July 1945 from POW camp
My Darling,

A deep pain gnaws at me.  I left you without being able to send you a message and during all this long, this awfully long time, I couldn’t write.   I pray to God that he may have given you the strength to now also survive these dreadful days.   Then, if it may be so, I will soon be with you again and after that nothing shall separate us ever again.  I have experienced a lot of things, difficulties mostly, but there were also some golden hours thanks to Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, and Brahms.  How wonderful is music and poetry when all lesser things fall away. 

What chapter in our lives will now begin?  The war was ? ? ended, it all happened as it had to. I am greatly worried whether you have what you need for your daily life.  I have asked God to give you what is necessary: bread, shelter and good friends.  You can’t imagine how much I am looking forward to being able to provide for you, my beloved family, again.  And mainly to be with you and not to have to go away again.

I wonder whether you have found anything  (a place to live) for us in the meantime, Georgi, ??, Kistrup among others, that would be wonderful.  Then we will have 3 weeks to look for work.  My heart is longing for you, I am thinking of you without pause, my dearest.  Keep me in your heart.  I love you, your faithful

Freddie.

Excerpts from WW II diary

 February 24, 1945 - Now three days have passed - days that are like years - eternities and seconds.  And yet I want to write up what happened to you and me, because it sounds in the telling like a fairy tale and still we both were allowed to experience it with our own senses.

 I heard via the grapevine - but I wrote that already - that we had permission to go to the city so on February 21^st at 5:30 1 drove with a truck via Dirschau to the little town.  There I asked for permission to go to Gotenhafen (Gdynia) which was also granted - astonishingly - although I really didn't have the correct papers.  In Gotenhafen magical forces pulled me from the railroad station to the Bismark Strasse 26 to Grohmann's (a friend from Reval, organist at the Olai church).

And now imagine my heart, soul, body - as I open the front door - Lilli, i.e., a girl, shouts, "Look, there is Väterchen!"  I totally turned to stone and could hardly ask Lilli, "And where is Frau Luther?" because silently I was afraid that you weren't there.  But Billo (Lars) was already running up the stairs and I behind him - and there you came to meet me, my life, real and yet not real.  Then we sat at Grohmann's in the kitchen and you told me - but first I could not comprehend this happiness and wonder.  The tears came by themselves.  They were tears of relief after a horrible cramp, the black days.  I want to tell your story briefly because I see in it the wonderful divine guidance.

 On the 18" of January at midnight you were frightened out of your sleep by the sirens and a short time thereafter you were ordered to go immediately to the Rosenberger Highway and from there to move on cross-country in a northwesterly direction.  The day before Dornbusch had given permission for you, with Lilli and the children, to take a place on Schlobach's (Vä’s former employer at the sawmill) horse carriage.  You also took a backpack and two blankets – that was all.  And the journey went via Rosenberg, Riesenburg, the Dirschauer autobahn bridge to Preussisch Stargard.  There you stayed for three weeks with the teacher Hoffmann-Fellin.  Schlobach's horses stayed there and also Lilli was supposed to have gone with the Tuchels (neighbors and coachman).  However, probably out of love for Holger she was persuaded to stay, this faithful person.

 But then there was again another evacuation and you had to go on a G-transport called “mother and child” in a cattle car on to Lauenburg.  In Gotenhafen, however, you by chance got stopped and you were lodged in mass quarters in a movie theater “Stern” (“star”).  You went to Grohmann’s in order to get private lodgings.  You found shelter at the Vietinghoffs – oma imimesed. (This is in Estonian which we don’t know how to translate.)  He knew of several ship connections and was asked by a certain lieutenant general Käcker to come along with the “Wadai” to Flensburg and this friendly man was prepared to take you along.  There were no tickets anymore.  But as you said so rightly, when something is meant to work out, all the roads open up by themselves – or God opens them – and everything is easy and clear.  I was able to help you carry your things and get you settled in a warm and light cabin.  How everything worked out!  On the 23^rd of February at 13 o’clock you were supposed to set sail for Flensburg via Swinemünde and from there try to reach Glücksburg.  I hope everything will work out well and Lotte can meet you there.  I pray to God that He will hold His hands over you and blind the enemy’s U-boats.

 March 8, 1945 –  My Love (he is addressing my mother) I want to retrace all the stations of my life that have been of some importance to me and see how it played out.

