Download or read book War on the Eastern Front written by James Lucas and published by Frontline Books. This book was released on 2014-10-30 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Blood Red Snow written by Gunter Koschorrek and published by Frontline Books. This book was released on 2011-04-13 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 authors 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.
Download or read book Adventures in My Youth written by Armin Scheiderbauer and published by Helion and Company. This book was released on 2013-03-20 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Eastern Front Combat written by Hans Wijers and published by Stackpole Books. This book was released on 2008-08-06 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First-person German accounts of bloody combat. Includes never-before-seen photos.
Download or read book The German Army on the Eastern Front written by Jeff Rutherford and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2018-05-30 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Histories of the German army on the Eastern Front generally focus on battlefield exploits on the war as it was fought in the front line. They tend to neglect other aspects of the armys experience, particularly its participation in the racial war demanded by the leadership of the Reich. This ground-breaking book aims to correct this incomplete, often misleading picture. Using a selection of revealing extracts from a wide range of wartime documents, it looks at the totality of the Wehrmachts war in the East. The documents have previously been unpublished or have never been translated into English, and they offer a fascinating inside view of the armys actions and attitudes. Combat is covered, and complicity in Hitlers war of annihilation against the Soviet Union. There are sections on the conduct of the war in the rear areas logistics, medical, judicial and the armys tactics, motivation and leadership. The entire text is informed by the latest research into the reality of the conflict as it was perceived and understood by those who took part.
Download or read book Battleground Prussia written by Prit Buttar and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-02-20 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An engrossing history of the last year of the Second World War, charting the battles fought between the Soviet Red Army and the Nazis across German soil. The terrible months between the arrival of the Red Army on German soil and the final collapse of Hitler's regime were like no other in the Second World War. The Soviet Army's intent to take revenge for the horror that the Nazis had wreaked on their people produced a conflict of implacable brutality in which millions perished. From the great battles that marked the Soviet conquest of East and West Prussia to the final surrender in the Vistula estuary, this book recounts in chilling detail the desperate struggle of soldiers and civilians alike. These brutal campaigns are brought vividly to life by a combination of previously untold testimony and astute strategic analysis recognising a conflict of unprecedented horror and suffering.
Download or read book War on the Eastern Front 1941 1945 written by James Lucas and published by Random House Value Publishing. This book was released on 1982 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Text and photos record the conditions and experiences of German soldiers on the battle front with Russia.
Download or read book In the Hell of the Eastern Front written by Arno Sauer and published by Frontline Books. This book was released on 2020-09-30 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book In Deadly Combat written by Gottlob Herbert Bidermann and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2000-06-07 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the hell that was World War II, the Eastern Front was its heart of fire and ice. Gottlob Herbert Bidermann served in that lethal theater from 1941 to 1945, and his memoir of those years recaptures the sights, sounds, and smells of the war as it vividly portrays an army marching on the road to ruin. A riveting and reflective account by one of the millions of anonymous soldiers who fought and died in that cruel terrain, In Deadly Combat conveys the brutality and horrors of the Eastern Front in detail never before available in English. It offers a ground soldier's perspective on life and death on the front lines, providing revealing new information concerning day-to-day operations and German army life. Wounded five times and awarded numerous decorations for valor, Bidermann saw action in the Crimea and siege of Sebastopol, participated in the vicious battles in the forests south of Leningrad, and ended the war in the Courland Pocket. He shares his impressions of countless Russian POWs seen at the outset of his service, of peasants struggling to survive the hostilities while caught between two ruthless antagonists, and of corpses littering the landscape. He recalls a Christmas gift of gingerbread from home that overcame the stench of battle, an Easter celebrated with a basket of Russian hand grenades for eggs, and his miraculous survival of machine gun fire at close range. In closing he relives the humiliation of surrender to an enemy whom the Germans had once derided and offers a sobering glimpse into life in the Soviet gulags. Bidermann's account debunks the myth of a highly mechanized German army that rolled over weaker opponents with impunity. Despite the vast expanses of territory captured by the Germans during the early months of Operation Barbarossa, the war with Russia remained tenuous and unforgiving. His story commits that living hell to the annals of World War II and broadens our understanding of its most deadly combat zone. Translator Derek Zumbro has rendered Bidermann's memoir into a compelling narrative that retains the author's powerful style. This English-language edition of Bidermann's dynamic story is based upon a privately published memoir entitled Krim-Kurland Mit Der 132 Infanterie Division.The translator has added important events derived from numerous interviews with Bidermann to provide additional context for American readers.
Download or read book Through the Maelstrom written by Boris Gorbachevsky and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2015-03-27 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The monumental battles of World War II's Eastern Front--Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk--are etched into the historical record. But there is another, hidden history of that war that has too often been ignored in official accounts. Boris Gorbachevsky was a junior officer in the 31st Army who first saw front-line duty as a rifleman in the 30th Army. Through the Maelstrom recounts his three harrowing years on some of the war's grimmest but forgotten battlefields: the campaign for Rzhev, the bloody struggle to retake Belorussia, and the bitter final fighting in East Prussia. As he traces his experiences from his initial training, through the maelstrom, to final victory, he provides one of the richest and most detailed memoirs of life and warfare on the Eastern Front. Gorbachevsky's panoramic account takes us from infantry specialist school to the front lines to rear services areas and his whirlwind romances in wartime Moscow. He recalls the shriek of Katiusha rockets flying overhead toward the enemy and the unforgettable howl of Stukas divebombing Soviet tanks. And he conveys horrors of brutal fighting not recorded previously in English, including his own participation in a human wave assault that decimated his regiment at Rzhev, with piles of corpses growing the closer they got to the German trenches. Gorbachevsky also records the sufferings of the starving citizens of Leningrad, the savage execution of a Russian scout who turned in false information, the killing of an innocent German trying to welcome the Soviet troops, and a chilling campfire discussion by four Russian soldiers as they compared notes about the women they'd raped. His memoir brims with rich descriptions of daily army life, the challenges of maintaining morale, and relationships between soldiers. It also includes candid exposs of the many problems the Red Army faced: the influence of political officers, the stubbornness of senior commanders, the attrition through desertions, and the initial months of occupation in postwar Germany. Through the Maelstrom features the swiftly moving narrative and rich dialogue associated with the grand style of great Russian literature. Ultimately, it provides a fitting and final testament to soldiers who fought and died in anonymity.
