WWII pen pals share unique love story

They endured war, distance and hunger, but with the help of hundreds of letters a Colorado Springs couple turned their plight into an incredible love story.

Leo Kissell, an American soldier, was drafted into the Army out of college. Trained as a machine gunner, he stepped in as a Jeep driver during World War II because a fellow soldier went AWOL.

Helga Kissell was a young German girl growing up during the war.

“One morning I remember my mother coming into the room and saying, ‘You don’t have to go to school today. We are at war,'” Helga said.

Though those words didn’t mean much to her at the time, Helga said she soon noticed air raids increase near her home in Berlin. One day, while her dad was working at a nearby police station, she and her mother learned it had been bombed.

“There were 63 people in that house,” Helga said. “They were all killed and my father was one of them.”

One week later her home was bombed, but she and her mother were not home at the time. To escape the fighting, they decided to flee to Hohenschwangau, a Bavarian village where her uncle owned a camera shop.

Toward the end of the war, Leo went to Hohenschwangau and saw a sign for the camera shop.

“I looked up and saw ‘photo shop’ in front of the building,” Leo said. “I said, ‘I’m going to have to stop there because I have some film I’m going to have to get processed.’ Behind the counter was this lady, a 16-year-old girl saying, ‘How many prints, please?’ And that was our first conversation,” Leo said.

For the three weeks Leo was in Hohenschwangau, the two became friends. Helga had studied English and was the interpreter for the store.

When the war ended, Leo went back to America to be discharged from the Army.

“And of course, when he went back to America, that was it,” Helga said.

But Leo was determined to keep their friendship going.

“I saw the mailman on the street and he said, ‘Hey, I’ve got a letter for you from America.’ And I thought, ‘Oh, sure you do. A big joke. But it was true,” Helga said.

For the next two-and-a-half years, Leo and Helga exchanged letters.

“I had about 180 letters I wrote to her and she had written approximately the same,” Leo said. “The mail was so slow. Some of her letters would be dated up to six weeks, so I didn’t know what I was writing about or what I was answering,” Leo said.

It wasn’t just letters. A country ravaged by war, food in Germany could be difficult to come by.

With the help of the organization CARE, Leo sent Helga packages of food.

“I didn’t send as many as I should,” Leo said. “I didn’t realize how bad this food situation was.”

Somewhere along the line, as Helga tells it, they decided to get married.

“A tacit agreement,” Leo said.

After Helga moved to the U.S., the two got married and have now been living in Colorado Springs for nearly 30 years. This August, they will celebrate 67 years of marriage.

“I married my pen pal,” said Helga. “We’re still good friends even though we’re not pen pals anymore.”

To read more about Leo and Helga’s love story, click here.