27/05/2026
Imagine waiting at home for any word from your husband while he is away in the First World War.
Then the letter finally arrives.
But it does not say he is coming home.
It says he is dead.
This is the story of Fritz Büsen, a German soldier buried today at the German war cemetery in Maissemy, France.
Fritz served with the 4th Company of Armierungs-Bataillon 115. He was not a front-line infantryman in the way many people imagine when they think of the First World War. As an Armierungssoldat, he belonged to a construction and labor unit used to build and maintain roads, trenches, defensive positions, and other military works near the front.
These men were not always the ones remembered in famous battle stories, but they still lived with the same danger: artillery, mud, exhaustion, and the constant risk of death.
On September 14, 1916, Fritz Büsen was killed near Driencourt in France.
After his death, a letter was sent to his wife. It used the formal language of the time, saying he had died in “faithful fulfillment of duty.”
But behind those words was a much simpler truth.
A husband was gone.
Today, Fritz Büsen rests at Maissemy, Block 7, Grave 1510.
Not a famous general.
Not a name most people know.
Just one husband, one letter, and one more family broken by the First World War.
