Hidden Pages from a German Soldier’s Diary Revealed Why Entire Units Feared the U.S. “Black Devils,” Long Before They Ever Faced Them in Combat

The diary was never meant to be read.

It was small, worn, and bound in cracked leather, tucked beneath a loose floorboard in a ruined farmhouse long after the war had ended. Its pages were thin, yellowed, and filled with cramped handwriting that shifted between neat precision and frantic scrawls.

There were no names on the cover.
No ranks.
No dates written boldly at the beginning.

But inside, between mundane observations and quiet confessions, lay an explanation for something that had puzzled historians for decades.

Why did seasoned German units—experienced, disciplined, and battle-hardened—speak with such fear about a particular group of American soldiers they called the “Black Devils”?

The answer was not what anyone expected.

A Soldier Who Wrote to Stay Sane

The diary belonged to Gefreiter Wilhelm Krüger, an infantryman stationed in Italy during the later stages of the war. He was not an officer. Not a strategist. Just an ordinary soldier who wrote, as he explained in the margins, “to keep my thoughts from consuming me.”

At first, his entries were unremarkable.

Weather reports. Complaints about food. Notes about marches that never seemed to end. He wrote about missing home, about sore feet, about waiting.

Then, gradually, the tone changed.

Certain words appeared more often: night, silence, uncertainty.

And then, one name.

“The Black Devils.”

The First Mention

Krüger’s first reference was brief.

“We heard today that another unit pulled back without orders. No clear reason. Some say it was the Black Devils again.”

There was no explanation. No description.

Just the assumption that whoever read it would understand.

But Krüger continued writing, and the picture became clearer.

Rumors Before Contact

According to the diary, fear of the Black Devils began before German units ever encountered them directly.

Stories traveled faster than orders.

Patrols that failed to return. Positions abandoned overnight. Entire stretches of terrain that suddenly felt unsafe—not because of heavy fighting, but because of something unseen.

Krüger wrote:

“Men speak of them in whispers. Not because they shout or charge, but because they appear where they should not be.”

This detail stood out.

The fear was not rooted in overwhelming force.

It was rooted in unpredictability.

“They Do Not Fight Like Others”

As weeks passed, Krüger’s descriptions grew more detailed.

He described American units that moved at night with unsettling confidence. Patrols that left no obvious tracks. Attacks that began and ended before alarms could fully sound.

“They do not fight like others,” he wrote. “There is no warning. No pattern we can learn.”

German training emphasized understanding the enemy—recognizing habits, anticipating responses, identifying doctrine.

The Black Devils, according to Krüger, refused to fit into any expectation.

That made them dangerous.

The Name and Its Meaning

Krüger admitted he did not know who first used the term “Black Devils.”

Some said it came from the color of their uniforms in low light. Others said it was because they seemed to emerge from darkness itself. A few whispered explanations that sounded more like superstition than strategy.

Krüger dismissed those.

“They are not devils,” he wrote. “They are men. But they move with purpose, and that is worse.”

What frightened him was not appearance, but intent.

First Direct Encounter

Krüger’s unit finally encountered the Black Devils during a nighttime repositioning near a wooded ridge.

There was no large engagement.

No dramatic clash.

Just confusion.

“We heard movement where no movement should be,” he wrote. “Then orders stopped making sense.”

Communication lines went silent. Runners failed to return. Positions thought secure suddenly felt exposed.

The Americans did not overextend. They pressed just enough to create uncertainty—then vanished.

By morning, the German unit had withdrawn several kilometers, unsure why they had done so.

“We were not defeated,” Krüger admitted. “But we were undone.”

The Psychological Weight

One of the diary’s most striking aspects is how little it focuses on physical danger.

Krüger rarely describes direct combat.

Instead, he writes about anticipation.

“The waiting is worse than the fighting,” he noted. “You listen to the dark and imagine movement.”

Sleep became fragmented. Nerves frayed.

Men jumped at shadows. Commanders struggled to maintain confidence when no clear enemy presented itself.

The Black Devils did not need to be everywhere.

They needed to be possible everywhere.

Respect Beneath the Fear

Despite the anxiety, Krüger’s writing never slips into hatred.

If anything, it evolves into reluctant admiration.

“They are disciplined,” he wrote. “They do not waste effort. They know when to stop.”

He observed that they avoided unnecessary engagement, preserved their strength, and withdrew before becoming vulnerable.

To Krüger, this suggested professionalism rather than recklessness.

And that made them even harder to counter.

Why the Fear Spread

Krüger eventually explains why fear of the Black Devils spread so quickly among German forces.

It was not because they caused the highest losses.

It was because they forced decisions.

Units pulled back early. Patrols became hesitant. Movements slowed. Confidence eroded.

“We begin to fight ourselves,” Krüger wrote. “The enemy only needs to wait.”

The diary makes clear that the Black Devils’ greatest impact was psychological—not through brutality, but through pressure.

The Final Entries

As the war turned decisively against Germany, Krüger’s entries grew shorter.

Supplies dwindled. Orders became contradictory. Retreats followed retreats.

But one of his last clear passages returns to the Black Devils.

“If we survive this, people will say we were afraid because they were strong. That is not true.”

He paused, then added:

“We were afraid because they understood us.”

That line appears underlined twice.

After the War

The diary ends abruptly.

There is no final reflection. No farewell.

Just blank pages.

Historians who later examined the unit’s records found no mention of Krüger’s fate. He may have survived. He may not have.

But his words remain.

What the Diary Reveals

The diary challenges simplistic explanations of fear in war.

It was not about numbers.
Not about reputation alone.
Not about appearance or myth.

It was about facing an opponent who refused to behave predictably—who applied pressure without spectacle and withdrew without warning.

The Black Devils did not rely on terror.

They relied on understanding.

Why It Still Matters

Today, the diary is studied not as propaganda, but as a rare window into the mind of an ordinary soldier grappling with something intangible.

Fear not of destruction—but of uncertainty.

Krüger’s private words reveal that what unsettled German forces most was not the presence of an enemy—but the absence of clarity.

And sometimes, that absence is more powerful than any display of force.

The diary remains anonymous.

But its message is clear.

The Black Devils were feared not because they were monsters—but because they mastered the space between expectation and reality.

And in that space, fear grows on its own.