A committed soldier fights on for Hitler

4th November 1941: Like many Germans, Karl Fuchs believes that the war against Russia is very nearly over

As the weather turned colder, the roads froze, allowing the Wehrmacht to resume its advance.

The letters of Karl Fuchs¹, written to his family as he fought his way across Russia during Operation Barbarossa, reveal the thoughts and feelings of someone committed to the Nazi cause. Born in 1917, he was probably typical of many men of his generation - all brought up in the Nazi state. He was a warm-hearted family man - he also happened to believe in Hitler and the war against ‘Bolshevism’ that they were fighting.

But the temperature kept dropping, and men and machines were ill-prepared for Russia's extreme cold.

He kept believing in the cause even as German losses mounted and he watched his friends fall around him. Now he wrote to his father, a Luftwaffe captain also stationed in the East.

Karl Fuchs’s father, a Luftwaffe officer, survived the war

‘our Fuhrer has proven to the world that the German soldier can do incredible tasks.’

Karl Fuchs (1917-1941)