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[Stijn David]

Hello,

Anyone who can decipher the Poland battle entry's ?

I can decipher so far:

01.09 bis 04.09.1939: K?mpfe ?m Graudenz

09.09 bis 10.09.1939: K?mpfe ?m ? ?????

12.09.1939: Czerwony-Bor

15.09 bis 18.09.1939: K?mpfe um Bialystok u. Ostw?rts

Based on the fact that he was assigned towards the I.R.3 at that time, the above battles are correct => seems that the troops had heavy losses already in Poland.

Losses for the I.R 3 during the poland campaign :

39 K.I.A.

112 Wounded

4 M.I.A.

I wonder iff his wound was also counted in these numbers ? , he was not entitled to receive the wound badge anyway for this one?

Cordial greetings,

[Stijn David]

Hello,

I have found the answers towards a few questions i still ahd on the entry's etc ...

@ Poland => the battle entry is : Nowogrod (the 21 ID was indeed active in that area)

I also could decipher the following signatures

A) first signature

R?bener Hans

Hauptmann

II./Grenadier-Regiment 407

He did win on 05.11.44 the Honour Roll clasp

Apparently during the time of sigining he was still a Oberleutnant.

B) Second signature

Heyer Karl

Stabsfeldwebel

13./Grenadier-Regiment 407

He did also win the honour roll clasp on the date of: 07.05.43

He did make it towards Leutnant at the end of the war.

Cordial greetings,

[Stijn David]

Hello,

1)

I have also found trace that confirms the following stated:

" That's interesting. Do you know how many children he had? I ask because I got the following story from a relative whose father was also in the Kurland army: Just before the surrender, a local commander in Kurland decided to let all those with three or more children board their last intact ship and sail across the Baltic sea to Holstein, where they surrendered to the British - and got home quite soon. "

The found info does state " Ein Anruf vom Gefechtsstand gab Befehl, dass etwa 15 bis 20 Mann des Bataillons (bew?hrte K?mpfer und Kinderreiche) per LKW nach grobin sollten, um von dort mit dem Flugzeug in die Heimat transportiert zu werden "

There should have left 35 Ju's to transport personel from Kurland towards Norway, about 3 did reach the destination in good order, all otehrs where shot down (nothing known iff there where survivors.)

So there is a slight possibility that he left Kurland through plane (however very small)

2) The second possibility is that he left kurland through boat, as about 140 German soldiers left from the port of Libau in the ship "Ziebens" towards Sweden. They managed to reach sweden on the date of 9 Mai 1945 with much luck.

Once landed they where placed as "Milit?rinternierte" for about 7 months. Then they where traded towards Russia and became also in Russian captivity.

So this is also not really a option, as he wa sonly evry short it seems in captivity.

Then we have a final possibility

3) It is also known that after the 8 may 1945 the majority of the troops where first placed in a POW camp, the after a few weeks the following Germans where released : persons from Luxemburg, Silesia, Elsass (France) , other area's. towards the Britisch zone.

So mayby he was amongst one of these ?

Anyway we will probably never know for certain, but it does give a nice aray of possibility's that are no invention but truth. So once in a while persons did get out of captivity for various reasons.

Cordial greetings + thanks for reading,