 1907 – born in Helsingfors – up to 1914 in Leppäkoski – a wonderful youth in the true nature of Finland.  Lauri Salokallia, with whom Olle and I as a trio had a lot of fun, Mumin ? (can’t read), that faithful person, Aino, the nanny, Räsanen, the machinist.  Boat trips on the Kernala, the Wanaja, on the Pusijoki.  1914 – Staraja Russa.  Pappi (daddy) as soldier – we (came) to Sipilä in 1914-15  - there we fooled around a lot.  Visits in Helsingfors with Gunnar, Uncle Richard.  Uncle Alexander and Aunt Hertha lived with us.  Grandpa (must have been Mickwitz) came to visit.

  In 1916 in the early fall we came to Reval to Grandma (probably Marie Luther).  We moved into Pernausche Strasse 1-3, Mama, Olle, Renate and I, Grandma and Aunt Nora.  Often Uncle Ralph came to see us.  We went to school in the little Domschule in the Tartarenstrasse – I started there in the second grade.  Hellmuth Hirsch Mühlen, Gerri Koch.  Slowly we advanced year after year.  In 1916-17 but also in later years I was in Kusal during vacations – a wonderful time at an impressionable age.  Miss von Dittmar, Aunt Magda ran the household – gave us drawing lessons.  The parsonage was a meeting point of many people – the Ramms, the Nerlings, the Stackelbergs and all the relatives: the Paulsens, the Hirschs.  In 1918 I was a guest in Igast with Oswald Lemm, more accurately with his son Ernst (plane accident near Fellin in 1931 or 2).  This happened at the time of the occupation (Russian) but I wasn’t aware of it.  Unforgettable was Feb. 24, 1918, when the Germans marched into Reval and the Red nightmare disappeared.  We sat in the garden with Trude when we were told that the Germans were moving in.  It was a happy moment.  In October they moved off again (my love, then I didn’t even know you existed) and you made your first trip to Danzig.  Then came dark years 19,20,21 with the Bolshevists closing in on Reval. They were stopped at Jegeleht (?) and then came the peace of Dorpat.  I still remember the day when my father came home from Galitsch in 1917.

 I forgot to write this down earlier:  Father immediately found work at A.M.Luther and since that time I too had a foot in the door with them.  The old Sipelgas there gave me carpentry lessons.

 In 1918 I was Sextaner (a grade in the old German system), there being no Septima, and was present when the Domschule was reopened by Pastor Stromberg.  Prince Heinrich and Adalbert were there as guests too.   School vacations and dances!  My nine school years there covered the years from 1918 to 1927.   Many school hours were unforgettable but vacations and free times were best of all.  Excursions, school events, Gym Club (Ahlers), Boy Scouts (Ramm)  in a happy and easygoing time.  Pueni Taube took over the class and guided us through the Greek and the Latin world.  He was feared but good.  Blosfeld was principal and Winkler was the history teacher, Schülling was the German teacher and Hühnerson taught math.  Almost all them are gone now.   In 1924 on December 1 there was a Communist putsch (coup) which took the good inspector Grünwald away from us.  My first student love, Erika Brasche, lasted from 1922 to 1924/5 , I think.  Trude Weiss, Margarete Paulsen and Erika, Werner Luchsinger, Romo Hesse and I formed a small circle and were together all the time.  We were later joined by Klara L, and also Heddi Harpe and Margarethe Camesascer.  A never ending series of school and other festivities swept over us.  In 1920 or 21 we got our first dancing lessons (here two illegible words) etc.  A colorful world of new impressions and tensions.

 Pappi’s death on March 3, 1925 was the most devastating blow to me ever except for the present one.  I was at school when I was called out of class and was told that I should go home because my father was in bad way.  Pappi died in the early hours of the morning of angina pectoris, a heart ailment that had been discovered too late, overexertion in the business and in clubs.  The evening before he had been quite comfortable, and had taken a bath.  I can still see him in his bathrobe saying good night to all of us – it was to be the last time.  I have still cried many years later because I missed him so much as a friend and advisor.

 But now I have forgotten to write down that he gave us Wallküll, Benita, in 1932.   He bought it for 175,000 mark (Estonian markaa) from the Baroness Ungern.  The summer of 1924 was wonderful with him.  Uncle Erich was there, Aunt Luise.  We did much hunting, sailed.  With father I experienced a frightening trip through a storm.from Reval to Wallküllas we brought the Saga over.  Well and then we lived on with Mama.  On March 25, 1925 Christel was born and grew up as the last to leave the nest.

