Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 23 May 1943 (Creation)
Level of description
Extent and medium
6 pp. with envelope
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Hella Anna Maria Scholz was born in Berlin on 29 December 1928 as the younger of the two daughters of Bruno Scholz, a merchant in building materials, and Klara née Kaiser. She was educated in Berlin. In 1942, she met Günther Junge, a pilot with the German Luftwaffe. They remained a couple until Günther’s death in an air battle on 27 January 1944.
After the war, Hella worked as a laboratory assistant for a British military medical unit in Hannover. Here, she met her future husband, an Englishman named William Fuller. They married on 1 January 1951 at the Ploughley & Bullingdon Register Office in Oxford, and in February of that year Hella became a British citizen. She and her husband lived in Oxfordshire and had no children. Hella later moved to Penarth in Glamorgan, Wales, where she died on 31 January 2003.
Archival history
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
From Hella in Charlottenburg, Berlin. She hopes this letter will reach him punctually on his birthday. She hopes he has received the small parcel she sent. She hopes the biscuits are not too smashed. She ate a few herself. She asks him to take a moment out of his birthday celebrations to think of her. She also asks what it is like to be 20. She believes that his self-confidence must have grown with age. She thinks it would be nice if one could choose when to have a birthday, then Günther could wait until he had leave before having a birthday. She asks if everything is still working out with his holiday plans. Whether she is at school or redeployed, Hella should still be in Berlin. Though she is planning a trip to Linz with school friends and hopes that redeployment does not come in the way. That afternoon Hella is to meet up with an unknown man. Hella along with other girls in her class wrote to solders in Africa. Suddenly Hella had a letter from a tank soldier who was home in Berlin on holiday and wanted to meet her. She did not want to but her friends encouraged her. All the unknown soldiers they had written to were either dead or missing. Even Hella’s mother thought she should meet the man. The second sheet of paper is written later in the evening and starts with an account of the meeting. It was not as bad as she had feared and she had enjoyed hearing about his adventures in Africa. Hella assures Günther that he does not need to worry and can trust her. She wishes him a happy birthday from her family and again from herself. She signs off and in a postscript adds that Günther’s mother has invited her for coffee next Tuesday. With envelope.
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Conditions governing reproduction
Language of material
- German