大象传媒

THE LOST DIARY

It all began when my Father died in March 1997 and we had the sad task of sorting out his personal papers amongst which we came across the mystery diary. The diary was written in German and we presumed that a WW2 Soldier wrote it.

Our Son took the Diary to Loughborough University where he was studying and his Dutch Tutor subsequently translated the diary to English for us. On reading the translation it was a personal insight into a young German Soldier fighting in WW2 his experiences, thoughts and fears for the future ending abruptly in October 1942 at the onset of the Battle of El Alamein.

We had no idea how this Diary came into my Father's possession but as I am particularly interested in Family History thought it would be a nice gesture to return the Diary to Hubert or his surviving family. The challenge was now set and how was I going to start this mission. I decided to join the Anglo-German FHS as to me this was an obvious course to take, as the Society would have the necessary finding aids and a Magazine, which was distributed, throughout the World.

I first of all obtained a list of names from the Berlin Telephone Book provided by the Society and wrote to eight German people with the surname of Topp. Six people replied saying they could not help me but the seventh person recommended I get in touch with the Deutsche Dienststelle as this organisation dealt with the fate of German Soldiers. The second thing I did was to put an advert in the Mitteilungsblatt and this was in the March 1999 issue of the Anglo-German Family History Society. From the advert I had a reply from a lady in Canada, a member of the Anglo-German History Society, with a suggestion that although she didn't know where Hubert was Erich Topp may know. I then wrote to Erich Topp who replied to me immediately but although he couldn't help me turned out to be one of the Commander's of the U-Boats in WW2!!

The next step was to write to the Deutsche Dienststelle and they were most helpful and in fact traced Hubert for me. The Deutsche Dienststelle forwarded my letter to Hubert which said "Dear Herr Topp, I believe, at last, that I have found my young German Soldier who will be 79 on Sunday" to which he replied "Yes I am your young German Soldier". What a surprise Hubert had he couldn't believe that a Diary of his left in the desert years ago had turned up after all this time. Hubert then filled in the details of what happened to him after October 1942 and how he went on to fight the War ending up in Warsaw and how he was severely injured which resulted in his leg being amputated. Hubert married in 1945, not to his sweetheart mentioned in the Diary, but to Ruth and had a family of five. Hubert then became a teacher and taught for 40 years before he retired.

My husband and I flew to Germany in December 1999 where Hubert and his family made us most welcome. I subsequently returned his Diary that he had left in a vehicle when the German Army had to retreat due to the advancing British in the Battle of El Alamein.

This story had a wonderful ending and the help received from various people was tremendous particularly those who did all my translations as without this vital assistance Hubert and I would not have been able to correspond. As to the future our two families wish to continue to keep in touch and in fact Hubert's daughter has been over to England to stay with us.

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