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Remembered Today:

Germany : Fritz Limbach - letters from the front - 1915


JWK

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.....“Then to mother’s letter of 28 th august: I’m happy mother read that book by Sanghofer [a German writer, couldn’t find any info on him]. I’ve read it too, here in the library.

Please let mother send mr Sanghofer my regards, and that I thank him for the compliment he made us, but for the future I hope he has the goodness to be so kind as to start writing novels again, it suits him better. .......

It is not Sanghofer but Ganghofer. I have a 1915 Ganghofer book in my archive "Reise zur deutschen Front. Bericht. Ullstein, Berlin, 1915. (Ullstein - Kriegsbücher)"; it is horrible, a romanticisation of the war, heroic and euphuistic, like the British propaganda books on the other side. I start to like Fritz because he seems to hate the Ganghofer war books as well. So I understand that he writes back home that Ganghofer instead should stay writing his romantic mountain and love stories (he was a Bavarian author of the time).

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^ Thanks for the correction, Egbert ! Explains why I couldn't find anything on the man, other than some old eBay listings.

From your description (and Fritz's ) these are two books that I can happily live without,it seems.

.....continued from post #74

Douvrin, 12 september 1915

“This morning we had Battalion-exercises. Nowadays a whole Batalion is at rest, it used to be just 3 Kompagnies. It was fun this morning, and not at all as tough as I had imagined it would be.

Looks like we’re slowly but surely being trained again in mobile warfare, which I believe is a lot better than this boring trench warfare, but also a lot more demanding.

Tomorrow we’re away on a pleasure trip. I won’t write you where we are going, I’ll send you a postcard from there tomorrow. “

“I got a nice little one-night job for when we’re back in the trenches, namely make two signs with “Stennes graben” [ Stennes’ trenches] on it. Ofcourse I need the whole night to finish those.

I’ve also managed to get a candle from the Feldwebel [sergeant] and 20 cigarettes from the Leutnant.

I’ll draw you what I’ll be making so you can see what brilliant font I’ve used:

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Much better in the original ofcourse. Don’t my artistic skills just leave you gobsmacked?

Yeah, the things they ask of you in the Prussian army….”

Ostend, 13 september 1915

And the pleasure trip turned out to be a day-trip to Ostend and Bruges.

From Ostend he sends a postcard to the whole family, from Bruges he sends a postcard each to his three sisters.

Here’s the Ostend-postcard:

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From this year’s trip to the seaside best regards from Your Fritz (Fritz always signs off his letters with “Euer Fritz” = “Your Fritz”)

Countersigned by Heinrich Mais (a friend from Barmen), Otto Mertens (from Solingen) and another comrade which I read as Jan Schmidt.

And about the trip he writes two days later:

“It was a lot of fun, but over much too quickly. It is very good to not see anything of the war for a while. The trip went from Provin (2 hours from Douvrin), via Don, Lille, Courtrai, Rousselaere, Torhout to Ostend, and back via Bruges.

In Lille I saw a running streetcar, for the first time in 8 months. In Ostend I sat in a café, having coffee and cake with whipped cream, without having to get it myself like here in the canteen.

In Bruges I saw an impeccably dressed man, wearing a straw hat, greeting a woman, which looked very comical to me. But you get used to the civilised world quickly.

In Belgium, in Lille even, nothing reminds you of the war. Traffic like always, and in Ostend beachlife almost like it was pre-war, now ofcourse with a lot of soldiers.

Many sailors too in Feldgrau which really suits them.

Also nothing was overly expensive : in Ostend 1 coffee and 2 slices of cake 50Pfg. In Bruges two beers, 1 ham sandwich 70Pfg.”

“I don’t think we made this trip just for fun, but more to fool the English with “troop movements”

But whatever the reason, it sure was something different.

Doch schluss. Somebody is going to the mailbox now."

Edited by JWK
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Jan, Superb…!!!

Have you got any of the Bruges cards - by any chance. ?

ALSO

You are going too fast.. the story is going to end -

I am sure there are many Pals watching these events !

it is amazing that Fritz can see the civilised world even at this time 1915. I feel sure that the people of Paris and London were still gad about in their finery when these poor souls were dug down in the trenches.

It is also amazing that Fritz can send a card to " Family Limbach- Barmen " and it arrives there.

So now I see when My Grandfather sent His card to " Jacob Feledziak - Krotsyn" it got there too.

The world is a sad place - even now in 2014 people are not happy and some do despicable things.

But keep it coming !!

