What does "Zur Zeit im Felde" mean?

[AltBier]

I am working on some genealogy on my family history.I'm guessing this means, their body is in the battlefield / not recovered (similar to in America when we say a soldier is Missing in Action (MIA)).

Just trying to verify that

[hartmut]

no. It just means "is serving now (at the front)". It was used for example in the following case: you can't meet Mr. Mueller now at his office, because he is serving - he is "im Felde".

[hartmut]

Ergaenzung:

Often, if you were serving and wrote f.e. a letter to anyone, you did'nt wrote "15 Mai, Monte Cassino" or "15. mai, Verdun", but you wrote "15. Mai, im Felde" (= 15th of may, at the front anywhere)

Or perhaps a CEO of a company, who was serving, wrote an open letter to his customers, publishing it as an ad, to tell them, that he is serving, but his fine shoes are still available or anything like that: 15. Mai, im Felde

I don't know exactly, but perhaps it was because of keeping military secrets.

[AltBier]

So on a family tree where it typically shows date of death if it said this?

[hartmut]

Oh, I understand!

If there stands "gestorben im Felde 22.04.1942" (or "+ im felde 22.04.1942"), than of course you are right! This means "died in action at the front/killed on the battelfield" But this does not mean that his body hadn't brought home or had'nt buried in a signed grave. You also may see gravestones on a cemetary in germany, where you read "born 0101.1918, died "im felde" 22.04.1942"

By the way: Every German village has a remembering stone, whre the lost men of ww1 and ww2 are called. really every.