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Read German field post letters (Feldpost)

Feldpost is the mail German soldiers and their families sent each other in both world wars. Much of it is handwritten in Sütterlin, taught in German schools from 1915 to 1941, or in the older Kurrent. Take a photo of the page. FamilyLore gives you the German text line by line, an English translation, and a mark on each word it was unsure of.

Read a field post letter

Your first three pages need no account and no card.

A letter from our shelf, as FamilyLore read it

A dotted underline marks a word FamilyLore was unsure of; [?] is its own note on a doubtful reading.

Leo Meter to his daughter Barbara

Leo Meter to his daughter Barbara · Easter 1943

  1. Im Osten, Ostern 1943[?]
  2. Liebe kleine Barbara,
  3. heute ist Ostern und auf allen Feldern und Straßen
  4. ist alles neu, klein und jung. Die Blümchen,
  5. die Schäfchen und die Kinder. Vor zwei Wochen sahen die
  6. Kinder[?] so aus,
  7. und jetzt sehen sie schon so aus.
  8. Vor wenigen
  9. Tagen war ich
  10. mit einem großen
  11. Auto ganz weit weggefahren in
  12. einen großen Wald der auf einem
Leo Meter, an illustrator, writes “from the East” at Easter 1943 to his little daughter Barbara, and draws what he describes: the lambs, the children, the village. Where he writes “so aus” (“look like this”), the drawing finishes the sentence.
See the whole reading and its translation

Also on the shelf: Karl and Käthe Kollwitz to their son Peter, 1914, in Kurrent · Johann Kilian’s letter from Texas, 1858, in Kurrent

How well it reads, measured

Kurrent and Sütterlin15 pages · 3 Nov 202683%Characters read correctly75%Names, dates and numbers right85%Misread words it marked

Measured on letters whose holders published a transcription made by hand, read the same way your page is. The figures rest on a few pages so far and move as pages are added. How well FamilyLore reads

Questions

Can’t ChatGPT do this?
A general chatbot can read some Sütterlin, sometimes well, but it usually hands you clean text with no sign of which words it guessed, and its makers publish no figures for this script; FamilyLore marks the words it is unsure of and publishes how often it reads correctly, in the table above.
What if it reads a word wrong?
Tap a word to see the other readings FamilyLore weighed, and correct it if you know better. The translation is redone from your correction. Most misread words carry a mark, but not every one, so a name or a date that matters is worth checking against the photo.
Is my letter Kurrent or Sütterlin?
Kurrent is the older hand: pointed, and leaning steeply to the right. Sütterlin, taught from 1915, is rounder and upright. FamilyLore reads both under the same choice, so you don’t need to know which you have.
Who sees my pages?
Only you. A page becomes public only if you share it, and then only to people who have the link. Deleting your account deletes the photos you uploaded.

What FamilyLore doesn’t read well yet

  • Printed forms, registers and lists set out in columns. They aren’t measured yet, so we can’t tell you how well it reads them.
  • Letters that run across two pages. You can upload them, but they aren’t measured yet either.
  • Pencil that has faded. The benchmark has measured faded pages on only a few pages so far.

From photo to text in three steps

  1. Take a photo of the page

    Lay the sheet flat, in daylight and without flash. A phone photo of the whole page is enough.

  2. Upload it

    “German (Kurrent), 1918 to 1945” is already chosen.

  3. Read it

    You get the page as it was written, in modern spelling, and in English. Correct a word you know better yourself.

Read a field post letter

Rather read it yourself?