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Description: | [Eugene Kent, born Eugen Kaufmann] Photocopy of his unpublished memoirs (232pp ts) concerning his childhood and schooling in Frankfurt-on-Main in the early 1900s, the family’s brief relocation to England for economic reasons in 1905, residence and continued schooling in London, return to Germany the following year and starting a new life in Berlin, where he commenced his university studies in architecture shortly before the First World War, his call-up into the German Army in November 1914 and service on the Eastern Front with Reserve Infantry Regiment 261, 79 Infantry Division (including translated extracts from his diary of that period) until February 1915 when he was sent back to Germany with frostbite, returning to the front in August before being transferred with the rest of the Division to the Western Front in December 1916, serving at various locations in the northern sector of the front (mainly around St Quentin), taking part in the March 1918 `Spring Offensive’ in the Somme sector, promotion to Lieutenant and transfer to IR 184 a few months before the November 1918 armistice, the long march back home to Berlin, work in an architect’s practice in Halle before moving to Magdeburg and then to Bolzano (Botzen), northern Italy, in 1924 to pursue his career as an architect, returning to Germany a year later to work in his birthplace of Frankfurt where he specialised in the design of new schools, relocating to the Soviet Union in 1931 to work for his former Frankfurt employer Ernst May (`May Brigade’ / `May Collective’) based in Kharkov, erecting new workers’ settlements, and later in Moscow before leaving the USSR for another new start in England (as a German Jew, he decided against returning to Germany after the Nazi accession to power in 1933) where he set up in private architectural practice in London and Welwyn Garden City. The bulk of the collection is composed of a substantial quantity of the letters and postcards he wrote (in German) to his parents during the First World War whilst serving with RIR 261 on the Eastern and Western Fronts, excellently written and very informative of his experiences, some being illustrated with his sketches and drawings; also two notebooks with diary entries written during 1917 – 1918, a folder of photographs, sketches and other ephemera from the Eastern Front, and a few associated documents.
Cataloguer SWW | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Subjects: | Reserve Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 261 German Army | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Kent, Eugene | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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