Egbert - Great addition as always.. I think I like Fritz too— that has to be one of the best book appraisals written.. cutting and with style.

His words have always been Mighty.. I think he told Ganghofer that he did not like his war works..!!!!

Martin

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An amazing account so far & eager to read more. I too am in awe of the postal service then. Every wk now my mail gets delivered to the wrong address 2 or 3 times per wk! There are only 4 houses on the street & he still can't get it right! The carrier's attitude has gone from accident to incompetent to don't care! As a govt employee he can't even be fired without an act of congress!

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And you must know that estimates made today said that more than 28 billions letters and postcards were send here in Germany during WW1

Here you can see a front-library

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Fritz has inspired me to run a film through this old family camera. It has not been used for 40 odd years.

This was last used by my father in the late 60's. It is French and would be from the 1950's

I would guess that it would be of a similar type to WW1 cameras.

It would fit into a cigar box too

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28 billion letters and postcards in 4 years ! Wow!

What a massive effort from the German Postal system.

From what I gather from Fritz's letters it took on average only 2 days for a letter to reach its destination, either way.

Packages, and letters with the wrong regiment in the address ( IR56 e.g. or IR6 instead of IR16), took a few days longer.

Imagine that in the present day!

And yes: that could well be the type of camera Fritz used. Camera, cassette and filmrolls fitted into a cigarbox, so the camera must have been a folding one.

Love that travelling library ! You’d think it is a modern thing, but 100 years ago they already had one.

……continued from post #77

Prellbock, 15 september 1915

And Fritz received the prints from filmroll #4

“Some of the pictures are again very good. I find myself not very photogenic, I always look trauerklötiger [Depressed, sad] than I really am.

I haven’t received the 5th film yet, what could be the reason?”

And of the pictures of film nr 4 I happen to have 3 prints :

Nr 40 Fritz , Prellbock, late August 1915 [Heinrich Mais in the background]

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Nr 41 Prellbock, late August 1915.

“The soldier in picture 41 is not an actor, but, if I may introduce him to you, Willi Homann from Düsseldorf, trader by profession , at present tired warrior”

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Nr 43 Fritz , Prellbock, late August 1915

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^Indeed, his portraits are of such a beauty they're like studio-portraits.

btw: the two pictures of Fritz were made by Otto Mertens, and the little bag he's wearing around his neck on picture #43 is a gasmask.

.....continued from post #82

Now that we’re upto speed with Fritz’s prolific letterwriting, we’ll just have to drum our fingers and wait for his next letter.

Just like his family back home.

Will a letter arrive? I don’t know.

What will it say ? I don’t know.

When will it arrive? I don't know.

In the meantime let’s look at the Feldpostpackages Fritz received.

In total he received about 390 numbered packages plus an unknown (but big) number of unnumbered packages from his family, his aunts, friends of the family, cousins, friends etc etc, so the actual total would be around 450-500 I guess.

Most of them contained food in all sorts, from fesh strawberries and plums to lobster in mayonaise and hazelnutpaste (“Nutella”) to bottles of cognac and lemonjuice to Wiener Schitzels and porkchops , to supplement the meager rations he got from the army fieldkitchen, the Gulashkanone aka the Kolhdampf Abwehr (“The quality is excellent [They even had a coldstore in Douvrin to store the meat e.g.] and very tasty, but it’s just not enough really. “)

And the Feldpost was also used to send him non-food items, such as : a Browning with ammunition, pair of shoes, pair of boots, a camera, a pillow, a waterpurifier [“The water that comes out of that tastes awful, you need a lót of sugar to make it almost drinkable”] , a handtowel, a shaving-set, a little stove (Like a camping-stove I imagine) , and cigarettes, mountains of cigarettes, mountainranges of cigarettes, and cigars (“But not too many!”)

Even “Registered Feldpost” was offered apparently : “Don’t send any money registered anymore, just put a 5Mk bill into a letter now and then, that will suffice”

Of this mass of letters and packages (For Fritz alone the total of letters and packages I calculate as somewhere between 600-700 in a 9 month period) only a very small fraction did not reach its destination.

Of the letters I think they áll reached their destination.

Of the packages maybe 5% didn’t , but those were mainly packages with bottles inside (So perhaps they got broken along the way and were discarded)

Letters took an average of two/three days to get there, packages a little longer (Fritz started to grumble in August: “The Feldpost is a shambles: packages now take 5-6 days to reach us!”)

All in all one mighty impressive effort of the German feldpost!

Edited by JWK
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Merlybobs -

I fear we are near the end of this worthy thread.

