This Week's Story: The Soldiers Of Spessart Part 1

Our photos and stories this week are brought to us by Brigitte Weber of Ettlingen-Spessart, which lies in the hills above Ettlingen Valley. Brigitte's uncles Josef Martus and Albert Fang both fought and died in Laffaux on the Western Front. Friends and acquaintances from Spessart often sent postcards and photos from the front, and the family also collected the memorial cards of those who had fallen.






The memorial at Spessart to those who fell in the Great War

The names of the fallen of Spessart in the form of a prayerbook leaflet

Those who fell from Spessart's choral society

Brigitte's Uncle Bernhard Fang, brother of her uncle Albert Fang, who fell at Laffaux. Bernhard served in the Reserve Batallion of the Foot Artillery Regiment No. 14 at the Western Front. He survived the war and went on to have four children and twenty-three grandchildren.

A postcard from the front sent by Bernhard on November 22, 1917.
He writes: "Dear Parents, I received your package with joy and thanks. Today I am back in the lazarett and will come out on the 27th. I don't have much more time to write. If only you knew what we are going through here. I dreamed about Albert again all night" (his brother Albert who had died four weeks previously).

Josef Weber was a young friend of the family who died at the front on April 25, 1917

Wilhelm Rauenbühler and Karl Lauinger (right) of Spessart, friends of the family.
Karl fell at the front on October 19, 1915