大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Bill Ross of the 鈥楢ction Desk 鈥� Sheffield鈥� Team on behalf of Derek Eastwood, and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr. Eastwood fully understands the site's terms and conditions.
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The letter and photos can be seen at:

A8680845
A8680971

See also; A8792076

My father was a member of the Youth Hostel Association, and then in the 1930鈥檚, he developed a pen friend relationship with someone from Germany. In 1933, my father went to a camp in Germany (a brown shirt camp) with his pen friend, and in a letter sent to my father from Essen on the 29th December in 1933, the pen friend wrote:

鈥淒ear Mr Eastwood,
I received your most welcome Christmas Greetings and thank you very much for it. I am very pleased to receive it and glad to think that you remembered me. I am very sorry that I have not written before, but you are correct that it is my heavy SA service that keeps me from corresponding more often. Now I wish you a happy new year with the German Greetings 鈥淗eil Hitler.鈥�

Yours truly,
Friedhelm

On the opposite page of the letter, there is a picture of the young Hitler 鈥淕ermany鈥檚 Great Leader鈥�.

Later on, this pen friend became one of Hitler鈥檚 personal bodyguards and in early 1940 he sent a package to my parents, enclosing an armband and pendant for them to display when the Germans invaded, saying, "If this is displayed, they will remain safe." My mother was very upset about this and she destroyed that arm band, but we still have the pendant which was sent to us for display on the car, so that when the car is travelling along the road, it displays a swastika on both sides.

Pr-BR

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