In Part 1, I described how in late 1943 and early 1944, Hildegard Uhl had written to her friend Eva Möller, the recipient of Feldpost from the Afrika Korps soldier Hans Coutandin of “Desert Mystery: Letters from a Feldgrau”.
Hildegard Uhl was a RAD Arbeitsmaid whose role was as a telephone operator for a Luftwaffe regiment operating radar units as part of a chain to give early warning of incoming Allied air raids on the Frankfurt-am-Main industrial areas.
On the 14th of March 1943, Hildegard wrote to Eva: “My dear Evchen! Very pleased was I, when I just your dear lines of 9.3, with the greetings of Erika and Annelise, received. That I you three both thumbs up for the exam keep, is quite itself understandable. This morning I of the three of you spoke, and said, that you probably tomorrow in the exam will enter. Just it is 13:00, and there you have probably one part of it behind you. Well, I am on your report of the same curious. It goes certainly exactly the same again as, that with the Abitur. When all over is, you say, it was though half so bad.”
Eva Möller was training as a primary school teacher, as were Erika and Annelise, and the exam would have been their first year teaching examination. The “Abitur” was the German school-leaving examination.
“Yes, and what will to you at Easter happen? Must you now be in the RAD, or can you right away with the teaching begin? I am curious. – Since Saturday have we now finally clarity moreover, how it is with our dismissal, resp. further commitment will be. Evchen, imagine, on 31st March we are from the RAD dismissed, and shall from 1st April be of the Luftwaffe, i.e. we are then Nachrichtenhelferinnen. How happy we about this solution are, can you at all not imagine. Surely you are wondering, that I am about it so happy. But this joy can only be explained, because I have the RAD, and all the chicanery on part of the Führerinnen so thoroughly have seen.”
Hildegard was to be formally transferred from the RAD to the Luftwaffe as an “Luftnachrichtenhelferin” (literally an “Air News Assistant” but meaning an Intelligence or Signals Assistant) to be under the military discipline of the Luftwaffe instead of staying as a civilian auxiliary as an “Arbeitsmaid”. The “Führerinnen” were the female RAD Officers of her unit.
She continues: “We then get 8 days leave for our civilian things to fetch. In four watches must we then finally the uniform pull off. When I about it think, I could insane be with joy. Finally again a free person! Yes, and in terms of leave we have with the Nachrichtenhelferinnen also much better. Every half year 16 days of recreation leave, every eight weeks 4 days of short leave, and then Saturday/Sunday leave. I do not feel like after the duration of the war being a Nachrichtenhelferinnen. For these reasons I asked my father to after all an application to submit to the Luftwaffe, that I would to study be released.
I have very high hopes, that it works, because Philology is preferred. But should my application not go through, it will not hit me so hard for a long time, if I not after come home, when it would just a few weeks ago have hit me. The main thing is that I am first of all about the “stubborn” RAD happy. Our Leaders still do not believe in our takeover by the Luftwaffe. They hope, that the RAD still a big stroke might put through the matter. Herein should they have been my opinion only very much mistaken, because the Wehrmacht has though definitely more to say, than the RAD.”
Hildegard naively assuming that post-war Germany would still have an unchanged Luftwaffe and she might have to continue to be a “Luftnachrichtenhelferin” rather than be a student of Philology, the study of language in oral and written historical sources.
“The past Sunday I had Standorturlaub, and went home…so could I my parents immediately the big news tell. Also they are happy, that I am then of RAD free. Sunday in eight days, on 26th March, I have a whole day free. And that is when I thought, that it would be nice, if you me here again would visit. What do you think of that? You will have passed the exam behind you and thus again more time. Gladly I would like to you at home visit. This is possible unfortunately not, that I am on the 26th not allowed to take the train ride, but only here to Gernsheim have location leave.
You could then by the train come, which around 14:00 is here…you could also in the morning come, since I the whole day have free. We would then in Gernsheim together go eat. Also, dear Evchen, think about it please. Erika I want to a few lines write, and perhaps can she arrange it, and with you together travel to here. That would be great. Please give right away message, since the Post quite long takes. You come to phone me too. In the time from 17:00 on, can you me always reach. The telephone number: Gernsheim 74.”
“Standorturlaub” (location leave) meant time off but without going away from where her unit was located. On the nights of the 18th and 22nd March 1944, Frankfurt-am-Main was attacked by the RAF “thousand bomber raids” that destroyed most of Frankfurt’s “old town” centre and left around 180,000 people homeless. It is therefore perhaps unlikely that Hildegard had her leave or got to see Eva and Erika.
The last letter from Hildegard in my collection of FeldPost is a birthday card sent in an envelope to Eva.
© John Tull 2026, Going Postal
Written on the 16th of March 1944, on the back of the card she wrote “My dear Evchen! Receive my warmest happiness and blessings on your birthday. May the new year of life, new sun and much joy ring. This is what she wishes with all her heart, Your Hildegard.”
The home of Hildegard Uhl, Gernsheim, had remained relatively unscathed until on the 25th to 26th March 1945, when it was severely damaged by American artillery shelling and low-level fighter-bomber attacks during the Allied advance across the Rhine. At the same time Walldorf-Erbenheim, home of Eva Möller, was also captured by the Americans who had particular interest in the capture of the nearby Luftwaffe airfield.
Did Hildegard, Eva, Erika and Annelise survive the war? That, so far, remains a mystery for future research…
© John Tull 2026
