In my last Soldbuch thread of this year, I'll show you the Soldbuch of Max Weingärtner and tell his sad story which I puzzled back together from his letters and official documents that were also included in this grouping.
Max Weingärtner born in Lövö in Hungary in 1925 lived with his mutter and stepfather in Linz (Austria).
In August 1943, when he was 17 1/2 he dropped out of school, were was studying to become an electro mechanic and joined the Luftwaffe with the desire to become a pilot.
Before he was allowed to attend pilot school, he got basic infantry training with 13/Fl Rgt 53, in October 1943 he is transferred to Fl Rgt 93 and once again in February, then he ends up in 4/Flieger Regiment 71 which was based in Southern France and in May '44 he finally is allowed to attend pilot school and is sent to Flugzeugführerschule A'41 in Frankfurt am Oder.
All goes well and after 21 training flights he is allowed to fly the Bü181 training plane on his own but then disaster strikes in the last week of July 1944, (all this is according to his letter to his mother) their is something wrong with the tires of his plane and when he tries to land, he crashes the airplane; the crash isn't entirely his fault and he isn't kicked out of pilot training but he will have to wait half a year until he can rejoin the next class.
Not interested in waiting another six months, he volunteers for paratrooper service.
(My personal feeling is that he has fallen in the hands of a Fj recruiter.)
In the letter to his mother he writes that it now, in these desperate times, it is his duty to do something else besides waiting in a barrack camp, he also wants to avoid confronting his father who had told him that he would most likely fail at pilot school just like he failed in all other educations he followed.
What also is interesting in this letter is that he mentions that he now because he has volunteered for Fj duty will soon be promoted to NCO candidate; nothing in his Soldbuch can confirm that he was ever promoted to a NCO candidate rank, no doubt some idle promise a recruiter made him to convince him in signing a contract for Fj service.
At the end of August '44 he is medically checked and approved for Fj service and the next week he is sent to the Fj training facility in Halberstadt.
His Fj training is very short, after only three weeks and not even attending jump school, he is transferred to his active unit 3/FJR15 of the 5th Fj Division, which was then refitting in The Hague (Holland).
On October 1 1944 he is promoted to Gefreiter and his wish to do something for the cause will soon be granted, his division is one of the units that will participate in Hitler's last "all or nothing" offensive.
Initially all goes well, they break through the American frontline in Luxemburg and capture a lot of US army supplies, this we can also read in his letter he sent to his mother on January 1 1945, he mentions that they now have huge amounts of American chocolate and cigarettes and that they are actually living of US Army rations.
But their initial success is only short lived, their advance is not only halted, they are in the middle of the advance route of Patton's III Army counter attack to relieve the troops besieged in Bastogne.
The pressure on the line held by the 5FJD is enormous, the weather has cleared up and they are under constant air attacks now and also the 4th Armoured Division in pushing on.
On Christmas day FJR15 retreats from Warnach to Hollange, also on this day (according to his letter) he get slightly wounded by splinters from an American mortar projectile.
A few days later FJR15 has to retreat once again, they leave their positions in Sainlez & Livarchamps and fall back to Harlange.
It is here that he writes his last letter to his parents, a letter he has given to a comrade that is going back to Germany (a wounded friend that is evacuated out of the frontline?).
Now his story becomes a bit of a mystery which I'll try to solve as best as possible.
After this letter, that is mailed to them on January 8 1945, the next news his parents will get is the small letter from his company of February 26 1945, in the letter is also his award document for the EKII which he earned in the battle of the bulge, the company administration also informs his parents that he is MIA but that they are pretty sure that he is still alive but in allied hands.
His parents wait in vain for the "I have been taken POW" postcard from the Red Cross.
According to a letter of the Austrian Red Cross of July 1947 he is still regarded as being MIA but they also strongly presume that he is dead.
It is only in late February 1948 that the German war graves registration commission find his grave, he died on January 12 1945 and is buried on the local cemetery of Hamm (Germany, there are two towns with the same name, one near Bonn and another near Dusseldorf).
Later when the German war cemetery in Sandweiler (Luxemburg) is opened, his remains will be reburied there.
What did happen to him between January 1 and January 12 1945?
I have no material evidence but this is what I think happened:
He probably got indeed lost from his unit but didn't fall in American hands, he was most likely seriously wounded and picked up by another unit, which evacuated him back to Germany.
He finally ended up being buried in a marked grave in the cemetery of Hamm, perhaps he died on his way to a field hospital there or passed away in the hospital itself, we will never know but nevertheless what happened, the council in Hamm didn't contact his parents probably they presumed the army would have done this and Max Weingartner stayed MIA until 1948.
