Karl Fuchs, was a German soldier in World War II who fought and died on the Eastern Front. He had a love of scholarship, of music, and sports. He was also a prolific writer of letters and postcards. His letters from 1937 to 1941 provide a unique perspective of this important period from the point of view of a typical, young German man caught up in the thrall of Adolf Hitler and the “New Germany.”
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After a brief internship as a village schoolteacher, he joined the Wehrmacht on October 1, 1939. For the rest of his short life, he served his country as a member of the tank corps. He was truly devoted to the cause of Greater Germany and felt it was his sacred duty to engage in battle for this cause.
From the many thoughtful letters which my father wrote during this period (and which my mother and grandmother saved), I have selected a few for publication. I believe they accurately describe his hopes and dreams, his beliefs and plans, his observations of occupied France and battle-torn Russia, and the trials and tribulations of a soldier who is separated from his loved ones.
It was my father’s intention to use these letters as the basis for a novel he hoped to one day write. In translating and publishing the letters, I am not only sharing my father's thoughts, feelings, and impressions of the war years with the readers, but I have also grown to know him, a man I never met, for he was killed a few months after I was born. I would be very much remiss not to mention that these letters should also serve as a warning to future generations of young and vulnerable idealists. They, too, may be tempted and seduced by an attractive, yet evil, authority and pay for this brief adventure with their lives.
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