Göttingen, June 30, 1940

Dear little mouse,

Hopefully you are still alive and kicking [as for] myself, I am great. Today I have Sunday duty, do not really know what I am supposed to do. Today Berthold went on a Sunday pass. I met with him last night in the city when he wanted to go to the railroad station. It was too bad that had to go already. I would have taken him along and taken him into the proper bars. Actually this was the first time that we met each other in Göttingen. Had a pass last night until 12 o’clock. Right now, there is also no dancing here, but as a soldier one can experience enough. You know, Marga [Marge], that soldiers are especially liked, mainly by young girls, some of whom are inexperienced. It is logical of the girls. They see only the uniform. Wasn’t it like that in the villages this winter Marga!!! But now I can understand [that] when a soldier continuously does his mindless duty, everyone says oh, if it all could be over soon. Well, then when it they tell us that tonight we will have a pass again, everything is forgotten. You know, Marga, whoever has [only] boredom and nothing else from life, should just enjoy a few happy hours. The main thing is [that if] they send us back home soon, then there will be no regrets about our life as a soldier. I have met several girls here from The Einbach district, naturally from villages.

But I will have to admit that a village girl outclasses the city girls in respectability by far. An exception would be one [girl] from Fredelsloh . She has trashed herself quite a bit from what I hear. But not my former love Ursula. Of course she isn’t here. Of course if I said anything bad about her, I would be insulting her. Now I would like to know what you people are doing. Surely you have enough work. After all it is probably not bad. You would not get into trouble so easily. I thought I would meet you one more time in Markoldendorf, Marga, but you probably were sitting in Gust’s cellar and could not get out. Write to me about what developed. Did your parents suspect anything? We are now busy for eight days with 10 men in a hotel. Everything that is inside is thrown out and [we] are arranging it as a reserve military hospital. Likewise the big secondary school building will become a military hospital. I will come next week. For a change, we had a night exercise in Friday in Dorste. We rode all the way down the Leine in inflatable rafts. When we arrived in Dorste, we were met by a large crowd which had waited for us already for two hours. Afterwards we ferried two companies across. We had some fun there when several of them fell into the water. Now I would like to close with this. I believe that I have written you now in some detail from here.

Hoping that I will hear something from you soon, I send you my regards alive and well.

Your friend Gustav

I believe that I will come next Sunday on a Sunday pass.