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Collection of over 250 German covers, postcards, and letters, 1940–1946, predominantly World War II Feldpost, with many covers retaining their original handwritten letters and additional loose correspondence. The extensive grouping includes several runs of family correspondence, among them letters between Obergefreiter Karl Wachter and his wife, Anni, of Wernau am Neckar, spanning 1942 to 1945. A cover postmarked Esslingen on August 21, 1943, is addressed to Wachter at “Lehr- u. Erpr. Kdo. Wachtel Kdo. 8, Karlshagen I/Pommern” and retains Anni’s letter of August 20, written the day after she said goodbye to him. Other material includes wartime letters to families in Dresden, an October 1944 letter from a father seeking news after an attack on the city, and postwar correspondence between a German prisoner of war and his family in Löbau, Saxony, including International Red Cross postal forms. Picture postcards, returned mail, and covers bearing unit cachets are also present. Many covers carry legible Feldpost numbers that may help identify the units involved. The letters are in German and have not been systematically transcribed or researched. In overall very good to fine condition, with toning, soiling, and edge wear to some covers. According to the consignor, a German collector assembled the group as part of a study of the V-1 and V-2 weapons programs. The consignor notes that most of the letters have not been read and, given the secrecy surrounding the programs, are likely to contain little or no direct reference to them.
Formed in 1943 under Max Wachtel, the Lehr- und Erprobungskommando Wachtel tested the Fieseler Fi 103 flying bomb, later known as the V-1, and prepared personnel to launch it from field sites. Its work took place in the Peenemünde and Zempin area on the island of Usedom, near the Karlshagen address on Wachter’s cover. The command became the basis of Flak-Regiment 155 (W), which operated V-1 launch sites during the campaign against Britain.