Sadly Fritz and most of his mates shown on these photographs do not survive.

I am just wondering how Jan is going to write the ending.

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... I don’t know what to write anymore. I have heard people back in Germany sing “Im Osten kämpft das deutsche Heer, im Westen kämpft die Feuerwehr” ...

... two of them are indeed headless (but maybe invaluable for someone who studies German footwear in the First World War)

That 'Im Osten..' is a new one for me! Reminds me of the 'D-Day dodgers' slur against the army fighting their way through Italy in 1944/

What is fascinating is the condition of their uniforms! There has been a fair bit of make-do-and-mend there!

Trajan

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The way I read that was that the war in the East, against the Russians, was fast moving where they were obtaining large areas of land in a short period of time and with minimal losses.

So the people of Germany thought those soldiers were much better.

Whereas on the Western front, where they were bogged down in the trenches going nowhere, they were like firefighters only " putting out fires".

I suppose they were accusing their soldiers on the Western front of failing in their duty... to win the war.. ( Just my theroy, But I am wrong many times. !! )

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....continued from post #84

Prellbock, 19 september 1915

A short letter from Fritz, acknowledging receipt of various letters and packages as usual, some family stuff, and:

“Film nr 5 has still not arrived. But then people here have been complaining about the postconnection with Germany.

Letters arrive regularly, but packages now always take 5-6 days. “

His sister Hanne asked about Ostend : “Why we were in Ostend I’ve already explained in my last letter. There cannot be any reason for the regiment to be moved there. And also I can’t say I’m in favour of such a move: we’ve built and extended our trenches here, and then we’d have to start all over again overthere. No thank you.

The landscape is nicer up there though. Didn’t make any pictures as I didn’t have any film. Also, don’t think you can make nice landscape pictures with this camera. “

“It’s a shame Feldwebel Scheffel has not called on you. He told me he definitely wanted to visit you”

[Feldwebel Scheffel was on leave in Barmen for a few days]

Viele herzliche Gruße sendet Euch

Euer Fritz

Edited by JWK
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While we're waiting for the next letter from Fritz to arrive (When will it arrive? I don’t know. Will it arrive? I don’t know.) let’s read the daily Heeresbericht, the communique from German Army HQ:

Westlicher Kriegsschauplatz:
Feindliche Schiffe, die Westende und Middelkerke (südwestlich von Ostende) erfolglos beschossen, zogen sich vor unserem Feuer zurück. Es wurden Treffer beobachtet.
Westlich von St. Quentin wurde ein englisches Flugzeug durch einen deutschen Kampfflieger abgeschossen; der Führer ist tot, der Beobachter gefangengenommen.

Western Front:

Enemy ships, that fired at Westende and Middelkerke (southwest of Ostend) without causing any damage, were driven back by our artillery. Some direct hits were observed.

To the west of St Quentin an English aeroplane was downed by a German fighterpilot. The pilot is dead, the observer was captured.

In the Dutch newspapers of the day ofcourse a lot of news about the war raging over the borders of neutral Holland, every communique from every Army HQ is published, and English and German newspapers are frequently quoted.

But “normal” life goes on as well:

20 men of a mounted cavalry regiment in Utrecht fell violently ill, so ill that the medical staff had to be called to the barracks during the night, and General-Major Quanjer, head of medical services, arrived the next day from the Hague.

Turned out a sergeant had laced some cheese with rat-poison to get rid of those pesky rats, “some the size of a small cat”. The poisoned rats though had nibbled at, and walked over, the soldier’s rations which they had to store on the floor as they had no beds or cupboards….

(No casualties were reported, but I'm sure the boys had a story to tell at parties for years to come!)

A man in Haarlemmermeer turned up at city-hall to register the birth of his 24 th child, 12 of which are still alive. And all 24 from the same marriage. (Poor woman!)

On the 1 st of June 1915 the number of automobiles in the United States reached the milestone of 2 million, so 1 automobile per 46 people.

I don’t have access to scanned Germans newspaper of the day, but I guess the peripheral news in Germany was much the same.

Edited by JWK
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We wait like "taught umbrellas" for his next letter !!!

“gespannt wie ein Regenschirm”

P.S I sent my film away today to be developed, there were 10 exposures on the roll. So I will be a taught umbrella too

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The way I read that was that the war in the East, against the Russians, was fast moving where they were obtaining large areas of land in a short period of time and with minimal losses.

So the people of Germany thought those soldiers were much better.

Whereas on the Western front, where they were bogged down in the trenches going nowhere, they were like firefighters only " putting out fires".

