20th July 1939 20th July 1939 Princess Letter 57 20th July 1939 Sarvar to 27 Queen Square, Bath Dear Madeleine! Many thanks for your letter. I am sure you are looking forward to you holydays. Brittany must be very nice. I hope you are having nice weather and you will be able to swim a lot. Here it is very hot. In fact we sit at home during the hottest time of the day. Luckily we go for a swim every day. That’s the only way to keep us alive. I wish it would rain. The flowers and trees are sad, with hanging leaves. The earth is torn and everything looked baked by the sun. You never experienced a Hungarian summer. It is impressive. The British girls who came here with Muck last year were more dead than alive. By the way, here is a sad news. I am afraid I must give up my plan of coming to England this year. I couldn’t start until 20th September and would have to be back by November. So it’s hardly worth the long journey. Besides, it is impossible to get a girl out as exchange. British people don’t seem to get over the war fright. I haven’t given up hope altogether, though I must admit my chance doesn’t look bright. I would have loved to meet you. Have you made up your mind about your hair? In February and March I used to wear it high up in the back. Some people liked it, some told me I looked like a scare-crow. I must admit it wasn’t comfy, and it gave a funny feeling of having been scalped by a Red Indian. Now I wear it like that (illustration opposite). It is quite good and easy to do. Of course I always have long hair, but I manage to turn it in so that nobody notices it. Muck has gone to Bavaria for a fortnight. Best wishes for your holidays. Loll Contact Brief History to inform us of additional information regarding this page

14th May 1939 14th May 1939 Walter Goecks BV161 JB37-876 Privately printed postcard from Walter Goecks 'Der Deutschland - Spezialist'. With commemorative cancellation for the 'Kriestag der N.S.D.A.P'. Ref: 14.05.1939, BV161, JB:37/876 Contact Brief History to inform us of additional information regarding this page

13th October 1939 'Adler' 9.39 13th October 1939 Adler 9.39 Feldpost postcard ('Adler' 9.39 Fp C154 Din A6) sent fro FPN 30127 to an address in Munich. Ref: 13.10.1939 FPN 30127 The State Rifle Battalion II/VII was formed during mobilization on 26th August 1939 in Munich, in Military District VII. The battalion was formed from the Infantry Replacement Battalion 61. The battalion initially had companies 5-8 under its command. On 18th September 1939, the battalion was relocated to Poland. There the battalion was placed under the command of Korück 530. On 8th March 1940, the battalion formed the 1st Battalion of the Infantry Regiment 660 of the 393rd Infantry Division. The 7th National Rifle Replacement Battalion was responsible for replacing the battalion. Source: lexikon--der--wehrmacht-de Note: The FPN result from germanstamps.net states Battalion II/VII. However, 'lexicon' does not state this FPN as part of the Battalion. Contact Brief History to inform us of additional information regarding this page

20th January 1939 SCW - Sevilla 20th January 1939 SCW Sevilla Spanish Civil War. Nationalist propaganda cover sent from Sevilla to Germany. Featuring various postage stamps, including a 'Pro Sevilla' 5 c. (Allepuz 15). Note regarding this cover: when purchased it was identified as having some relation to Legion 'Condor' due to the address?. Cannot find this link. Further research required. Ref: 20.01.1939 - 3/80 SEVILLA Spanish Civil War - Nationalist Local Issues 5 c (Date ? - Allepuz 15). Ref: 20.01.1939 - 3/80 Contact Brief History to inform us of additional information regarding this page

12th September 1939 Końskie massacre 12th September 1939 czestochowa konski Postcard depicting the Black Madonna of Częstochowa. Sent by a soldier (FPN16457) from Konski (Końskie) to Preißenberg. Ref: 12.09.1939 Końskie massacre The present feldpost postcard was written on the 11th September 1939 and date stamped 12th September 1939 when events in Końskie resulted in a massacre. On 12th September 1939, the Germans occupied the square next to the Collegiate Church of St. Mikołaja in Końskie , a group of approximately 40-50 Jewish men, whom they ordered to dig graves for the fallen Wehrmacht soldiers - beating and ill-treating them in the process. At one point, disorderly shooting broke out, resulting in the death of 22 Jews. After the war, the Końskie massacre became internationally known due to the fact that it was witnessed by the famous German film director Leni Riefenstahl. Końskie was captured by Wehrmacht troops on 8th September 1939. On the same day, the Germans burned down the local synagogue. In turn, the funeral of four German soldiers killed in battles with regular Polish troops was scheduled for 12th September. The bodies of the dead rested for some time on a bier in the collegiate church of St. Nicholas in Końskie. Rumors spread that they had been cruelly mutilated by Polish partisans, which caused great outrage among the Germans present in the city. On the day of the funeral, soldiers of the air reconnaissance battalion of the German 10th Army, together with members of the Reichsarbeitsdienst , herded a group of approximately 40-50 Jewish men pulled from neighbouring houses into the square next to the collegiate church. Jews were ordered to dig graves for the fallen Wehrmacht soldiers. Some men were given shovels for this purpose, but others were forced to dig graves with their bare hands. The Germans brutally abused the detainees, beating them with pickets and rifle butts. Jews who fell to the ground as a result of the blows were kicked in the face. One of the soldiers was so cruel that a Luftwaffe lieutenant present in the square felt forced to escort him to the barracks. However, Major Schulz, the military commandant of the city who arrived at the scene, did not forbid the soldiers from torturing Jews. He limited himself only to remarking that 'although the Jews are to blame for all the misfortunes that have befallen the world now, German soldiers must maintain discipline and avoid excesses'. Despite the commander's ambiguous attitude, the Jews were allowed to go home. However, before they could disperse, the soldiers started beating and kicking them again. Another outbreak of aggression caused panic among the Jews, who rushed to the gate of the tenement house at Kościuszki 3. in search of shelter. At that moment, a German military car driven by Second Lieutenant Brunon Kleinmichel entered the square. Seeing a large group of men heading towards him, Kleinmichel opened fire with a submachine gun. Following his example, the remaining soldiers also started shooting at the fleeing crowd. Kleinmichel then exited the vehicle and continued firing. When the shooting stopped, it turned out that 19 Jews were dead and another eight were wounded. By 15th September, three more wounded died, bringing the total number of victims to 22. The Jews who survived the massacre were ordered to clean up the bodies, which were then buried at the Jewish cemetery in Końskie. The victims of the murder are currently commemorated by a commemorative plaque on the wall of the tenement house at Kościuszki 3. The crime was witnessed by Leni Riefenstahl, a German film director who was staying in Końskie at that time and the creator of several famous propaganda films glorifying the Third Reich and the Nazi movement . In September 1939, Riefenstahl and her crew went to Poland to make a propaganda film about the victory over Poland. In her 'Memoirs', published after the war, she described the course of the massacre quite faithfully, but repeated claims about the alleged desecration of the bodies of German soldiers by Poles and maintained that she was not aware that the victims of the murder were of Jewish origin. Riefenstahl also claimed that she tried to stop soldiers from mistreating civilians, after which she went to the commander of the Tenth Army, General Walter von Reichenau , whom she informed about the entire incident. Shocked by the massacre, she was supposed to stop working on the film and leave Poland. However, this last statement is contradicted by photos confirming her presence during the victory parade received by Hitler in Warsaw (October 5, 1939). Field Marshal Erich von Manstein (chief of staff of Army Group 'South' during the September Campaign ) also referred to the Końskie massacre and the presence of Leni Riefenstahl at the crime scene in his memoirs. He described the murder of over 20 Jews as a 'thoughtless shooting in a crowded market square' caused by 'the nervousness of one officer - an anti-aircraft officer'. He cited the fact that the perpetrator was brought to court as 'proof' of the alleged efforts made by the Wehrmacht generals to ensure that the Polish civilian population was treated humanely. Second Lieutenant Brunon Kleinmichel appeared before a German court-martial, which found that the accused 'deliberately killed people without thinking about what he was doing.' However, the fact that his act was caused by the assumption that the partisans had brutally mutilated the bodies of fallen German soldiers was considered a mitigating circumstance. Ultimately, Kleinmichel was sentenced to two years in prison and demotion. The rank-and-file soldiers who tormented the Jews in the square and then shot at them together with Kleinmichel were not held accountable. The German historian Jochen Böhler pointed out that the court's justification of Kleinmichel's crimes with the alleged atrocities of the partisans was the first case of using the formula 'where there are Jews, there are partisans', which the Germans used later in the war as a pretext for the mass extermination of the Jewish population in the occupied countries of Europe. Source: Wikipedia Contact Brief History to inform us of additional information regarding this page

11th February 1939 Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge 11th February 1939 Volksbund Deutsche kriegsgraberfursorge Cover sent from the 'Volksbund Deutsche kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V.' to Wilhelm Meyer zu Eissen in Bad Salzuflen at the Villa Kurpark. Ref: 11.02.1939 - 18/13 VILLA KURPARK - With its thermal and brine springs, the town developed into a Lippe state spa from 1818 onwards and was given the additional name 'Bad' in 1914. This naturally had an impact on the development of the town and led to a whole series of new buildings in the style of the time. Between 1855 and 1906, a number of classicist bathing and treatment houses were built in the area of the rose garden, such as the Bathhouse I (1855–1856), the Leopold Bath (1903) and the Inhalatorium (1903), which are still well preserved today, although some of them have a different function. In the Parkstrasse area, the Kurpark, the Kurhaus (1900) built according to plans by Fritz Seiff, with the Kurtheater (1908) and a large number of guest houses and villas were built in Bismarckstrasse and Parkstrasse. The most important of these buildings is certainly the Villa Dürkopp , built in the neo-baroque style in a prominent location between 1914 and 1917 as the retirement home of the Bielefeld manufacturer Nikolaus Dürkopp. Also worth mentioning are the houses at Parkstrasse 4 (Haus Erdbrügger), Parkstrasse 13 (Villa Kurpark), Parkstrasse 15 (Villa Luise), Parkstrasse 39 (Haus Seeblick) and the Hotel "Fürstenhof" (built in 1908, park sanatorium since 1959). Other guest houses and Art Nouveau villas can be found in Waldstrasse, Wenkenstrasse and Moltkestrasse. Particularly worth seeing here is a group of four picturesque Art Nouveau villas at Waldstrasse 1 and 3 and directly opposite at 18 and 20. Many buildings from 1909 onwards were designed by the well-known Salzuflen architect Rudolf Günther (1880–1941), such as Haus Hansa, Parkstrasse 36–38, the house Wenkenstrasse 1–5, Am Herforder Tor 9 and Haus Bender, a corner building in a prominent location (corner of Bleichstrasse/Parkstrasse), one of the most important buildings of spa architecture of the early 20th century in Westphalia that has survived to this day. Note that a Dr. Wilhelm Meier zu Eissen passed away on 10th July 1936 in Bad Salzuflen. A mis-spelling of Meier/Meyer by the Volksbund and sent long after his death? See 23.06.1943 - 19/115 Volksbund Deutsche kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V. The German War Graves Commission (Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V.), also known as the Volksbund for short, was founded on 16th December 1919 and is a registered non-profit organisation with a humanitarian mission. It maintains and looks after the graves of victims of war and tyranny (war cemeteries) abroad, helps relatives to search for graves and develops the war cemeteries into places of learning about history. The graves of victims of war and tyranny within the country are financed and maintained in accordance with the provisions of the Graves Act. Right at the beginning of the Nazi Party 's seizure of power, the association attempted to lobby the Reich government to ensure legal protection of the Day of Remembrance. This aroused great interest. Eulen reported after a conversation with Adolf Hitler that he had 'shown warm interest in the work of the war graves commission'. Eulen also campaigned for more government support for the Day of Remembrance. He continued: 'I have also promoted our Reminiscere National Day of Mourning and prepared the Chancellor for our request to announce the legal recognition of this day in a solemn act at the beginning of our meeting.' – Sigfried Emmo Eulen In 1933, the Volksbund adopted a new statute that included not only the victims of the World War, but also the so-called martyrs of National Socialism and the victims of the post-war struggles in its own work. Thus, the Volksbund placed itself entirely at the service of honouring National Socialist heroes. As part of the Gleichschaltung, Emmo Eulen became the federal leader in accordance with the Führer principle. Through direct intervention with Goebbels, he succeeded in changing the National Mourning Day into Heroes' Remembrance Day in 1934. The Volksbund remained in existence. The mentality changed from standing up for peace to a spirit of sacrifice. Jewish members were pushed out. The Volksbund was only responsible for the fallen of the First World War. The Wehrmacht Information Office and the Wehrmacht Graves Service under the High Command of the Wehrmacht were responsible for the war dead of the Second World War. During the Nazi era, the number of members rose sharply: at the end of 1934, there were 151,110 members in 1,830 local groups, in 1936 there were 4,747 local groups with 295,000 members, and in 1943 there were 993,572 members. During the 1930s, the Volksbund profited from numerous major projects and built so-called death castles, for example on the St. Annaberg in Upper Silesia and for the approximately 4,000 German soldiers who fell in the Battles of the Piave in Quero, northern Italy. The Reich office was destroyed in an air raid on Berlin on 15th February 1944, the Volksbund was dissolved in 1945 and its re-establishment in the GDR was prohibited. In 1946, a provisional office was set up in Oldenburg, where Wilhelm Ahlhorn worked to rebuild the organisation. At the request of the Bavarian State Ministry of the Interior, the Volksbund was authorised in the US-American occupied zone on 4th September 1947, and the office was moved to Nienburg on the Weser in May 1948. An additional agreement to the Geneva Convention now guaranteed the permanent right of rest for the war dead. In May 1951, the headquarters were moved from Nienburg to Kassel. In the western occupied zones, the association was tasked with registering and maintaining war graves in Germany. In 1952, the 'Law on the Care of War Graves' was passed by the Bundestag. Since then, the Volksbund has been responsible for war graves abroad, and the federal states for war graves in Germany. Initially, activities were only possible in the western states. The Graves Act of 1965 provides in Section 1 Paragraph 2 No. 4 that graves of fallen soldiers of both world wars, victims of National Socialist violence and civilian bombing victims are now to be cared for. In 1956, there were almost 600,000 members. In 1958, the reburial service had 117 German and 150 foreign employees. From 1966, the Volksbund also looked after the war graves of the First World War and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 to 1871. In 2019, the total of 82,030 paying members were distributed among 81,046 in Germany and 884 abroad. There were a total of 208,103 paying donors in 2019. The number of members leaving/deaths exceeds the number of new members joining. On average, the association loses 9,000 members per year; since the mid-2000s, the number of members has fallen by around 40%. The average age of members is over 70 years. Source: Wikipedia Contact Brief History to inform us of additional information regarding this page

