Letter From German Soldier Paul - 1945

Paul W. wrote this letter to his wife and daughter to reply to the letter that he received from them and to update them on his current situation. Paul was a soldier stationed in Danzig, which was a city on the coast of Poland, and he described the horrible and “inhuman” conditions that he was under there stating that food was scarce, disease was rampant, and that moral was extremely low between the German soldiers. He explained that every German soldier there had become “brutally selfish” looking out for only themselves, but he claimed to be different because he had helped three of his fellow wounded soldiers get medical help. He doesn’t explain his situation any further, not wanting to scare his wife more, and instead he ends his letter by asking about how they and the rest of his family are doing.  

Through this letter we can see that German soldier's moral has really plummeted around this period and even though they're still fighting it’s obvious to at least a reader that the war is over at this point. Every German soldier was tired of the war by now and the fuel in them that had led them to join the war was running out after taking so many losses. The unit that Paul was in had been being pushed back for a while and Paul wanted to evacuate Danzig as it was going to fall soon but Hitler was known for never letting his soldiers surrender and he ordered Paul's unit to stand their ground and to fight till the end. Paul’s letter also showed how the Nazi party was starting the lose support from the German soldiers as many soldiers were cursing this war that they blamed the party for. Paul showed this by cursing the war and Hitler at the end of his letter and he did this discreetly by implying that he was insulting Hitler by just writing six lines as a way to protect his family from any possible retaliation from the Nazi party (Paul 1945).