Letters to my German Soldier

In case you didn’t know, there is a museum here in Poplar Bluff. It has tales of us, our family and our history. I want to tell you some of those tales found within the museum walls.

As one of the directors, I was setting up a display in the veterans museum. I found a handful of letters in a soldiers’ uniform. I couldn’t read them because they were in German. There were also photographs enclosed. These were letters from home to a German soldier. An American took these letters and kept them all these years. My curiosity exploded. Who was this soldier? Was he killed? Was he captured? Did he go home? Does his family know what happened?

The first thing I did was to get the letters translated. It took several years to find someone. The letters were handwritten and not very legible. They were also written in old German, difficult for modern Germans to read. I finally met Eva Baucom. She was born in war-torn Berlin and emigrated to America in 1960. Her translation told the beginning of the soldiers’ story.

The German soldier was named Ernst Hoff. He was from the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia. There were many German families in that region. Hitler occupied it to liberate the German speaking population. He proceeded to draft all the young men into the German Army. Pvt. Hoff served in Poland and Russia. He met the American from Poplar Bluff in southern France.

The letters from home were from his parents and his wife Helene. They talked about farm news, such as the chickens and calves. They spoke of bombings and his brother Albert. Albert was in the Luftwaffe and they hadn’t heard from him in a long time.

I had seen where World War II veterans had returned relics to their former enemies and their families. I wanted to do the same with these letters. There still must be family in his small village of Chadov. I contacted the Czech embassy with no response and am unable to find anyone from that part of the world. I haven’t given up. Any help is appreciated.

The “Letters to a German Soldier” are on display, as well as a Pat Pratt’s Daily American Republic article in the Kanell Hall Veterans Museum, located in the Poplar Bluff Museum. The museum is handicap accessible and open every Sunday free of charge from 1-4 p.m. at 1010 Main St., Poplar Bluff (Formerly the Old Mark Twain School). Tell them Mike sent you!

Mike Shane is a veteran, Poplar Bluff resident and board member for the Poplar Bluff Museum.