This rare file of World War 2 casualties from St. Katherein a/L is **SOLD**. We will be happy to ship abroad at additional cost. Please inquire.

Have a look at a rare, illustrated 1943 Nazi sympathy card,
also for sale on USMBOOKS.com.

This is a very rare and unusual item, and why it was ever discarded by the city of St. Katherein on the Laming we can not imagine.

The book shown left contains about 100 original pieces and lists all of the many people from the small town that were killed or missing as a result of World War II. It would appear that virtually all of those from St. Katherein who died or disappeared during World War II were in the military - the Army, the Luftwaffe, the Kriegsmarine or the Waffen-SS.

In many cases the documents included in the book are the official notices of the death of these citizens over the actual signature and Feldpost stamp of the unit in which the Wehrmacht member was serving. That information was typically sent to the local Ortsgruppenleiter of the NSDAP for St. Katherein and many of the original envelopes in which the notification was sent are included in the book.

Also included in the book are letters written to the wives or parents of the dead or missing, either from the field, or from the Bürgermeister of the town. In at least one case the file contains the black-bordered funeral service announcement of the soldier.

These letters are extremely sad and graphic containing a lot of personal information about the death of the soldier in question (shot through the lung, died on the operating table after too much blood loss, etc.) and in some cases the personal property that was returned to the family (one grey winter coat, one shirt (good), one pair of tall black boots (repaired), etc.).

In addition to combat deaths there is at least one SS-Oberreiter killed during mortar practise in Hungary, and one suicide. Some of the combat victims died in the hospital as a result of their wounds, while others simply disapeared on the Russian front during enormous bombardments by Soviet artillery and aircraft. In some cases the file is accompanied by an official Todesbeschauschein or Death Certificate and in six cases filed in the front of the book certificates of death were issued in the early 1950s at the request of the family.

At the very front of the book there is a 3-page closely typed list of the dead and missing from St. Katherein listed by name with the date of birth, address, military rank and the day and place of death. Soldiers, sailors and airmen from St. Katherein died in Russia, Estonia, Rumania, Italy, Finland, Poland, Germany, Slovakia, Hungary and France. St. Katherein on the Laming River is a small town just west of Bruck between Vienna and Graz, now in Austria. At the time these people died, Austria was part of the Großdeutsches Reich of Adolf Hitler. It is amazing to see what a high percentage of people from this little town were killed as soldiers during World War II and how widely dispersed the deaths were.

A remarkably rare and fascinating document containing about 100 pieces of Third Reich material.