Mail Correspondence with Soldiers at War (“Feldpostbriefe”): Letters from the German soldier Harry Mielert from Russia, winter 1943 (Published on 09/12/2024)
(source: Bähr/Meyer/Orthbandt, Kriegsbriefe gefallener Studenten 1939 – 1945, p. 297 ff. (translation from German language)):
“Gomel bridgehead, 1 October 1943
The worst was four days ago, when I had to defend a place with four men against five approaching tanks with mounted Russian infantry and had orders not to leave this place until an agreed signal. It was cruel. The troops had taken up a new position three kilometers further back. I was at a loss with my few men; the Russians were already advancing on my right and left. We fought the infantry on the fighting vehicles at close range, but the roaring steel colossi roared towards us, rolled through, fired from all barrels and then split up to take us out with a pincer movement.
The following night we broke away from the enemy again, shot down seven tanks with tank guns under cover of darkness and in the forest, some of them from a distance of 20 meters, and had some breathing space the next day. But the Russians had already bypassed us from both sides. We broke through at one point to reach the river behind which Gomel lies, but the Russians had already destroyed all the bridges before us. Now we’re on this side of the river, forming a bridgehead and building a new bridge. This summer’s new lieutenants have almost all dropped out again. I am one of the very few officers in our division who have been with us since the beginning.
1 December 1943
No one but the person involved can understand what is going on here. By that, my dear, I don’t want to exclude you from an »experience«, it’s not an experience, it’s just a terrible fact that has to be endured.
I was hunted as only a very wounded animal can be hunted, sat in the swamp for five hours, in ice-cold water up to my body, under constant fire from tanks that couldn’t follow me and a small group of men there until night fell. We had wanted to rescue comrades who had already perished miserably. We had to cross the swamp during the night, came under German fire in front of our own line and are now back with the old bunch. There’s a bitter struggle going on here that nobody knows anything about.
When my comrades fall like this or are wounded, I always wonder and ask myself: when will I? or what is God keeping me for? I look for the meaning and give it – by being aware of the humanity of this meaning, but also recognizing this humanity as created by God – that I should experience all this and work through it within myself. Later I am to say something about this event, perhaps not about the war, but about the human being that emerges in this war.
6 December 1943
Think of an endless, bare field, frozen hard, covered with light snow, with a terrible wind whistling over it and blowing the thin snow behind the clods, so that the frozen topsoil becomes free. Our men are firmly entrenched in this field. With the small infantry spade they hoe and scrape up the stony earth until they come across unfrozen ground; a small hole is dug into which one or two men can squat. They stand there, one of them awake, the other dozing off. It is freezing cold, only body heat provides warmth. The enemy quickly recognizes the line and shoots at the field with grenade launchers.
The men are alert and shoot at the approaching enemy. When the tanks protect the Russian infantry, the only option is to duck low and finish off the infantrymen in close combat. The scream of a hit man is terrible, without echo in the wasteland, nobody has time to take further notice. Everyone trusts only the weapon and that terrible goddess Fortuna, of whom these men no longer even know the name. – During the night I crawled from hole to hole, the men need strengthening. During the day, 106 of the 220 men in our battalion had lost their lives due to wounds or death. We didn’t talk about the day, but about our loved ones at home and when we would see them again. We didn’t cry, and our outward appearance seemed hard and like a bizarre personification of the purely masculine, cold and warlike. But our hearts are hot and glowing for our loved ones back home.
9 December 1943
[Final letter]
The battlefield always makes me shudder anew. I no longer want to see the dead and the spurting, streaming blood. But I have to stand next to it like someone who has been given this task.
You once said wonderfully that being alone together makes us together again. This is a profound experience, this leaning towards and seeking each other across the distance. The ring is open in two parts, but both halves are so inclined towards each other that it is the distance that separates and closes it. We will close it again when the next testing time has passed over us.”
1st Lieutenant Harry Mielert, born on 27/12/1912 in Sprottau/Silesia, member of GrenRegt 528, fell on 15/12/1943 northwest of Shlobin/Russia.
(Head picture: German military cemetery Bleialf,
November 2023)
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