Prellbock, 19 July
1915
[Monday]
Dear family,
Yesterday I
received mother’s letter of the 14th and father’s letter of the 15th.
Furthermore I received since my last letter parcels nr 216, 17, 18, 19, 20 2
22. Many thanks for everything. Everything arrived in good order, including the
butter and the prunes, and just like before the Wiener Schnitzel. And I am very
happy to hear the camera is on its way. Hopefully I’ll receive it the next time
we come into rest, so that I can take a photograph of Karl Steigleder’s grave
right away. And I hope to be able to send you some nice photographs too, to
make it worth the while. I don’t think I’ll send back the camera because it’s
too heavy. You’re happy to schlepp something like that around, and the
photographs will be such a nice souvenir for later. I hope the parcel arrives
as quickly as the shoes did. You did make it a 5Kg parcel, didn’t you?
I already
confirmed receipt of the 50 cigars and the 20 Mk. You really don’t have to send
me so much money. If you’d like to send 5 Mk enclosed in a letter every time I come into rest – you can figure out yourselves
when that is – will be more than enough for me to buy myself a few things. I
don’t really need more.
Not much
news from here. H Mais and A Heede are at the course now. The English are well
behaved again. They seem to have become afraid lately, because of the
reinforcements from Russia. Maybe they have a point being afraid.
In any case
they’re now in the habit of starting a Feuerüberfall
every night, which means they suddenly start to shoot like madmen, only
infantry fire of course. Alll we then do is take full cover, and laugh up our
sleeves about them wasting their ammunition unnecessarily. They apparently want
to frighten us.
Recently
they wanted to quitely build a trench during the night. And then we arranged something
like-wise. But they could retreat back into their trenches. They were at work
above the parapet, and hadn’t quite dug out the trench that it could give them
shelter. Our bullets also have a greater penetrating power than theirs.They
lost all appetite for work for the rest of the night.
A Feuerüberfall only lasts for about 5
minutes.We each fired about 10 bullets, so we were busy for much less of the time.
I had wanted it to last a little longer, because first of all it’s great fun,
and secondly it’s really good for the rifle to get hot once in a while.
It’s really
funny to watch the English shooting during such a Feuerüberfall. They fire their shot above the parapet, and then as
quickly as possible duck down again. It’s clear of course they don’t hit
anything, as all shots are way too high. You have to be relaxed to shoot well.
By the way
the English rifle is very good. But it’s inferior to ours on two points. First
of all its penetrating power is not that great. And then it’s too delicate. It
stops working whenever there’s just the tiniest bit of dirt in the mechanism.
But ithen it also sports many fine accesories that we don’t have, like e.g. a visor
for shooting at aeroplanes. And it has the possibility to fire dum-dum bullets.
I’ve shot with English rifles a lot lately.
But enough
for today. I can write more about this subject but I don’t know whether it
interests you.
With many
warm greetings to everyone
Your Fritz
By the way:
the green cheese tasts really nice.
The original letter:
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