page_title: Friedrich Kellner
section_title: Military service and marriage
hierarchical_section_title: Friedrich Kellner / Biography / Military service and marriage
caption_attribution_description: English: Beer Stein owned by Friedrich Kellner to commemorate his reserve duty in the Kaiser's army 1907 - 1908. He later was on active duty during WWI.
context_page_description: August Friedrich Kellner was a mid-level official in Germany who worked as a justice inspector in Mainz and Laubach. During the First World War, Kellner was an infantryman in a Hessian regiment. After the war he became a political organizer for the Social Democratic Party of Germany, which was the leading political party during the time of the turbulent and short-lived Weimar Republic, Germany's first period of democracy. Kellner and his wife, Pauline, campaigned together as Social Democrats against Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. During World War II, working as a civil servant at a small court house, he wrote a diary to record his observations of the Nazi regime. Based on conversations and attentive reading of newspapers, he described the various crimes of that regime. He titled his work Mein Widerstand, meaning "My Opposition". After the war Kellner served on denazification boards, and he also helped to reestablish the Social Democratic Party. He gave his diary to his American grandson in 1968 to translate into English and to bring it to the attention of the public.
context_section_description: From September 1907 to October 1908 Kellner fulfilled his initial military reserve duty in the 6th Infantry Company of the Leibregiments Großherzogin (3. Großherzoglich Hessisches) Nr. 117 in Mainz.  In 1911, he completed an additional two months reserve training.
  When the First World War began in 1914, Kellner was called up for active duty as a sergeant and deputy-officer in the Prinz Carl Infantry Regiment (4. Großherzoglich Hessisches Regiment) Nr. 118, in Worms.  Within the first month of his return to army service, Kellner was in eight engagements in Belgium and France, including fights at Neufchâteau, Revigny-Laimont, and Rinarville, associated with what has become known as the Battle of the Frontiers.  His regiment also fought at the First Battle of the Marne from 5 to 12 September. Under a prolonged bombardment in the trenches near Reims, he was wounded and was sent to St. Rochus Hospital in Mainz to recover. He spent the remainder of the war as a quartermaster secretary for the 13th Army Corps in Frankfurt am Main.
  In 1913, a few months prior to being called up for service in the war, Kellner married Pauline Preuss (19 January 1888 - 8 February 1970), who was from Mainz.  Their son, Karl Friedrich Wilhelm (a.k.a. Fred William), their only child, was born in Mainz on 29 February 1916.
caption: 1908 reservistenkrug [de]
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