From 1942 until his death on 21 December 1944, Hoffmann, a tank soldier, had been deployed on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union. He covered nearly 1,500 km. In a letter to his parents, he described how his ‘enemies’, men the same age as him, had died: On fire, they fell into the depths of the trenches by the dozens. His unit also took brutal action against partisans, Jews, and Sinti and Roma.
