Translating a WW2 German POW letter home

[LeadFarmer]

Is there anyone here who can translate a German letter please?

Where I live there used to be a WW2 POW camp, and I have acquired a letter written by a German prisoner in the camp, presumable to family back home.

Is there anyone here who can translate the letter as I'd love to know what is says, and if the home address still exists...

[Eric Mc]

I think being able to make out the actual words is the first hurdle to be overcome.

[Evoluzione]

^ Nail on head.
Or to be less subtle, you don't ask much do you?
If you deciphered the letters and words then you could actually put it into a translator yourself.

[LeadFarmer]

Evoluzione said:

If you deciphered the letters and words then you could actually put it into a translator yourself.

Thats part of the problem, I can't.


If you click on the photo, then click again it magnifies it, not sure if these screen shots show it..

[BrabusMog]

LeadFarmer said:

If you click on the photo, then click again it magnifies it, not sure if these screen shots show it..

It’s pretty poor handwriting, like most Germans, unfortunately. But a professional would be able to spend the time translating that for not too much cash. I could read the first couple of sentences but then gave up.

[LeadFarmer]

No doubt the ink has faded over the last 75yrs too

[BrabusMog]

German handwriting is terrible in my experience. I can speak German and a few other languages but German handwriting is the only one I have to properly concentrate to read

Best of luck with the translation

[Evoluzione]

LeadFarmer said:

Evoluzione said:

If you deciphered the letters and words then you could actually put it into a translator yourself.

Thats part of the problem, I can't.


If you click on the photo, then click again it magnifies it, not sure if these screen shots show it..

You can, as well as anyone else can as they use the same letters we do Well ok, apart from that double S thing which looks like a B.
I do have some empathy as it's a purchase and reading it could be potentially interesting, but the first part of deciphering it is actually reading the letters and words.

[h0b0]

From the first image…



This was from manipulating the image to try and highlight the text then running through google translate.


The first time through it picked up next to nothing, but with some tweaking the algorithm was fairly confident it got most of the words but couldn’t translate.

Try doing the same for the other images and you may be able to piece together the message to Otto.I did the above on my phone with native iPhone editing tools and google translate app. Good luck!

[CouncilFerrari]

I put the address into googlemaps; Rendsburger Str. 13, Neumunster seems to point - roughly - to the old building in this picture, the one with the date annotation of 1904 or at least vaguely in that direction. Googlemaps can throw the odd curveball. It's in the town of Neumunster, north of Hamburg which was indeed in the British Zone of occupation (green bit in the map).





Have a look here;

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Rendsburger+St...

Good luck with deciphering the handwriting though, what a mission that will be. Fascinating piece of history if you do manage to translate it. Good luck

[h0b0]

Oh, and the hand writing is terrible

[CouncilFerrari]

h0b0 said:

Oh, and the hand writing is terrible

Properly terrible! I was confused by the first word, but I think it's Liebe Otto, or Dear Otto in English.

[paul.deitch]

I have a German lady who is not expensive that can accurately transliterate old German script back to the 1700s. She has helped with 4 war diaries and countless postcards from Ww 1 and 2. So PM. me if you want her details.

[Eric Mc]

Hmm - a cheap German lady. Any chance of letting us have some contact details?

[LeadFarmer]

CouncilFerrari said:

I put the address into googlemaps; Rendsburger Str. 13, Neumunster seems to point - roughly - to the old building in this picture, the one with the date annotation of 1904 or at least vaguely in that direction. Googlemaps can throw the odd curveball. It's in the town of Neumunster, north of Hamburg which was indeed in the British Zone of occupation (green bit in the map).





Have a look here;

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Rendsburger+St...

Good luck with deciphering the handwriting though, what a mission that will be. Fascinating piece of history if you do manage to translate it. Good luck

Thanks for finding that out, nice to know that the address is still there.

[paul.deitch]

Eric Mc said:

Hmm - a cheap German lady. Any chance of letting us have some contact details?

Like I previously wrote, PM me for details.

[paul.deitch]

BTW I just looked at the text and if you turn up the contrast then that letter is quite easy to read but I don't have the time to translate it. Sorry. Any German could read that for you as it is post Suetterlin "modern" German script.