Posted on 02/05/2013 6:32:55 PM PST by DogByte6RER
1916: Badly spelt postcard from Hitler discovered
The father of the owner of the postcard was for many years Landrat (District Administrator) of Dingolfing in Bavaria and an avid stamp collector. On his 65th Birthday, the head of the District Savings Bank presented him with this memorable philatelic collector’s item. It is a field postcard written by Corporal Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) to his regimental comrade Karl Lanzhammer (1896-1918) on 19/12/1916 from Munich.
Karl Lanzhammer was a friend of Hitler’s from their time together on the Western Front, and a known correspondent of his. At this time he was a cyclist at regimental headquarters of the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment. In 1917 he went to flight school in Schleissheim, and died at a test flight accident on 15 March 1918 in Feldmoching. Lanzhammer was born in Dingolfing and was also buried there.
The postcard is likely to have come from his estate, among items given away by his parents. It came into the possession of the manager of the town’s Savings Bank, who later gave it away as a birthday present to the Landrat.
Hitler was wounded by shrapnel in October 1916 and was in the hospital at Beelitz near Berlin. In December 1916, when he wrote this postcard, he had just been discharged from hospital and was then stationed with the reserve battalion in Munich. He tells Lanzhammer, that he is now with the reserve battalion, is undergoing dental treatment and would as soon as possible voluntarily report back to the field. In fact, he went back in March 1917 at the request of his 16th Reserve infantry regiment as a news runner. In the brief text, Hitler reveals some spelling difficulties by writing the German word for immediately, ‘sofort’ with double f – ‘soffort’.
Transcription:
Feldpost
Post mark: München 31, 19. Dez. 16, V 8-9 a
Letter mark: K.B. 2. Inf. Rgt., Ers. Btl., 4. Ers. Komp.
Recipient:
Karl Lanzhammer
Radfahrer b. Rgt. Stab
VI Bayr. Res. I. Division
16 Bayr. Res. I. Rgt.
Rgt. Stab
Text:
Lieber Lanzhammer
Bin nun in München beim
Ersatz Btl. Stehe zur Zeit
in zahnärztlicher Be-
handlung. Melde mich
übrigens soffort freiwillig
ins Feld.
Hrzl. Grüße A. Hitler
TRANSLATION:
Dear Lanzhammer,
I am now in Munich at the Ersatz Btl. Currently I am under dental treatment. By the way I will report voluntarily for the field immediately.
Kind regards A. Hitler
Sender:
Abs. Gefr. Adolf Hitler
I. Ersatz Btl. II. I. Rgt.
IV Ersatzkomp.
München
Front of card: Gruss aus Nürnberg / Greetings from Nuremberg
Hmmmm ... it sounds like the little Hitler might have been schooled at a public funded government school, taught by incompetent unionized and socialist teachers no less.
That is a cool website..
The warning from history is that:
Hitler was a brave and decorated enlisted soldier of WWI.
Didn’t help him when he became leader of German.
And he had no compassion for the suffering of soldiers and civilian directly affected by his decisions.
Gettin' a little toasty down there yet?
Dad and mom are having a great time. Dad has Bud Wilkinson over to watch the games sometimes. Almost all of the men he served with are there with him now. The fishing's great, too. Enough sometimes that they have to pull up a second boat just to handle it all.
They don't talk about you though. They dealt with you when they were here. Now they're where they are, and you're... in the other place... and you're literally the furthest thing from their minds.
If he could correctly spell a word like zahnärztlicher, adding an extra f to sofort is likely more a function of his native Austrian dialect than any defect of education or grammar.
Would an Austrian spelling sofort this way in Germany be any more objectionable or mistaken than an Englishman spelling color "colour" in America?
Let's worry more about his evil ideas instead.
Hitler managed to get a reputation for bravery in WWI. A recent study suggested that a lot of that was fabricated—by Hitler himself.
Of course, he *was* Austrian... ;’) Thanks DogByte6RER.
Everybody know it. After all, he spoke Austrian.
Somehow I can't picture him saying, "Put another shrimp on the barbie."
Dingolfing...?
Isn’t that something Obama used to do back in his Barry Soetaro bachelor days?
Just as long as he didn’t say, “I’ll be back”.
This is proof that poor spelling is a precursor to mass murder and genocide.
I don’t think any of us who have butchered English on this forum are in any position to do spelling flames on Hitler.
Hitler was a brave and decorated enlisted soldier of WWI.
Didn’t help him when he became leader of German.
And he had no compassion for the suffering of soldiers and civilian directly affected by his decisions.
Are you trying to say that Chuck Hegel could be an honorable veteran without being well suited to shepherd the US military?
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