A German Soldier On The Eastern Front

This classic WWII history presents a comprehensive yet vividly detailed account of the Third Reich’s epic and bitter clash with the Red Army. The opening onslaughts of Operation Barbarossa began on June 22nd, 1941, as German forces stormed into the Soviet Union. Few of them were to survive the five long years of bitter struggle. A posting to the Eastern Front during the Second World War was rightly regarded with dread by the German soldiers. They faced the unremitting hostility of the climate, the people and even, at times, their own leadership. There were epic conflicts, such as the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk. But surrounding these famous events was a daily war of attrition which ultimately ground Hitler’s war machine to a halt. In this classic account, military historian James Lucas examines the Eastern Front from trench warfare to a bicycle-mounted antitank unit fighting against the oncoming Russian hordes. Told through the experiences of the German soldiers who endured these nightmarish years of warfare, War on the Eastern Front is a unique record of this cataclysmic campaign.

Günter Koschorrek wrote his illicit diary on any scraps of paper he could lay his hands on, storing them with his mother on infrequent trips home on leave. The diary went missing, and it was not until he was reunited with his daughter in America some forty years later that it came to light and became Blood Red Snow. The author’s excitement at the first encounter with the enemy in the Russian Steppe is obvious. Later, the horror and confusion of fighting in the streets of Stalingrad are brought to life by his descriptions of the others in his unit – their differing manners and techniques for dealing with the squalor and death. He is also posted to Romania and Italy, assignments he remembers fondly compared to his time on the Eastern Front. This book stands as a memorial to the huge numbers on both sides who did not survive and is, some six decades later, the fulfilment of a responsibility the author feels to honour the memory of those who perished.

The personal memoir of a Nazi soldier, from joining the German Army in 1941 through his time as a Panzer on the Eastern Front. Originally written only for his daughter, Armin Schedierbauer’s Adventures in My Youth chronicles his time as a solider during World War II. As an infantry officer with the 252nd Infantry Division, German Army, Schedierbauer saw four years of combat on the Eastern Front. After joining his unit during the winter of 1942, he was wounded six times and had firsthand experience of the Soviet offensives in the summer of 1944 and January 1945. While fighting in East Prussia, he was captured by the Soviets and not released until 1947. Schedierbauer was only twenty-one years old when the war ended, and his memoir recollects the experiences he went through as a young man on the front.

A Nazi infantryman recalls the horrors of combat against the Soviet Union in this WWII memoir as told to his son. Friedrich “Fritz” Sauer was posted to the Eastern Front in 1942. A soldier in the 132nd Infantry Division, he was deployed in Hitler’s grand invasion of Russia. But instead of the swift knockout blow the Germans had anticipated, Operation Barbarossa ground on for almost four years. Sent first to the Crimea and then the region around Leningrad, Fritz experienced horrors of all kinds. In this memoir, Fritz recalls losing his best friend to a sniper, rescuing the body of a fallen comrade from No Man’s Land, enduring Soviet tank assaults, and his own wounding during a counterattack. Fritz was later transferred to a tank assault regiment where, on a mission to contact another unit, he lost his way in the snow. After sheltering with a farmer’s family, Fritz headed west to flee the advancing Red Army. His subsequent journey home took many twists and turns.

Text and photos record the conditions and experiences of German soldiers on the battle front with Russia.

Dawn on Sunday 22 June 1941 saw the opening onslaughts of Operation Barbarossa as German forces stormed forward into the Soviet Union. Few of them were to survive the five long years of bitter struggle.??A posting to the Eastern Front during the Second World War was rightly regarded with dread by the German soldiers. They were faced by the unremitting hostility of the climate, the people and even, at times, their own leadership. They saw epic battles such as Stalingrad and Kursk, and yet it was a daily war of attrition which ultimately proved fatal for Hitler's ambition and the German military machine. ??In this classic account leading military historian James Lucas examines different aspects of the fighting, from war in the trenches to a bicycle-mounted anti-tank unit fighting against the oncoming Russian hordes. Told through the experiences of the German soldiers who endured these nightmarish years of warfare, War on the Eastern Front is a unique record of this cataclysmic campaign.

A German soldier deployed to Russia recounts his harrowing experience as both victim and perpetrator of Nazi atrocities in this WWII memoir. Serving his country on the Eastern Front, Luis Raffeiner witnessed devastating acts committed by the German army that couldn’t be reconciled with the heroic propaganda back home. Caught up in the turmoil of the vast conflict, he struggled to make sense of the ruthlessness he witnessed—and the part he himself played in it. In this bracingly candid memoir, Raffeiner offers a detailed firsthand account of the Nazi war of annihilation in the Soviet Union. Raffeiner chronicles his family life in a remote village in the Tyrol in the 1930s, his military service in Italy, his transfer to the Wehrmacht and his training as a mechanic on assault guns. He then proceeds to his march into the Soviet Union in 1941. There he experienced, as he says, ‘war in its brutal and cruel reality’. Captured by the Red Army, Raffeiner barely survived as a prisoner of war. His dramatic and honest recollections shatter the myth of the clean conduct of the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front. He testifies to vicious actions, including some in which he himself was involved. His memoir is not a heroic tale – it shows how a man from an ordinary background can come to participate in the horrors of war.

This book offers a ground soldier's perspective on life and death on the front lines, providing details of day-to-day operations and German army life. Wounded five times and awarded numerous decorations, Bidermann fought in the Crimea and the siege of Sebastopol, participated in the battles in the forests to the south of Leningrad, and found himself in the Courland Pocket at the end of the war. He shares his impressions of Russian POWs, of peasants struggling to survive the war, and of his fellow German soldiers. He also recounts the humiliation of surrender and offers a sober glimpse of life in a Soviet gulag. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR