14th March 1944 14th March 1944 1/1 Official correspondence from the Mayors Office in Waiblingen regarding the annual tax assessment. Featuring official 12 Pf postage stamp (most likely Mi.172). Ref: 14.03.1944

2nd August 1941 Wieda (Südharz) 2nd August 1941 Wieda (Südharz) 1/1 Postcard depicting an aerial view of Wieda (Südharz). Ref: 02.08.1941 Wieda (Südharz) Wieda is a village and a former municipality in the district of Göttingen, in Lower Saxony, Germany. Since 1 November 2016, it is part of the municipality Walkenried. Wieda is on River Wieda, a tributary of Zorge in the southern part of the Harz mountains. Source: Wikipedia WIEDA (BUCHENWALD, MITTELBAU, AND SACHSENHAUSEN) (SS- BB III). The SS- Baubrigade III was based in Wieda , a small village in the Harz Mountains, from May 1944 to April 1945. The location put it in the radius of the Mittelbau concentration camp complex then being established. Hans Kammler, head of Amtsgruppe C (Construction) in the SS- Business Administration Main Office (WVHA), was responsible for establishing this camp. After the sites for assembling the long- distance A4 (Aggregat 4) rocket (the later V-2) were bombed, Albert Speer, Adolf Hitler, and Heinrich Himmler decided in mid-August 1943 to push for the enlargement, 'with the heavy utilisation' of concentration camp prisoners, of an underground facility in the Harz Mountains. Himmler appointed Kammler to carry out the construction. The whole project was coordinated under the so- called Mittelwerk GmbH, established in September 1943. Kammler wanted to use the SS construction brigades to build a new rail line so the existing Osterhagen to Nordhausen line could be used exclusively for armaments industry transportation. The Mittelwerk GmbH entrusted management and construction of the rail line to the Deutsche Reichsbahn (German Railways), which in turn revived an older plan to build a 22- kilometer- long (13.7- mile- long) track (called the 'Helmetalbahn') south of the existing line and through the Helme valley. The Berlin company Tiefbau AG Julius Berger undertook the major excavation work. The construction of Helmetalbahn dominated the prisoners’ life until the end of the war. SS- Baubrigade III was assigned the westernmost of the three construction zones, the section from Osterhagen to Mackenrode. The administration for this section was in Mackenrode, and the SS- Baubrigade III established three subcamps along this part of the line: at Osterhagen, Nüxei, and Mackenrode. After the Cologne camp with its remaining 311 prisoners of the SS- BB III was dismantled, and the Wieda camp was set up, the brigade began its work on 16th May 1944. Then 700 prisoners from the Buchenwald concentration camp joined them on 7th June 1944. An empty club house of a marksmen’s association formed the center of the camp in Wieda . Around it were other buildings that served as the brigade’s administrative offices, a kitchen, a laundry, and an infirmary, and the grounds were fenced in and outfitted with watchtowers. On average, about 100 prisoners were housed here. Living conditions in this auxiliary camp generally were better than in the sub-camps, especially as Wieda had the central kitchen. In addition, inmates here did not have to do exhausting construction work but, instead, either remained in the camp, built barracks in Niedersachswerfen, worked for private persons, or were set to work in or by the communal administration. Brigade guards lived in barracks built for them close to the camp. Unlike in Cologne, where police and auxiliaries had been recruited, here the SS relied on Luftwaffe soldiers, in any case available because the Luftwaffe was having difficulties with its supply lines. They came under the command of the SS as of 1st September 1944. In January 1945, the SS- Baubrigade III guards included an SS leader, 42 SS noncommissioned officers, and 132 SS men. The integration of the Wieda camp into the system of camps centered on Mittelbau meant death loomed more sharply over the prisoners. A small infirmary was set up in Wieda for minor cases, while other cases were sent to the Buchenwald auxiliary camp Dora or, starting in May 1944, to the Ellrich- Juliushütte camp that became part of Mittelbau and after January 1945 to the Boelcke- Kaserne. After June 1944, all transports to and from the construction brigade went through Mittelbau, without exception. As of July 1944, the guard details came under the control of the 'SS- Standort Mittelbau'; and by October 1944, the construction brigades in the Harz came under the control of what had become the independent Mittelbau concentration camp. The transfer of control in January 1945 to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp was proforma. In the first few weeks, a surprisingly strong interaction developed between the Wieda camp and the surrounding community. Soldiers serving as guards played soccer with the prisoners on the sports field, and it is said that after the game they all marched singing through the village. One female villager reported: 'In the first weeks after the camp was set up, it was like the annual fair. After work, in the evenings, the prisoners sat in the cleared area in front of the marksmen’s tent, and some of them, especially the Gypsies, had instruments, mandolins or guitars, and made music. Many villagers, both young and old, stopped on the main street in front of the barbed- wire fence to listen in. This apparent lack of discipline in the camp resulted in the dismissal, in June 1944, of Karl Völkner as leader of the construction brigade. He had been in command since September 1942 and was now transferred to the Flossenbürg concentration camp. Until 20th July 1944, a certain SS- Oberscharführer Freys, who had been at the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, temporarily replaced him. SS- Obersturmführer Fritz Behrens replaced him in turn. Following Behrens’s appointment, conditions in the camp deteriorated, and prisoners were replaced. On 27th July 1944, groups of prisoners from SS- Baubrigade III were taken away to Dora from the sites where they were working. Two days later, around 1,000 new prisoners from Dora filled the four camps. With this ruthless replacement, relationships that had developed over the course of a year and a half between at least some of the prisoners were broken. Paul Rassinier, who learned about the SS- Baubrigade III while in the Dora infirmary, accurately remarked that 'in less than two months, Wieda became as hard and inhumane as Dora.' Behrens remained the leader of SS- Baubrigade III until just before the end of the war but was replaced in early April 1945 by SS- Untersturmführer Karl Merkle. Some 16 deaths are registered as having occurred up to the time the brigade came under the control of Mittelbau. During the summer, the living conditions deteriorated rapidly, so that by the end of August 1944, 300 prisoners incapable of working were taken away to the Ellrich- Juliushütte camp. The main reason for prisoner exhaustion lay in the heavy construction work demanded of them; the pace of work dictated by Kammler and the Armaments Ministry was also repeatedly increased. According to Georges Pieper, camp elder (Lagerältester) and Kapo in the construction brigade’s office and hence a good source, death rates increased markedly in the winter of 1944–1945: he recalls 74 prisoners dying between 30th December 1944, and 7th April 1945. In early 1945, the SS- Baubrigade III received Jewish prisoners for the first time: about 200 of them were transferred from Dora, though by the end of March they were transferred to the SS- Baubrigade IV. For the most part the railway line was double-tracked, and many bridges and sections were already finished when work had to stop at the end of March 1945 due to the advancing Allied forces. In a report prepared after the war by the building department of the Reichsbahn office in Kassel, the mass use of prisoners received only scant mention: 'In 1944/45, a new rail line for goods traffic from Osterhagen to Nordhausen was built to relieve the Northeim to Nordhausen line, length about thirty kilometers [18.6 miles.] . . . Several thousand men (prisoners and concentration camp inmates) worked on it. Work stopped at the end of the war due to the American advance.' On 5th April 1945, the prisoners from the Nüxei and Mackenrode subcamps were taken to Wieda , and the next day, so were the prisoners from the Osterhagen subcamp. On 7th April, 135 prisoners were marched, in a northwesterly direction, through the Harz Mountains. A train took those who were ill, numbering somewhat more than 300. On 9th April 1945, SS- Baubrigade III, now reassembled, left the Wernigerode railroad station in a single train: camp leader Merkle had by now disappeared. The train made it as far as Letzlingen, a village north of Magdeburg at about the same latitude as Berlin. About 900 prisoners were able to flee here during a bombing raid, though during the course of the day, 200 were recaptured and returned to the train by SS guards. The SS then forced these 200 on a march at whose end, on 24th April 1945, 50 prisoners remained to be liberated. Some in this group were able to escape en route, but most had collapsed dead by the wayside or had been shot. A second group of around 600 prisoners who had been recaptured near Letzlingen was marched in a southeasterly direction. Here, too, there were mass escapes and shootings, whereby civilians and men from the German Home Guard (Volkssturm) particularly distinguished themselves. Around 500 prisoners of this group were liberated near Burgstall on 14th April 1945. The ill, who remained behind on the train at Letzlingen, were probably the victims of the infamous massacre at Gardelegen. According to estimates by historian Joachim Neander, of the 1,135 prisoners who left Wieda , only about 700 lived long enough to experience liberation. Source: muse.jhu.edu ( The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945, Volume I) Contact Brief History to inform us of additional information regarding this page

10th January 1944 10th January 1944 1/1 Feldpost-Kartenbrief sent from Berlin to FPN 59732A (Stab u. Einheit Sturmgeschutz-Abteilung 301). With type written correspondence. Ref: 10.01.1944 Loose translation using DeepL I have just found your letter of 18.12.1943 among my correspondence - I do not know whether I have already answered it and sent you a Merry Christmas and best wishes for the new year, but if not, I return your greetings and wishes most sincerely, and if so, let us say that twice is better. Hopefully our mutual wishes will come true. -- Here in Berlin it looks terrible, I estimate that 60% of Berlin and the surrounding area is in ruins. On 29.12. * in the evening at about 19:30 I visited Curt, as I was on my way the sirens were wailing, I went to Curt at a gallop; there I had to go into the air-raid shelter. Soon the humming and bumming started and the bombs crashed down in front of and behind us to the left and right and when the flak guns fired, the whole building shook. I was worried about my home and when I stuck my nose out, the city and its surroundings were in a blaze of light. Now I hurried to my flat. The journey was not so easy, I had to walk over bricks that had fallen down, over partly... I had to climb over fallen bricks, over partly burning trees, branches and fences and... when I got to the street and saw that my home had been spared, I was happy and thanked God. -Since then we have had several large fires. Thank God I have still been spared. Hopefully... things will continue to go well. Curt is still here at the O.K.W. A fortnight ago he went on another tour to Italy, but I don't know where he is now - I haven't heard from him in about eight days. - Smoking material has not yet arrived. I am doing well according to today's conditions and am satisfied with my health, and I hope and wish the same for you, your uncle sends you his best regards. Goodbye! * 29/30 December 1943 712 aircraft - 457 Lancasters, 252 Halifaxes, 3 Mosquitoes. A long approach route from the south, passing south of the Ruhr and then within 20 miles of Leipzig, together with Mosquito diversions at Düsseldorf, Leipzig and Magdeburg, caused the German controller great difficulties and there were few fighters over Berlin. Bad weather on the outward route also kept down the number of German fighters finding the bomber stream. 20 aircraft - 11 Lancasters, 9 Halifaxes - were lost, 2.8% of the force. Berlin was again cloud-covered. The Bomber Command report claiming a concentrated attack on sky-markers is not confirmed by the local report. The heaviest bombing was in the southern and south-eastern districts but many bombs also fell to the east of the city. 388 houses and other mixed property were destroyed but no item of major interest is mentioned. 182 people were killed, more than 600 were injured and over 10,00 bombed out. M. Middlebrook and C. Everitt, The Bomber Command War Diaries (London, 1990), p.462

1st May 1944 Cartolina Postale 1st May 1944 Cartolina Postale 1/1 CARTOLINA POSTALE PER LE FORZE ARMATE. Highly authorised postcard sent from a soldier in the 1st Battalion, 503rd regiment, featuring various hand-stamps including, 'IL CAPO CENTRO DOCUMENTAIO (accompanied by a signature hand-stamp), 'Il Comandante della Compagni (Ten. Cuminetti Giacomo)', with manuscript signature beneath, and also a censor stamp to the correspondence. The left side panel gives warning to 'careless talk'. Ref: 01.05.1944 'Non riferite mai, a voce o per iscritto, notizie che riguardano il vostro servicio. Tacete con tutti; anche con i vostri cari!' (Never report, either verbally or in writing, news concerning your service. Keep silent with everyone; even with your loved ones!) More research required regarding the 503rd Regiment Contact Brief History to inform us of additional information regarding this page

16th June 1944 Stalag XIII-C 16th June 1944 Stalag XIII-C 1/2 POW (Internee) mail from an Italian soldier at Stalag XIII-C. Ref: 16.06.1944 Stalag XIII-C Contact Brief History to inform us of additional information regarding this page

3rd January 1944 3rd January 1944 1/0

Mi.866 - 868 (11.02.1944) Mi.866 - 868 (11.02.1944) 25th anniversary of German airmail service, 12 + 8pf - Mi.867 25th anniversary of German airmail service, 42 + 108pf - Mi.868 25th anniversary of German airmail service, 12 + 8pf - Mi.867 1/2 25th anniversary of German airmail service. Main image: Mi.866, gallery images: Mi.867 and Mi.868. All Ref: 17.03.1944 next stamp issue Cover featuring the three '25th anniversary of German airmail service' stamps (Mi.688 - 868). Ref: 17.03.1944

29th November 1944 Stalag Luft 1 29th November 1944 Stalag Luft 1 Screenshot 2021-11-27 at 09.29.50.png Screenshot 2021-11-27 at 09.29.50.png 1/1 Stalag Luft 1 Contact Brief History to inform us of additional information regarding this page

6th October 1944 B&M Labour Law 6th October 1944 B&M Labour Law Untitled.jpeg Untitled.jpeg 1/1 Official postcard sent from the labour office in Iglau requesting information be sent regarding the recipients work status (perforated reply portion has been returned). Ref: 06.10.1944 Translation from the German text On the basis of section 1 of the Reg. decree of 4 May 1942 on measures to direct the workforce (Coll. 154/42), you are requested to answer the questions on the attached postcard accurately and have them confirmed by your employer in order to complete the card index. The reply card must then be detached and returned to the Labour Office within 3 days of receipt. Incomplete or incorrect information or certificates as well as late return of the card will be penalised with fines or imprisonment. If you are unemployed, this must be noted and the reply card returned nonetheless. Contact Brief History to inform us of additional information regarding this page

5th April 1944 Landhandelsbund e.V. 5th April 1944 Landhandelsbund e.V. 1/1 Cover sent from Delmenhorst to Berlin, featuring vignettes for the 'DEUTSCHER LANDSHANDELS=BUND e.V.' (with slogan 'GEMEINNUTZ VOR EIGENNUTZ' - Public interest before self-interest). Ref: 05.04.1944 Detail of the vignette for the 'Deutscher Landhandelsbund e.V.' Note: There are variations of this design. Contact Brief History to inform us of additonal information regarding this page

8th October 1944 Estonia 8th October 1944 Estonia 08.10.1944 Estonian map reverse.jpeg 08.10.1944 Estonian map reverse.jpeg 1/1 Feldpost envelope sent from FPN 53600 (4th Air Division) - most likely posted from Poland. the envelope is made from a German language map featuring Haljala and Rakvere in Northern Estonia (it is to be noted that the 4th Air Division do not appear to have fought in Estonia). Ref: 08.10.1944 Envelope details Link to location in Northern Estonia Contact Brief History to inform us of additional information regarding this page

26th September 1944 Stalag XX-B 26th September 1944 Stalag XX-B 26.09.1944 Stalag XX-B reverse.jpeg 26.09.1944 Stalag XX-B reverse.jpeg 1/1 Kriegsgefangenenpost postcard sent from an Italian POW at Stalag XX-B to an address in Montescheno. At the time of writing the Stalag housed over 6,500 Italian soldiers. Ref: 26.09.1944 Stalag XX-B Contact Brief History to inform us of additional information regarding this page