Your Loyal and Loving Son: The Letters of Tank Gunner Karl Fuchs, 1933–1941

by Horst Fuchs Richardson (Translator)

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.

192 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2003

Reviews

[Simon Baker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book, gives the views of an idealistic young German soldier killed before he has a chance to witness the decay and horror of the regime that he believed in. It illustrates how many 'normal' people could be seduced by a movement that, with the benefit of hindsight, we find hard to comprehend. Karl Fuchs was a good man, caught up by history as a willing, yet also at times naive and unknowledgable, participant in an evil regime.

[Dondie Mar · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a brief collection of letters of a camp and frontline soldier who stresses his strong support for national socialism and who never experience the demise of his führer and fatherland.

I'm actually expecting more of a firefight but all I can comprehend was his social condition, future plans and views especially against the commies. He is so anxious to go home and be united with his son and wife, hoping the war would end soon. The 2/3 of the book focuses on his camp life wherein he is eager to prove himself in battle whilst the remaining on his front line experience.

Nevertheless, this book will help you understand the living condition of a soldier from the other side. A good book indeed.

[Stormy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an important translation of the letters from a young Nazi tank gunner to his parents, and then later to his young wife and infant son. It’s easy to make the German soldiers of that era into “the other,” the “monsters,” etc. What is found in these letters is a young man who has been groomed from boyhood to be militarized, to feel racially superior, and be ambitious for his country over the needs of his family.
It’s important to see how easy it is to indoctrinate young people into going to war.