Uncle Wilhelm with his big brother Heini Perhaps this is the saddest picture I will ever put on my blog. It is a picture of Wilhelm saying goodbye to his brother before being sent to die in the war. He has just turned 19. He a few months older than my son John is right now. He disappeared in Russia in 1944. The picture is meant for his mom and sisters Lisa and Tini. I found it in my grandmother's things. Granny said Wilhelm loved and doted on Heini . When the war started he was only 14, a sweet and sensitive boy granny always said, who wouldn't harm anything, but by 1944 Hitler was on the defensive in the Soviet Union and so Wilhelm , like many other young German boys, was sent to die on the Russian Front. There are other pictures of him, but he looks a little too despondent in them in his uniform, slightly too large for him. He is wearing a sprig of Edelweiss on his left breast pocket (obscured in this picture). The Edelweiss he wore he must have sent to granny, because
Left wing commentary from the heart and the head