Max Weingärtner born in Lövö in Hungary in 1925 lived with his mutter and stepfather in Linz (Austria).
In August 1943, when he was 17 1/2 he dropped out of school, were was studying to become an electro mechanic and joined the Luftwaffe with the desire to become a pilot.
Before he was allowed to attend pilot school, he got basic infantry training with 13/Fl Rgt 53, in October 1943 he is transferred to Fl Rgt 93 and once again in February, then he ends up in 4/Flieger Regiment 71 which was based in Southern France and in May '44 he finally is allowed to attend pilot school and is sent to Flugzeugführerschule A'41 in Frankfurt am Oder.
All goes well and after 21 training flights he is allowed to fly the Bü181 training plane on his own but then disaster strikes in the last week of July 1944, (all this is according to his letter to his mother) their is something wrong with the tires of his plane and when he tries to land, he crashes the airplane; the crash isn't entirely his fault and he isn't kicked out of pilot training but he will have to wait half a year until he can rejoin the next class.
Not interested in waiting another six months, he volunteers for paratrooper service.
(My personal feeling is that he has fallen in the hands of a Fj recruiter.)
In the letter to his mother he writes that it now, in these desperate times, it is his duty to do something else besides waiting in a barrack camp, he also wants to avoid confronting his father who had told him that he would most likely fail at pilot school just like he failed in all other educations he followed.
What also is interesting in this letter is that he mentions that he now because he has volunteered for Fj duty will soon be promoted to NCO candidate; nothing in his Soldbuch can confirm that he was ever promoted to a NCO candidate rank, no doubt some idle promise a recruiter made him to convince him in signing a contract for Fj service.
At the end of August '44 he is medically checked and approved for Fj service and the next week he is sent to the Fj training facility in Halberstadt.
His Fj training is very short, after only three weeks and not even attending jump school, he is transferred to his active unit 3/FJR15 of the 5th Fj Division, which was then refitting in The Hague (Holland).
On October 1 1944 he is promoted to Gefreiter and his wish to do something for the cause will soon be granted, his division is one of the units that will participate in Hitler's last "all or nothing" offensive.
Initially all goes well, they break through the American frontline in Luxemburg and capture a lot of US army supplies, this we can also read in his letter he sent to his mother on January 1 1945, he mentions that they now have huge amounts of American chocolate and cigarettes and that they are actually living of US Army rations.
But their initial success is only short lived, their advance is not only halted, they are in the middle of the advance route of Patton's III Army counter attack to relieve the troops besieged in Bastogne.
The pressure on the line held by the 5FJD is enormous, the weather has cleared up and they are under constant air attacks now and also the 4th Armoured Division in pushing on.
On Christmas day FJR15 retreats from Warnach to Hollange, also on this day (according to his letter) he get slightly wounded by splinters from an American mortar projectile.
A few days later FJR15 has to retreat once again, they leave their positions in Sainlez & Livarchamps and fall back to Harlange.
It is here that he writes his last letter to his parents, a letter he has given to a comrade that is going back to Germany (a wounded friend that is evacuated out of the frontline?).
Now his story becomes a bit of a mystery which I'll try to solve as best as possible.
After this letter, that is mailed to them on January 8 1945, the next news his parents will get is the small letter from his company of February 26 1945, in the letter is also his award document for the EKII which he earned in the battle of the bulge, the company administration also informs his parents that he is MIA but that they are pretty sure that he is still alive but in allied hands.
His parents wait in vain for the "I have been taken POW" postcard from the Red Cross.
According to a letter of the Austrian Red Cross of July 1947 he is still regarded as being MIA but they also strongly presume that he is dead.
It is only in late February 1948 that the German war graves registration commission find his grave, he died on January 12 1945 and is buried on the local cemetery of Hamm (Germany, there are two towns with the same name, one near Bonn and another near Dusseldorf).
Later when the German war cemetery in Sandweiler (Luxemburg) is opened, his remains will be reburied there.
What did happen to him between January 1 and January 12 1945?
I have no material evidence but this is what I think happened:
He probably got indeed lost from his unit but didn't fall in American hands, he was most likely seriously wounded and picked up by another unit, which evacuated him back to Germany.
He finally ended up being buried in a marked grave in the cemetery of Hamm, perhaps he died on his way to a field hospital there or passed away in the hospital itself, we will never know but nevertheless what happened, the council in Hamm didn't contact his parents probably they presumed the army would have done this and Max Weingartner stayed MIA until 1948.