Throughout 1942, the Wehrmacht undertook a number of major military offensives against the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front, and the soldiers there experienced some of the most brutal and deadly fighting of the war. Notable examples include Case Blue, which was launched in June 1942 and was a large-scale offensive aimed at capturing the oil-rich Caucasus region and the city of Stalingrad. The Siege of Sevastopol had begun back in October 1941, with the German forces laying siege to the port city on the Crimean Peninsula. The series of engagements that became known as the Battle of Rzhev began in January 1942, and continued for several months, with both sides suffering heavy losses. During the series of battles fought in the city of Kharkov in eastern Ukraine, the Germans initially captured the city in May 1942, but the Soviets launched a counteroffensive that pushed them back. The Wehrmacht made significant gains in the early stages of 1942, but ultimately suffered several significant defeats that marked a turning point in the war on the Eastern Front.
The front itself stretched from the Baltic to the Black Sea, and was the largest and bloodiest theatre of the war, with up to 80 per cent of German military casualties occurring there. As the war dragged on, soldiers faced increasingly difficult conditions. The fighting did not relent in the long and brutal winter weather, with temperatures plummeting well below freezing. Supply lines were stretched thin, making it difficult to provide adequate food, clothing and medical care to the troops. Diseases such as typhus and dysentery were rampant, and many soldiers suffered from frostbite and other cold-related issues. By the end of the war, German soldiers on the Eastern Front had suffered enormous casualties, with estimates of military deaths ranging from 3.5 to 5.5 million. It was also the site of some of the most horrific war crimes of the conflict, with German troops regularly carrying out mass executions.
But what of the Wehrmacht soldiers who were fighting these battles? We can get a glimpsethe only way to stay in touch during months of separation. Providing soldiers with the means to write letters was an important way to maintain the morale and connections of the fighting troops during the war, as well as to keep the home front informed and supportive of the war effort. Some of these communications were intercepted by a special unit of Department II (information and intelligence) of the Polish Home Army, and translated into Polish so they could be used to analyse the mood among the German soldiers fighting in the Soviet Union. Some of the correspondence also contained important information about the deployment of Wehrmacht units, losses suffered and areas of combat, all of which was of value to Allied intelligence. They are also a valuable resource for the study of the soldiers’ motivations for their actions – including genocide and war crimes.
