they do not know where to begin. They sit down and wait for orders. Now they have them: "Go back to work, harvest the fields, now you have your own home." That is what all the posters say, and one sees the masses at work in the fields. Man and nature are free again, God has his place once more, his eternal order has been restored. We National Socialist soldiers of Adolf Hitler have restored the godly order, though some call us heathens. That is the way life is. And what did those who spoke about God do? Ask them!"
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