In Part 2, I recounted how Hans Coutandin, in his letters to his girlfriend Eva Möller, wrote that he had been to Verdun in France for training, before travelling to Insterburg in East Prussia and then, in a railway cattle wagon, going on to Wilna in Poland where a “March” awaited them.
© John Tull 2025, Going Postal
In his letter of the 17th of September 1941, Hans wrote, “Finally I succeed, to you a few lines on the great March to write, so far we have 80 km of marching.” He continued, “What is required here, you cannot even imagine that. We are now on our way to Minsk. I am already looking forward to this city, where many deaths it would have cost. What the people are like here, I cannot even describe it to you. You can safely say that they are even worse hoods as us with gypsies. Most of them don’t even have shoes, they almost all walk barefoot.”
Minsk was then in the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic but today is in Belarus. By “many deaths it would have cost”, Hans is referring to the Battle of Białystok–Minsk which took place at the beginning of “Operation Barbarossa”, the invasion of Soviet Russia, where the Wehrmacht had around 12,000 and the Red Army around 341,000 soldiers killed in action.
“Here it is already different the weather, as with us. We can be happy that we did not have to in tents spend the night. Today we have a quiet day, which certainly now will do us very good. One can soon very much say, that today we have a holiday, because there is a pork roast today. Our Hauptfelder, bought a pig yesterday that will be eaten again tomorrow.”
A “Hauptfelder” was the “Hauptfeldwebel”, a rank equivalent to a Company Sergeant Major responsible for the welfare of the soldiers.
Hans concluded with, “Everything else is in perfect order, what I also for you hope. Will now close in the hope of a reunion soon” and added “Please write to me soon” after his name.
What then appears as a long gap in his writing to Eva is explained in his letter of the 9th of January 1942 after Hans had become a casualty of the fighting on the Eastern front. He wrote from the Reserve-Lazarett Lörrach or Reserve Military Hospital in Lörrach, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. This hospital had a capacity of 790 beds and belonged to the medical department of Donaueschingen.
Wehrmacht soldiers wore a steel helmet or Stahlhelm for protection from shrapnel but, as Hans found out, it did not protect against the direct impact of a bullet.
On the 9th of January 1942, Hans wrote, “I want to give you my new address now, that I promised you in the last letter, I have to manage writing in the hospital bed what I do not like to do, but there is no other way. Hope, that I will soon be able to answer your letter from bed. I received the last letter from you in France. Nevertheless please be so good and give me an answer immediately. Wounded on 15 December 1941 and was on 4 January 1942 in the military hospital here in Lörrach admitted. I had still too caught a cold, but it is over now. I feel like it now almost over is. I feel myself now quite well, if only the grazing shot had not wedged in. Otherwise I would not have complained. How long I will be here, I do not know yet, but I think about 14 days at least. Now I want to close and greetings to you very warmly”.
The construction of a Stahlhelm is similar to that of a modern builders’ hardhat with a rigid outer and a spaced off internal suspension system with a retaining headband and chin strap. From his description, it was probable that his helmet was pierced by a bullet which travelled between the steel outer and the leather inner grazing his head. The dissipation of the bullet’s kinetic energy causing Hans to be hospitalised with what may have been severe concussion.
In his next letter, of the 14th of January 1942, sent in a Polish Air Mail envelope, Hans wrote, “I have with great pleasure your dear letter today received. You cannot even imagine it, how happy I was. Above all I thank you from my heart. Now I would like to write to you, how I was wounded and what a wound I have. Already on 12.12.41 we got at night a visit from the Russians. Then on 14 to 15 December we got visitors all the time. And so I had on 15.12 at noon luck and got on a quarter before 2 o’clock a grazing shot on the left side of the head. Had in the first few days no pain, but in the last transport truck I received such pain and in addition to that splitting headaches, that I was the first in the hospital to be admitted. The Doctor here nags me, that I have had less than 4-6 weeks bedrest.”
It is probable that between September 1941 and January 1942, Eva had not received any letters sent by Hans, but that she had still regularly written to him. However in turn Hans did not receive any of her letters in the same period.
He continued, “Now I would like to conclude and for your writing thank you very much. I will be never be angry with you now, when I know now, that you wrote so diligently. I was just right, that I received none of it. I greet you my Evchen only very warmly”.
On the 25th of January 1942, Hans from his hospital bed wrote to Eva that, “Today I finally want to let you hear a little more from me. So far everything has improved for me. Above all the headache subsides, and that means a lot. I have for the time to lie in bed, which I do not enjoy too much. You will already be able to see in a letter. Evchen, would now have a request for you, and that would be, a picture of you, which I already had in September 1941 been promised. Please be so good and let us hear about it. What is it like with the cold. Here e.g. we had midweek 20 grad. Against Russia it is nothing, of which we had already had there in December 40 grad cold. Hope, that you have received the card and you were also very happy about it. Only I want to close and hope to see you soon. Many greetings to you.”
The “20 grad” temperature in Lörrach was 20 degrees below freezing but in Russia, where Hans presumably had been wounded, he had experienced 40 degrees below freezing of cold.
In Part 4, does Hans recover from his injury, will he return to a front line Field Battalion and does Eva send him a photograph of herself?
© John Tull 2025
