Feldgrau.net

Lorenz,
Many thanks!!

Dear Forum Members, A former student of mine brought in a bunch of her grandfather's WWII (U.S.) mementos, and included in the box they were in was a positively MINT condition German leather flying cap, complete with throat microphones, ear piece(s) plug in, et al. I'm guessing it was never worn, be...

Spent a very enjoyable Christmas Day with my old friend, former flak battery commander and Luftwaffe Hauptmann, Hans Wasner. For age 92 (93 in May '11) he's doing remarkably well! Made Christmas Dinner for him, his wife (age 90), and my mother (age 86), who lives at the same independent living compl...

Richard - Thank you for your reply. I was thinking same - a misrepresented "M" for OBWM as you stated, but I thought maybe there was something I was missing. When I examined the headstone I got on my hands & knees to really run my fingers over the letters to make sure I wasn't seeing o...

Today I attended the "Volkstrauertag" (National Day Of Mourning) ceremony at the Fort Custer, MI National Cemetery, where 26 German POWs from WWII are buried. On one of the headstones was the rank abbreviation "OBWN" that I'm sure stands for "Ober_someting." I've never ...

I was doing a Google search for something else and stumbled upon the obituary for LtGen Rall. Very sorry at his passing, but at least he led a vibrant and most productive life in his later years. I sure hope I'm as intellectually sharp as he was if I reach age 91!! I'm certainly not an expert, but h...

On July 15 I took my 91 year old friend, former Luftwaffe Hauptmann, Hans, on a one-hour B-17G flight courtesy of the Yankee Air Force in nearby Ypsilanti, MI. Hans was a flak battery commander in the vicinity of Schweinfurt during the first and second 8th Air Force raids against the ball bearing pl...

My good friend (age 90!), Hans Wasner, gave me these photos of his Luftwaffe service, including while he was a member of Fliegerscheinwerferabteilung 708 (part of Flakregiment 179) in Niederwerrn, near Schweinfurt 1943-44. For much of the time he was the Adjutant to the unit commander. You can see s...

Oberst Werner Moelders

What marvelous pictures that you posted. A very quick question, since you have the photo. Would you know what ever became of Hartmann's daughter? I assume she's living in Germany, and would be in her early 50s. His wife died not long after he did in the early 90s, so I was curious about their daught...

I quote the following article from the 11 Jan 08 issue of The Navy Times. Kind of interesting. I would have thought that by this day in age, such larges pieces of armor would have been long consigned to a museum or scrap. "A Bulgarian army officer has been arrested after he allegedly tried to s...

When I was in high school, 1970 I believe, I remember reading a book called "The Devils Brigade" (I believe that was the title) about an SS Battalion in Austria at the end of the war. They surrendered to the French and were basically given a choice - join the French Foreign Legion for serv...

I'd no idea what "log in" was in German, so just blurted out: Mein Nummer ist kaputt! :D Ironically, the German word for "log in" is the separable prefix verb "einloggen" as I learned on a recent trip there. I guess the amount of English influence on the language, mere...

Revellations: Hans and I have discussed his career in bits and pieces, but I've never asked him for a chronology of where he was and what he did in one sitting. I plan on doing just that, and video taping the session with him, so that I have a written and A/V record of his life. We usually get sidet...

Attached are a couple of pictures of my friend, Hans, who turned 89 this past May. In the one he and I are celebrating his remarriage to his original spouse from 1938, this time in 2007!! Hans was a Luftwaffe Hauptmann, adjutant to a Flak Battalion commander in Flak Regiment 7. He was imprisoned at ...