My mother's German penpals - can you help?
Before the war, my mother Margaret Whitehead corresponded with a German girl, Christa Leidhold, and two young men from Germany.
From about 1934 to 1938, my mother Margaret Whitehead corresponded with a German girl, Christa Leidhold, from Pirna, Germany. Christa was 10 years old when they began to write, probably in 1934. My mother's friend Flossie Boggis wrote to one of Christa's friends, Brunhild. Of course, their correspondence was cut short by the war. The girls never wrote to each other again after the war, but my mother kept her photos of Christa Leidhold and another of Christa's friends, Christa Frömmler, all her life, and remembered her with fondness.
By 1938 my mother was also writing to two young German men, Günter Kindt, who visited her family in Greenwich, and Robert Köhler, who was a soldier by 1938. She kept two letters from Günter and one from Robert, all of which I still have. Both of these young men were from Hamburg.
My mother's photos of her German correspondents
Back in 1997 I did make an attempt to find Christa Leidhold, but with no success. I discovered that she probably married, her new name was probably Manz, and that she may have left Pirna to live in the former BRD in about 1978. Her sister Marianne may also have married and become Marianne Hempel.
I would love to pass all these items over to the descendants of the Leidhold, Frömmler, Kindt, and Köhler families, but German genealogy is not my area. Any help finding these families would be much appreciated.
For a while, the German genealogist Kai Michael Poppe took a look at this for me, but we drew a blank, so any input would be welcome. If you recognise these names, faces and places, please do get in touch.