Heer Soldbuch

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gedj2
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Heer Soldbuch

Post by gedj2 »

Hello All,

I know this has most been done to death and have seen some of the previous posts, but I'll ask the question, have just received a blank soldbuch as a pressie from Mrs J how's the best way to go about filling it in? Any help, hints or tips greatly accepted.

Kind regards,

Ged
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Chris Pittman
Posts: 64
Joined: Thu Jun 28, 2007 1:22 pm
Location: New England, USA

Re: Heer Soldbuch

Post by Chris Pittman »

Doing the basic entries in a Soldbuch is not terribly difficult. In my opinion, every unit should have someone who can do this work. Here are some scans of an original book to show what I consider to be the basic entries, all that one really needs. This Soldbuch was issued to a recruit late in the war and has very few entries despite the fact that it was issued and carried by a soldier. I have scanned every single entry in the book. Here are the scans:

http://www.intrenches.com/gd45.htm

Let's look at this page by page and entry by entry. First of all, the book has no photo and it never did. Photos were not introduced in the Soldbuch until the middle of the war (the exact date varied by branch) and many books carried through the whole war never got a photo. We can see that the initial entries were made in a turquoise-colored ink that is not unusual, Pelikan Royal Blue watered down will approximate this original color. The Soldbuch number is 5288 which is a high number, this unit processed thousands of soldiers over the course of the war. His rank, Panzergrenadier, is entered with an ink stamp; more typically this is just written in. Below that we see his name, Josef Gretschel. Above his name is his last name in Cyrillic, written after the war in a Soviet POW camp where Gretschel wound up- this book came from a former Soviet archive.

Below his name, we see his Erkennungsmarke (ID disk) designation. The unit is entered as a stamp, this is common. From July 1942 this unit was called Panzergrenadier-Ersatz-Bataillon 10, then in April 1943 it was reorganized as Panzergrenadier-Ersatz-ud-Ausbildungs-Bataillon 10. You can see here that in this case, when the unit designation changed in 1943, they didn't get a new stamp, but just wrote in "Ausb." above the stamp. And as we can see, they kept on using that outdated stamp for TWO YEARS. So you don't need to get too wrapped up in precise unit designations, for units that changed designations over time. Note that his ID disc number does not match the Soldbuch number. That is typical.

Gretschel's blood type and gas mask size just never got entered. On the last line, his Wehrnummer is written as "Jaegerndorf/28/68/2/2." Jaegerndorf is the nearest recruiting station to where Gretschel was from. 28 is his birth year (1928). The last numbers refer to the volume and page and entry where his draft registration was recorded in the files of the recruiting station.

On page 2 Gretschel's basic data is entered. He was born on July 25, 1928 in Lobenstein. His religion is "r.k." (Roman Catholic) and his profession is "Baupraktiker," construction worker. His personal details are entered in the typical fashion, he has no moustache, no scars or marks. Gretschel has signed his book in a different ink with a different pen from that used by the Schreiber.

Down at the bottom we see the training unit that issued the book entered as a line stamp and round Dienstsiegel stamp, this is typical and is why every unit clerk needs to have stamps for a training unit. The date is entered as a stamp and the Oberleutnant has signed in ink. This book was issued April 9, 1945.

Page 3 usually has some promotion entries, but here is blank as Gretschel was never promoted. Page 4 starts with a mistake by the clerk. He meant to write W.M.A. as an abbreviation for "Wehrmeldeamt" but he mixed up the letters and wrote M.W.A. instead. He simply crossed it out and kept going. Mistakes happened in original documents, you will make them too, don't worry about it! The second entry is also a mistake. Panzer-Grenadier-Ersatz-Bataillon 10 was an Ersatzheer unit and should have been entered in the Ersatztruppenteil section (section B line A) and not in the Feldtruppenteil section. This error was never corrected. Probably in April 1945 it was just not a big deal.

When Gretschel was transferred to a field unit his training unit was crossed out and his new unit entered in- 13. Kompanie, Panzer Radfahrer Regiment, Fuehrer Grenadier Division. This was part of Grossdeutschland. From there he went to 9. Kompanie, Fuehrer-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 4, still part of the Fuehrer Grenadier Division and GD. Notice that the "Nr. der Kriegsstammrolle" field is blank. This is very unusual. Gretschel never even got issued a roster number. These entries were made in the final days of WWII. The bottom section has the name and location of the Ersatzheer unit that was related to the Feldheer unit he was serving in, in this case it is Panzergrenadier-Ersatz-Brigade GD.

Page 5 is for recording the soldier's next of kin. Too many reenactors worry about having this whole page filled in. Generally, only section 1, 2 or 3 are completed, not all of them. Gretschel was single so the word "ledig" is written in section 1. In section 2 Gretschel's next of kin is listed as his father, Max Gretschel. Max's occupation and street address are not entered, just the town he lived in and "89" which I am not sure how to interpret.

This was pretty much all that would be in a Soldbuch when it was first issued. Usually there would be an entry on the pay page authorizing pay, in this case that page is blank. There are no equipment issues, no leaves, no medical entries. In the reality of WWII, this bare-bones document with few entries was all that you really needed. There is one other entry, on page 15. It is a security check by an officer in Gretschel's training unit. Usually these security checks include the soldier's roster number, but not here. It is just a date, a round Dienststempel stamp, an officer's signature in Kopierstift (indelible pencil) and the officer's rank written in. These security checks started around 1943 and happened at seemingly irregular intervals. He was still with the training unit on May 1 1945, and must have been transferred to GD after that, in the very last week of the war, just in time to get scooped into a Soviet cage.

As I have posted here before, I have created a Yahoo e-mail group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WH-Schreibstube/, it is mostly aimed at reenactors who want to present an impression of a Schreiber or Hauptfeldwebel but I have also been presenting information that would be helpful for anyone wanting to fill out their own Soldbuch.

Chris Pittman
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