deathnotice : "he did not suffer"

[Sven Janke]

i was wondering if there are any studies concerning the cause of death, which was told the family in the official deathnotice by the company.

most of the ones i saw sofar wrote something like

"he did not suffer, he was killed by a headshot".

i can imagine that the commanders lied in order to help the family to cope with the sad message.
maybe there was something like a wehrmacht regulation/ handbook for that, because the ones i saw were written quite alike.

many thanks for your valuable comments.

[Don D.]

I'm sure it continues to this day.

[HouweTrouwe]

i was wondering if there are any studies concerning the cause of death, which was told the family in the official deathnotice by the company.

most of the ones i saw sofar wrote something like

"he did not suffer, he was killed by a headshot".

i can imagine that the commanders lied in order to help the family to cope with the sad message.
maybe there was something like a wehrmacht regulation/ handbook for that, because the ones i saw were written quite alike.

many thanks for your valuable comments.

Which parent or family member wants to hear that their son or family members suffered or screamed all night from the pain and died because no one could reach or help him, starved to death or that he or she was stabbed to death or can't be found any more due an artillery grenade killed him. If the family ever found out how he died it was most probably due a company friend or so told them. It is more noble and better for the pain of the loss and healing process to tell that he didn't suffer or be honest (without going in detail) that he was killed due ... and don't mention anything about suffering.

[feldpost 58]

Hi,

I have several letters from officers to next of kin concerning the death of their relatives in the German Army during the war years.
All are very similar in form, most stating "died instantly from a shot to the head" or "Shot through the heart whilst reloading a machine gun" etc.
One states "He was killed instantly after being hit by an artillery shell, we could not recover his body".
No one wants to write to a relative informing them that their loved one died a slow painful death - why distress the relatives even more by telling the truth? Most also state that "He died a hero for Fuhrer, volk and Fatherland", that the deceased "was the best man in the company" or something of a similar nature.
I would imagine the people writing these letters had a basic formula to try to ease the pain of loss to relatives, and these letters would be written again and again on a regular basis becoming somthing of a routine chore.

Best wishes,

John.

[Sven Janke]

gentlemen,

thank you very much for your valuable comments - i guess you were right, why make parents suffering by some brutal facts?

does anyone know if there was something like a regulation/ paper which said how to formulate these letters?

there are all quite alike as if there was something like a common source.

greetings

sven

[Tora_Tora_Tora!]

I have a letter, coming with a wehrpass, which describes how instead the poor soldier died , after an heavy suffering,having received a grenade fragment in his belly....

[Jean-Loup]

I have about 10 to 15 KIA letters from my area, for which I was often able to cross check the cause of death with local civilians in the town where the guy died, and I found all the letters to be either truthful, either uninformative (simply saying 'he died', with no specifics).

I didnt find any evidence of any false causes of death. In my letters there are shrapnel and gunshot wounds to the thigh, a direct hit by a shell (confirmed as I found that soldier's body myself), a man blown to pieces by a mine (confirmed by locals), wounded who survived but died in the folliwing hours, etc.

I am sure false causes were invented, but only in particularly horrible cases. I am not sure inventing false causes was very smart, as chances were the truth would come out from comerades writting home, or from official sources such as the Deutsche Dienststelle.

I made a similar thread in the US forum about this tpic: http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...hlight=alcohol

[panzer1432]

kia

I'm sure it continues to this day.

Yes, why make a difficult situation worse. Most letters I have seen from any war were the same. Head shot, no suffering, sniper.

M

[Jean-Loup]

I also forgot to mention that statisticaly, about 30% of WWII KIA were killed by head wouns, so head shots and head wounds would not be uncommon at all even if the letter is truthfull.