I suppose they were accusing their soldiers on the Western front of failing in their duty... to win the war.. ( Just my theroy, But I am wrong many times. !! )

You've caught the sense perfectly!

Trajan

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.....continued from post #90

And the postman brought a long awaited letter from Fritz, a short one this time :

Prellbock, 22 september 1915

“Dear family,

It just dawned on me that I nearly forgot something. So today a few lines, I’ll write more extensively tomorrow.

Also: warmest congratulations to mother on the occasion of her birthday!

Feldwebel Scheffel told me yesterday that you were all doing well, and I hope that will continue to be the case.

Here everything is most the same. Tommy makes a lot of noise with his guns though, since yesterday, and behaves like something really special is going on. We don’t believe them, and all that shooting does not worry us. He should save his ammunition for better opportunities.

Feldwebel Scheffel wants to hand out the cigars and cigarettes you gave him, to die Barmer [the men from Barmen] at the Prellbock. I’ve also got a few, because smokes are very rare at the moment.

Viele herzliche Gruße sendet Euch

Euer Fritz

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post-14131-0-87163900-1411450132_thumb.j

From a german newspaper september 19th 1914. The offer is to send all what the soldiers need "Zigaretten, Zigarren, Feuerzeuge, Hosenträger Brotmesser ..." to the front. An on the first page of that newspaper only victories for Germany: The french army was beaten at Royon, Chateau Brimont near Reims was conquered. HMS Glasgow was sunk near South America and so and so.

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.....continued from post # 93

Postman brought a letter again from Fritz, a lengthy letter as promised yesterday

Prellbock, 23 september 1915

Dear Family

“It’s again pretty difficult to write you a long letter when I don’t have any questions to answer.

As I wrote you yesterday, and perhaps you have read it in de daily communiqués already, the English have been quite restless here for the past few days. We don’t worry about that too much though.

If they want to come over they should surely do that. They will get their comeuppance.

There are however no special signs which point to an imminent attack. We did receive heavy artillery-fire the last few days though, and to the left of us, at the Marburger Jägern, they attacked yesterday, but I don’t think they have the courage to also try that here.

Our losses have been very slight the past three days. 10 men only in the whole regiment, am Prellbock 1 lightly wounded by shrapnell, en those other 9 men also only wounded. So it’s not that bad.

Am Prellbock everything is still okay. Not one piece of trench has been destroyed, despite them sending us no less than 400 shrapnels yesterdaymorning between 8 and 12, plus about 100 “dicke Gelbe” [some sort of grenade?] . Imagine what all that would have cost them.

And they achieved nothing.

We’re all feeling good. We did moan a lot when we were building these dug-outs, but now we’re very happy to have them. So everything is still okay.

But I’d rather talk about a different theme. You perhaps worry too much than is necessary.

I hope that Feldwebel Scheffel has told you in detail what life here is like, and that it is not as bad as it looks.

We had a long talk this morning. And he told me how beautiful Germany still is, and I got a little homesick.”

“He also grumbled a little because you kept him busy for so long. He had an appointment with his fiancée at 12, and at 12:30 he was still at yours!”

Viele herzliche Gruße an alle

Von Euer Fritz

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Would be nice to know what those "dicke Gelbe" - 'fat yellow' - things are. Some form of chemical agent? Smoke screen?

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Nr 8 “Group, in reserve-trenches, 31 July 1915”

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Nr 10 “Group, in our camp in Auchy, 31 July 1915”

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I was drawn back to these two because in these and others some of the guys are wearing feldmütze with their national kokarde attached and clearly visible but others don't have this. Never noticed this practice before (but there again, I haven't especially studied either feldmütze or kokarde!) - anyone else? Can't be to avoid unit identification if captured by 'Tommi', as in some of the photographs they still seem to have their regimental numbers on their shoulder tabs.

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This can have many reseans. Lost or the Feldmütze was so old that it hangs down und so can´t see them. With the two Kokardes you can´t identify a unit. One is black white red = Germany and the other has different colours for Saxon, Prussia (for example black - silver or white - black), Bavaria and so on. So you know only where the soldier is from but not the unit.

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...With the two Kokardes you can´t identify a unit. One is black white red = Germany and the other has different colours for Saxon, Prussia (for example black - silver or white - black), Bavaria and so on. So you know only where the soldier is from but not the unit.

Yes, I realise that - I was thinking along the lines of GB Military Intelligence thinking "We have information that the Prussian IR XXYY is in the area - see if any POW's have Prussian cockades and let's have them in for further questions".

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