A Letter from the Trenches

---STORY---

On the evening of September 10, 1940, Sergeant Bernd Köhler, a twenty-eight-year-old native of Volksheim in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, was happily chatting with his comrades in the trench where he was stationed in Alsace, France, while drinking when they caught wind of an approaching French troop. The Germans quickly prepared to fight the incoming enemy, except for Bernd, who stopped to take out and look at the photograph of his partner, Ingrid.

The noise of their conversation was immediately replaced by the sounds of airplanes, cannons, and gunfire.

Before the war, Bernd had dreamed of becoming a famous physicist and a professor at the University of Göttingen. But all of that changed when he was drafted into the Wehrmacht in 1939. Ingrid, who was cheerful, was his inspiration for his dreams. Since his draft, he longed to see her beautiful face again. He even wrote her a letter that he secretly kept in his uniform. The message was:

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Ich hoffe, es geht dir gut. Ich denke jeden Tag an dich und vermisse dich sehr. Das Leben hier in den Schützengräben ist hart, aber der Gedanke an dich gibt mir Kraft.

Ich träume davon, zu dir zurückzukehren, um unser Lieblingslied zusammen zu spielen und einfach die Zeit miteinander zu genießen. Du bist mein Licht in dieser dunklen Zeit.

Pass gut auf dich auf und warte auf mich.

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I hope you are well. I think of you every day and miss you very much. Life here in the trenches is hard, but the thought of you gives me strength.

I dream of returning to you to play our favorite song together and just enjoy our time together. You are my light in this dark time.

Take good care of yourself and wait for me.

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However, in the midst of the gunfire exchanged between the Germans and the French, Bernd was hit in the chest. He immediately fell to the ground, and as he was taking his last breaths, he ordered one of his comrades to deliver the letter from his uniform pocket to Ingrid. The letter arrived, except for his remains.