Okay well I should mindaswell post the rest of the information w/ the photographs.
I started researching this man, Wilhelm, about half a year ago when I visited his grandson in Atlanta, Georgia. His grandson, Jurgen Buder, knew nothing about his grandfather except for a few basic things like "He was a pionier" and "He was at Stalingrad". Thats all he really knew. He had several photographs which his grandmother gave him when he'd travel to Weinsberg, Germany to visit her. She kept two albums, and these stray photos were from one that is lost. Sadly, when she died, her granddaughter sold absolutely everything affiliated with Wilhelm, including photographs, albums, etc. There is really no hope in finding those, but I will be contacting her soon to ask her a few questions. The photos I have are the ones my friend Jurgen gave me and the scans from his grandmother's family photoalbum. I beleive every infantry photo in the album as well as the RAD photos were of Wilhelm's brother whom was in the 46. Infanterie-Division. Unfortunately I do not know his name. My friend Jurgen told me some things that he remembers his grandmother telling him about her husband. Most of the things were from letters. In one he said "We can see the lights of Stalingrad now, but we'll never take the city". In another, he described in detail what seemed to be the naval evacuation at the Khersonnes Peninusla in mid-1944. He wrote in the letter that men were holding onto the railings of ships as they were being evacuated, and that he didn't go because he was a pionier, and the pioniere were the first ones in and the last ones out according to him. He said that he could have gotten out, but he didn't because it was hopeless. I suppose he was able to get the letter to his wife by giving it to a friend or someone that would mail it via Feldpost if they were able to safely land in Romania. In another letter he said that they were doing something with railroad tracks...I'm not completely sure. They were either patrolling them or working on them. Anyways, it was so cold, that if you touched the metal you're skin would stick to it, and you couldn't get it off. So when they listened to the tracks for Soviet trains, some men would get their ears stuck to the metal - and it wouldn't come off. They would either have to tear their ear off, or be run over by the train. Unfortunately both gruesome events occured. If I'm correct, I beleive that Wilhelm Dertinger was in the 50. Infanterie-Division, Pionier-Bataillon 71, 2. Kompanie. The reason for me thinking it is the 2. Kompanie is because in the closeup photo of him as an Unteroffizier he has these straps on the edges of his shoulderstraps which by my knowledge are supposed to resemble Kompanie. If it is red, which it looks compared to the cockade on his Feldmutze, then it is supposed to symbolize 2. Kompanie just like the color coding on the troddles of dress bayonets. The other information I know about him is that he died in a Gulag in the early 50's, and it was a VERY gruesome death. The only reason that I have record of it is because his friend survived and was released. So...here is how it goes: Wilhelm caught yellow fever, and he was very weak. The NKVD guards kept trying to steal his wedding ring, but he was able to hide it from them. Eventually he was forced to give it to his friend for safekeeping. When the guards presumed Wilhelm to be dead, which he wasn't, they stuck meathooks into him and dragged him to a massgrave. He was too weak to even scream. They then buried him in an unmarked mass grave, and it is highly possible that he could have been buried allive. His friend survived the Gulag and on Wilhelm's request, came to Wilhelm's wife's home in Weinsberg where he gave her her husbands wedding ring and told her the whole story.
I beleive that Wilhelm's Gulag was in or nearby Melitipol. I once read somewhere that prisoners taken nearby Sevestapol (Nearby the Khersonnes Peninsula) were sent there. I also beleive he was mining in the Gulag.
*All the photos that are not of Wilhelm I beleive Wilhelm took. He was a photographer and an architecht. He worked on Kilian's Church in Heilbronn with sandstone sculpting. Unfortunately, there is no record of any of the restorers in the Heilbronn archives.
(I apologize, for all these photos are mismatched from a family photoalbum. So you may see a photograph of him in his later career, and then one of him in the HJ...I hope you will understand)
1. Wilhelm's brother-in-law
2. The top left photo is of Wilhelm's pionier squad.
3. Wilhelm is the one in the right photo, in the top in the background with his hand on his neck, and is also in the bottom train photo on the far right.
4. The upper right photo is Wilhelm's wife's home of Weinsberg. Wilhelm is in the bottom right photo on the right.
5. Above is a prewar photo of Wilhelm's pionier squad. You see them in many photos.
6. The top photos are of Wilhelm's wife and daughter, and the bottom photo are of some pioniere.
7. Wilhelm's brother-in-law
8. Wilhelm as an Unteroffizier in Crimea
9. Wilhelm's pionier squad again in Crimea. I'm not sure exactly where this was taken, but it looks like a parade of somesort. If you look closesly you can see the same men in other photographs.
10. A member of Wilhelm's squad at a gravesite in Crimea. Some people mentioned this looked somewhat like an area around Sevestapol. I beleive the ruins in the background were from the Crimean War.
11. Wilhelm's Hitlerjugend group. This photo was taken on 14. August 1933. Wilhelm is in the first row, second from the left.
12. Here is a pionier standing in front of an anti-tank ditch. Some people commented that this looked like the outskirts of Sevestapol.
13. This is a postcard that Wilhelm sent to his wife (not as a letter)
14. This is some pre/early war platoon. I can't tell if it is the 46. ID or the 50. ID. The back is stamped "Agfa Bravira". Is there a way to tell where it was taken with that?
15. Here are two photographs that belonged to Wilhelm's brother of the 46. Infanterie-Division. The back of one of them says "Zur Erinnerung an den Einmarsch am 5. August 1940 in Karlsbad". This was the 46. ID's parade out of Karlsbad Czechoslavkia. In the front of the first one on the horse is Karl Kriebel, whom was the second commander of the division.
16. Another photo of Wilhelm's HJ group
17. Wilhelm sometime 1941+. This photo was developed in Erlangen and is stamped "Agfa Lupex". The photo at the bottom left of the second scan was taken in the same place this was. He is holding his rifle and his gasmask.
18. MG34. This was taken in Crimea and looks like it has been firing (casing on the ground).
-B
