POW Ernst Arndt Letter 1947

Part of a letter written at Lydiard Park POW Hospital by 26 year old German prisoner Ernst M Arndt 277047 to Helga Weitenhagen in Berlin on 22nd July 1947.

The majority of the seven page letter is missing and we are given only the opening and closing pages. Writing in a neat hand, Ernst describes his depressive state of mind but looking to the future he writes " it would be great to do a sea journey to Hamburg but when?" which quite possibly refers to his awaited repatriation to Germany. The envelope is stamped with the circular Lydiard Park PW Hospital cachet which would have been applied to the letter to authorise its freepost.

We know that Ernst was still in the Lydiard POW Hospital on 30th September 1947 as his name appears on a roll of prisoners, which also shows that he came from the Spandau district of Berlin - see Items of Interest below. He is not recorded as having died at Lydiard - a full list of those who did can be found in The Lydiard Archives - see below. Further research is required to discover whether Ernst was repatriated as he hoped and if so when that took place.

The letter was acquired by The Friends of Lydiard Park in 2025.

Transcription

Page 1

22/7/47

My dear Helga, Today I at last want to let you know how my trip to Swindon was. Its true I had promised to tell you the next day but for many reasons my mood has been fairly depressed really "down", and on such days I'd rather not write because I can't come up with anything worthwhile.

Cleverly I travelled to town with a comrade on the on the Saturday, and not on the Friday. It was clever because on Saturday

Page 7

First of all its been too long and in any case every day is the same here, so there is nothing much to report about. It's time to go on another sea trip, because otherwise life is just too monotonous. It would be great to do a sea journey to Hamburg but when?

In the meantime very best wishes

Your Ernst