Your Loyal and Loving Son

by Richardson, Horst Fuchs

• ISBN13: 9781574885675
• ISBN10: 1574885677
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-02-01
• Publisher: Potomac Books Inc

Summary

These are the compelling letters of Karl Fuchs, an ordinary German soldier who was completely convinced of the righteousness of his cause and who wrote them free of the recriminations and hindsight arising from the bitterness of defeat. Combining enthusiastic expressions of loyalty to the führer and the Fatherland with messages of love for his family and requests for necessities from home, they provide a personal look at a youth typical of his time, one whose fervent and naive nationalism was of the very sort that later fanned the flames of the Holocaust. Throughout Your Loyal and Loving Son, young Fuchs remains an idealist, confident in his concept of duty. Yet his letters clearly support the general assertion that many Germans who backed the Third Reich did so neither out of opportunistic self-interest nor nihilistic delight in destruction, but instead in the hope for a better future. Killed on the Eastern Front, Fuchs did not live to see his son, the infant to whom he wrote and who as an adult compiled these letters for publication. With an introduction and annotations by eminent historian Dennis Showalter, this collection will help make those early war years more comprehensible to contemporary readers.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	v
Introduction by the Widow	1	(2)
Introduction by the Son	3	(2)
The Soldier's Assignments	5	(2)
Historical Comments	7	(16)
Dennis E. Showalter
The Letters---Footnotes	23	(132)
Dennis E. Showalter
Conclusion	155	(2)
Dennis E. Showalter
Glossary of German Terms	157	(4)
Suggestions for Further Reading	161