1st June 1939 1st June 1939 Research Jakob Sprenger Contact Brief History to inform us of additional information regarding this page

24th July 1939 Thüringer Hitler-Jugend 24th July 1939 Leistungs-Schau der Thüringer Hitler-Jugend See Fleurs & Papillons Contact Brief History to inform us of additional information regarding this page

22nd February 1939 JB:Auerbach (Erzgeb) 22nd February 1939 Bochmann Auerbach S245 Cover sent from Auerbach (Erzgeb) to an address in Grimma. Featuring stamp configuration S245 (Mi.677 and Mi,678), with staple holes to the edge piece indication it's from booklet 45 (Ostmark scenery and flowers), H-Pane 111. Complete with special cancellation JB:Auerbach (Erzgeb)1. Ref: 22.02.1939 AUERBACH (ERZGEB) cancellation as featured in the Bochmann catalogues (1952) Note: This is the only special cancellation of the 3rd Reich period. This design was used between 1937-1942, and once again from 1945 to 1949 JB:Auerbach (Erzbeg)1/49 - 'Strumpf-Auerbach'. Ref: 22.02.1939 Contact Brief History to inform us of additional information regarding this page

10th March 1939 JB: Hahnenklee 10th March 1939 Bochmann Hahnenklee See 10.03.1939 - 22/92 - JB:Hahnenklee3/340 Contact Brief History to inform us of additional information regarding this page

9th March 1939 JB: Stuttgart 9th March 1939 Bochmann Stuttgart JB: Stuttgart53/711 - See 07.08.1939 JB: Stuttgart64/712 - See 09.03.1939 JB: Stuttgart77/714 - See 29/5 JB: Stuttgart92/715 - See 35/15 JB:136/815 - See 03.05.1933 JB:269/828 - See 20.03.1939 Contact Brief History to inform us of additional information regarding this page

2nd August 1939 2nd August 1939 Wilhelm (Willy) Dörr (1882-1954) German Zeppelin pilot, researcher and designer at Potsdam during WW1. Dörr patented many inventions for lighter than air craft, including containers to hold and mix the hydrogen and helium gasses during flight. Dörr is quoted as saying, 'Count Zeppelin was a role model of German toughness; his luftschiff is an expression of German skills.' Contact Brief History to inform us of additional information regarding this page