Download or read book In Deadly Combat written by Gottlob Herbert Bidermann and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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
Download or read book War on the Eastern Front written by James Lucas and published by Frontline Books. This book was released on 2014-10-30 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The First Day on the Eastern Front written by Craig W. H. Luther and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-11-01 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sunday, June 22, 1941: three million German soldiers invaded the Soviet Union as part of Hitler’s long-planned Operation Barbarossa, which aimed to destroy the Soviet Union, secure its land as lebensraum for the Third Reich, and enslave its Slavic population. From launching points in newly acquired Poland, in three prongs—North, Central, South—German forces stormed western Russia, virtually from the Baltic to the Black Sea. By late fall, the invasion had foundered against Russian weather, terrain, and resistance, and by December, it had failed at the gates of Moscow, but early on, as the Germans sliced through Russian territory and soldiers with impunity, capturing hundreds of thousands, it seemed as though Russia would fall. In the spirit of Martin Middlebrook’s classic First Day on the Somme, Craig Luther narrates the events of June 22, 1941, a day when German military might was at its peak and seemed as though it would easily conquer the Soviet Union, a day the common soldiers would remember for its tension and the frogs bellowing in the Polish marshlands. It was a day when the German blitzkrieg decimated Soviet command and control within hours and seemed like nothing would stop it from taking Moscow. Luther narrates June 22—one of the pivotal days of World War II—from high command down to the tanks and soldiers at the sharp end, covering strategy as well as tactics and the vivid personal stories of the men who crossed the border into the Soviet Union that fateful day, which is the Eastern Front in microcosm, representing the years of industrial-scale warfare that followed and the unremitting hostility of Germans and Soviets.
Download or read book 800 Days on the Eastern Front written by Nikolai Litvin and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Litvin's stark, candid memoir focuses on his more than two years of service in the Red Army during its war with Germany. Originally written in 1962 and recently revised through extended interviews between author and translator, the result is a gripping account--in a straightforward, matter-of-fact tone--of the trials and tribulations of being a common Soviet soldier on the Eastern Front during World War II.
Download or read book Eyewitness to Wehrmacht Atrocities on the Eastern Front written by Luis Raffeiner and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2021-12-22 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book A German Soldier on the Eastern Front written by Franz Taut and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2024-05-30 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following the German attack on the Soviet Union in 1941, the German-Soviet non-aggression pact was officially broken. After initial successes, it quickly became clear that the enemy could not be defeated that easily, as the unknown terrain and extreme weather conditions continued to exacerbate the problems. Lieutenant Hohberg, who had previously fought in the French campaign, had been sent to the East after receiving his promotion. Having led his battery several times, he was now waiting in vain for tank support. However, the lack of supplies, not to mention the fire raids and air raids, made any further advance impossible, and with the Russian winter approaching, he knew that they would have to reach the Donets as soon as possible
Download or read book Hitler s Army written by Omer Bartov and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1992-11-26 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the Cold War followed on the heels of the Second World War, as the Nuremburg Trials faded in the shadow of the Iron Curtain, both the Germans and the West were quick to accept the idea that Hitler's army had been no SS, no Gestapo, that it was a professional force little touched by Nazi politics. But in this compelling account Omer Bartov reveals a very different history, as he probes the experience of the average soldier to show just how thoroughly Nazi ideology permeated the army. In Hitler's Army, Bartov focuses on the titanic struggle between Germany and the Soviet Union--where the vast majority of German troops fought--to show how the savagery of war reshaped the army in Hitler's image. Both brutalized and brutalizing, these soldiers needed to see their bitter sacrifices as noble patriotism and to justify their own atrocities by seeing their victims as subhuman. In the unprecedented ferocity and catastrophic losses of the Eastrn front, he writes, soldiers embraced the idea that the war was a defense of civilization against Jewish/Bolshevik barbarism, a war of racial survival to be waged at all costs. Bartov describes the incredible scale and destruction of the invasion of Russia in horrific detail. Even in the first months--often depicted as a time of easy victories--undermanned and ill-equipped German units were stretched to the breaking point by vast distances and bitter Soviet resistance. Facing scarce supplies and enormous casualties, the average soldier sank to ta a primitive level of existence, re-experiencing the trench warfare of World War I under the most extreme weather conditions imaginable; the fighting itself was savage, and massacres of prisoners were common. Troops looted food and supplies from civilians with wild abandon; they mercilessly wiped out villages suspected of aiding partisans. Incredible losses led to recruits being thrown together in units that once had been filled with men from the same communities, making Nazi ideology even more important as a binding force. And they were further brutalized by a military justice system that executed almost 15,000 German soldiers during the war. Bartov goes on to explore letters, diaries, military reports, and other sources, showing how widespread Hitler's views became among common fighting men--men who grew up, he reminds us, under the Nazi regime. In the end, they truly became Hitler's army. In six years of warfare, the vast majority of German men passed through the Wehrmacht and almost every family had a relative who fought in the East. Bartov's powerful new account of how deeply Nazi ideology penetrated the army sheds new light on how deeply it penetrated the nation. Hitler's Army makes an important correction not merely to the historical record but to how we see the world today.