 But now I must think more accurately, because then I was already 18 years old and while those 18 years passed by in a thoughtless rush, the second 18 years left me with permanent impressions of various experiences and confrontations.  From now on I will proceed more slowly, and I must dwell on the first 18 years a little longer to try to do them justice.  I should discuss my extracurricular student life, which seemed more interesting and more important to me than perhaps it ought to have been.  One (activity) was called “Equestria” a club which all the students of my class belonged to and which was celebrated in turn in different private homes with tea and sandwiches and baked goods at first and later with beer, cigarettes and most wonderful Schnapps.  There were lectures but conversation and other things were at least as important a part of it.  Frese sometimes played the piano and Eichhorn the violin.  Coryus would  present songs but all  in all there wasn’t much talent.  There was much juvenile optimism and braggadocio. 

Then there were the girls of whom Margarethe probably was the most valuable one, but I didn’t recognize this fact because of my exclusive infatuation.  Maybe that was fortunate because with Erika it was a purely platonic relationship; I don’t know whether that was because of her or of me – I neither know nor can explain.   Maybe it was an attitude which to this day keeps me from making decisions to act, like when later I think: “you should have done so or so”.  You too have often complained of my lack of resolve and suffered because of it.  This lack of decisiveness has been part of me since my youth.  The right ideas always occur too late to me.  The only right thing I ever thought of in time happened on December 13, 1934 (engagement to my mother) and was not delayed by indecision.  And now I have made you particularly unhappy with this decision.  Now you are left with two children and I can’t protect you from your awful fate.

 No, it’s no use to write about those first years of ones life of conscious decisions.  Everything is immature and still in progress.  All the colors of the spectrum are shimmering and waves of emotions and thought overwhelm very little action.  If only the school had brought me up to a point where I would have understood the importance of continuing my studies over temporarily earning some money at any price, which is what I thought I had to do after getting my High School diploma.  However, study and school became so repellent to me that I just couldn’t bear to be in a classroom anymore.  It is possible that William Yükum did that to me – sometimes it seems to me that this was true - and this resistance was transferred towards Dorpat (University).   My father’s will would have broken up this resistance – he would have made me study medicine; my mother couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t bear the idea of five long years of study and the tremendous costs to mother.   As it was it cost her only two years (to support me after father’s death), but then I still didn’t earn enough to support her, just barely enough to get by.  It was a mistake as I can see now.  Then there were the years following my father’s death up to my High school diploma.  I continued running around with girls in a senseless fashion.  I was a guest at all the dances.  Concurrently the diploma was earned just so-so.  I worked in the summers at A.M.Luther at the lumber- yard, unloading lumber; Etjold was my foreman.  But I did that because I enjoyed working at the factory.  I worshipped Uncle Martin and a greeting from him, a little friendly smile from him made me happier than anything.  He was my total ideal, the unattainable.  

 Then there were the Beka (?) evenings.  Heddi joined our circle and made me love Estonia in a way I didn’t fully understand.  I wrote many letters – even to Sweden – for some long years wooing her, but when I began to do it in earnest, it was too late.  Either she did not want me or she was already taken.   On a wonderful summer day I sailed with Viktor Hanpe to Wiesö.  The sun was shining brightly, small clouds drifting on the blue sky.  We walked over the fields.  Tell me Heddi, when was it - it must have been in June or July of 1932 – but I am jumping ahead.  Are you still free?  My question came out like lead.  And I had not expected her answer: “no”.  But I held out till I was in Wallküll again before I broke down and cried bitterly.   I wrote to Heddi that I wanted to fight for her, but she told me not to write.  I saw her a few times later, but she didn’t see me, she saw through me.  Her birthday was on the 6^th of May and I suffered honestly, heavily but it was over, for sure.  I tried once more to build myself a home.  I loved or thought I loved Klara and wanted to marry her.  But soon she sent me her engagement notice as answer.  She wrote that she liked me but not enough to marry me.

 But I have really digressed.  I didn’t mention other amusements – and there were some -unfortunate only because there were too many of them.   The Yacht club and wonderful sailing trips from 1926 until 1935.   I was Gösta’s crew member on his boat sailing to almost all the islands between Helsingfors and Stockholm – year after year – really wonderful free time – water, sky and white sails.  The women who came along were no temptation for me, even though I often longed for the great, genuine love.  I always felt above that, and this arrogance kept me away and hurt me very much later because I fell into a horrible temptation that has really caused me a lot of trouble over the years and which has robbed me of much vitality and many illusions or ideals.  But a life that has been lived cannot be lived again.

Gretel, if you knew how guilty I feel toward you in all this and everything.  You really should damn me and cast me away.  If you don’t do it anyway I have to thank your greater love.  It carries me so that I can’t fall even now into the void.  I know that I will find you in the beyond and that you will meet me with outstretched arms – my love – God be with you and hold his hand over you.  This I pray for ardently and stronger than ever.