August 22nd.44

Letter No. 17

Dear Heinz,

Having received your letter of August 12th yesterday, at once we bought of the contents of the parcel we sent you today: 2 tins of Portuguese sardines, two glasses of cheese, 1 glass anchovie paste, 1 tin Viennese sausage, two [tins?] of [spread?], and 1/2 lb boiled sweet[1]. We could not send you anything before lacking a letter by which you ask for a food parcel we have to show at the post office, otherwise the parcel gets refused.[2] As the letter is marked, it is not valid any more for another parcel, therefore you should express by any letter the wish to have sent a food parcel. We shall be able to let follow another parcel within the next weeks, as Alice told us last Saturday your letter contained the request to get sent some things. She forgot to bring it, she is sure to do coming in the afternoon today, but not to delay we used yours to us at the post office. We are sorry we cannot send fresh fruits, in abundance here, but as equivalent you will more enjoy the berries which are in better quality and much cheaper in England than here. Strawberries could be bought at an affordable price here, but other berries have exceed the usual price specially that we have been used to at former times to a high degree. Gooseberries were only a few days attainable and at such a high price that we did not buy any, the more as other fruits are in abundance here at reasonable prices.

What you experienced with your landlady[3], we did as well in London, we always were the alarm clock of the first floor's tenants, otherwise their boy would never have come punctually to school. I was shocked sometimes about the way people took easy the war, specially at the beginning of the war, I myself just coming over to England from Germany fully conscious of the necessity [to spending?] utmost strength to defeat those nazi criminals whose preparations have been apparent to even a blind one, of the necessity to meet [rudeness?] by [rudeness?], not to give room to humanitarian ideas the contrary of which has always been the manual of the nazis' nefarious thoughts.

If it were not the stubbornness of English, if it were not Churchill, when it was within a hair breadth to be defeated, nazis would have been victorious throwing back the present civilization for at least many decades, not longer, as a government based on crimes couldn't last long. Mostly we are indebted to the U.S.A. and Roosevelt whose efforts have definitely sealed the collapse of the "millennium German empire", never fawning upon Hitler alike others to the detriment of their country, fully aware of the criminally wicked nazis' ideas.

A week ago we sent you the silk (two pairs) stockings. Please write, when to take up sending tobacco.

With regards, in love

[Handwritten] Your father

[Handwritten] all my love mother

Notes:

1. "Boiled sweets" = hard candy.

2. I was curious about this, so spent way too much time trying to track it down! While the Postmaster General was widely quoted {"“It is almost impossible to over-stress the importance of this mail. It is so essential to morale that army and navy officers of the highest rank list mail almost on a level with munitions and food.”], I could find nothing on the web (so I may yet write my own blog post), but found newspaper articles which discussed the various rules in place (they seem to have changed a few times). Bottom line, however, for the Army (and apparently less so, or not at all for the Navy), parcels weighing more than 8 ounces, but less than 5 pounds (the maximum) could only be sent (once a week from one address to one addressee) if the Post Office was shown a letter requesting the articles contained in the parcel. There was an exception to this for the Christmas parcel (which had its own rules and specific time span for shipping (in 1944, it was September 15 to October 15).

3. The problem with having only one side of a correspondence--would love to know what this was about! Landlady in where he was housed in England?