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 Red Sky Black Death written by Анна Александровна Тимофеева-Егорова and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Born in a tiny village amidst revolution and civil war, Anna Yegorova came of age during the grimmest years of Soviet power. An optimistic and resolute young patriot, she saw hope and vision in the nascent superpower's ideology. She volunteered to help build Moscow. And she took to the skies and learned to fly. But when Germany's 1941 invasion shook Russia to its core, Yegorova joined her fellow pilots in the bloodiest war zone in human history, flying hair-raising reconnaissance missions in a wooden biplane. She became a flight leader in the famously deadly "Shturmovik" ground-attack aircraft, guiding her comrades in furious air battles along the Southern front. Eventually shot down and captured near Warsaw, Yegorova survived five months in a Nazi concentration camp. After the war, she was welcomed home with suspicion and persecution by the notorious Soviet secret police. Amid the epic catastrophe of Russia's "Great Patriotic War" and her own personal tragedies, Yegorova's story is also one of joy, camaraderie among soldiers and pilots and the quiet satisfaction of defending one's country, all against a backdrop of love for the freedom of flight. In 1965, Yegorova was awarded the illustrious "Hero of the Soviet Union", then Moscow's highest honor"--P. [4] of cover.
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 Stalingrad written by David M. Glantz and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2019-07-13 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The long awaited one-volume campaign history from the leading experts of the decisive clash of Nazi and Soviet forces at Stalingrad; an abridged edition of the five volume Stalingrad Trilogy. Stalingrad offers a sweeping synthesis of this massive confrontation, how it impacted the war, and why it matters today.
Download or read book Red Sniper on the Eastern Front written by Joseph Pilyushin and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2010-03-19 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A gripping memoir of a Soviet sniper who fought against the Nazis during the siege of Leningrad and throughout World War II. Joseph Pilyushin, a top Red Army sniper in the ruthless fight against the Germans on the Eastern Front, was an exceptional soldier. His first-hand account of his wartime service gives a graphic insight into his lethal skill with a rifle and into the desperate fight put up by Soviet forces to defend Leningrad. Pilyushin, who lived in Leningrad with his family, was already 35 years-old when the war broke out and he was drafted. He started in the Red Army as a scout, but once he had demonstrated his marksmanship and steady nerve, he became a sniper. He served throughout the Leningrad siege, from the late 1941 when the Wehrmacht’s advance was halted just short of the city to its liberation during the Soviet offensive of 1944. His descriptions of grueling front-line life, of his fellow soldiers, and of his sniping missions are balanced by his vivid recollections of the protracted suffering of Leningrad’s imprisoned population and of the grief that was visited upon him and his family. His narrative will be fascinating reading for anyone eager to learn about the role and technique of the sniper during the Second World War. It is also a memorable eyewitness account of one man’s experience on the Eastern Front.
Download or read book Eastern Inferno written by Christine Alexander and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2010-11-30 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Remarkable personal journals . . revealing the combat experience of the German-Russian War as seldom seen before . . . a harrowing yet poignant story” (Military Times). Hans Roth was a member of the anti-tank panzerjager battalion, 299th Infantry Division, attached to the Sixth Army, as the invasion of Russia began. As events transpired, he recorded the tension as the Germans deployed on the Soviet frontier in June 1941. Then, a firestorm broke loose as the Wehrmacht tore across the front, forging into the primitive vastness of the East. During the Kiev encirclement, Roth’s unit was under constant attack as the Soviets desperately tried to break through the German ring. At one point, after the enemy had finally been beaten, a friend serving with the SS led him to a site—possibly Babi Yar—where he witnessed civilians being massacred. After suffering through a brutal winter against apparently endless Russian reserves, his division went on the offensive again when the Germans drove toward Stalingrad. In these journals, attacks and counterattacks are described in you-are-there detail. Roth wrote privately, as if to keep himself sane, knowing his honest accounts of the horrors in the East could never pass Wehrmacht censors. When the Soviet counteroffensive of winter 1942 begins, his unit is stationed alongside the Italian 8th Army, and his observations of its collapse, as opposed to the reaction of the German troops sent to stiffen its front, are of special fascination. Roth’s three journals were discovered many years after his disappearance, tucked away in the home of his brother. After his brother’s death, his family discovered them and sent them to Rosel, Roth’s wife. In time, Rosel handed down the journals to Erika, Roth’s only daughter, who had emigrated to America. Roth was likely working on a fourth journal before he was reported missing in action in July 1944. Although his ultimate fate remains unknown, what he did leave behind, now finally revealed, is an incredible firsthand account of the horrific war the Germans waged in Russia.
Download or read book The Eastern Front 1914 1917 written by Norman Stone and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2008-06-26 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Without question one of the classics of post-war historical scholarship, Stone's boldly conceived and brilliantly executed book opened the eyes of a generation of young British historians raised on tales of the Western trenches to the crucial importance of the Eastern Front in the First World War' Niall Ferguson 'Scholarly, lucid, entertaining, based on a thorough knowledge of Austrian and Russian sources, it sharply revises traditional assumptions about the First World War.' Michael Howard
Download or read book Through the Maelstrom written by Борис Горбачевский and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A junior officer in the Red Army provides one of the richest and most detailed memoirs of life and warfare on the Eastern Front, from his combat training in early 1942 until the surrender and occupation of Germany.
Download or read book Eastern Front Sniper written by Roland Kaltenegger and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2017-04-30 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eastern Front Sniper is a long overdue and comprehensive biography of one of World War IIs most accomplished snipers.Mathus Hetzenauer, the son of a Tyrolean peasant family, was born in December 1924. He was drafted into the Mountain Reserve Battalian 140 at the age of 18 but discharged five months later.He received a new draft notice in January 1943 for a post in the Styrian Truppenbungsplatz Seetal Alps where he met some of the best German snipers and learned his art.Hetzenauer went on to fight in Romania, Eastern Hungary and in Slovakia. As recognition for his more than 300 confirmed kills he was awarded on the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on April 17, 1945.After nearly five years of Soviet captivity Mathus Hetzenauer returned to Austria on January 10, 1950. He lived in the Tyrol's Brixen Valley until his death on 3 October of 2004.
Download or read book Stalin s Italian Prisoners of War written by Maria Teresa Giusti and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-30 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reconstructs the fate of Italian prisoners of war captured by the Red Army between August 1941 and the winter of 1942-43. On 230.000 Italians left on the Eastern front almost 100.000 did not come back home. Testimonies and memoirs from surviving veterans complement the author's intensive work in Russian and Italian archives. The study examines Italian war crimes against the Soviet civilian population and describes the particularly grim fate of the thousands of Italian military internees who after the 8 September 1943 Armistice had been sent to Germany and were subsequently captured by the Soviet army to be deported to the USSR. The book presents everyday life and death in the Soviet prisoner camps and explains the particularly high mortality among Italian prisoners. Giusti explores how well the system of prisoner labor, personally supervised by Stalin, was planned, starting in 1943. A special focus of the study is antifascist propaganda among prisoners and the infiltration of the Soviet security agencies in the camps. Stalin was keen to create a new cohort of supporters through the mass political reeducation of war prisoners, especially middle-class intellectuals and military élite. The book ends with the laborious diplomatic talks in 1946 and 1947 between USSR, Italy, and the Holy See for the repatriation of the surviving prisoners.
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 Siege written by Russ Schneider and published by Random House Digital, Inc.. This book was released on 2004 with total page 477 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chilling and authentic historical novel.
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 Deathride written by John Mosier and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-06-15 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published as Deathride, this is the true story of the Eastern Front in World War II, emphasizing how close Germany came to winning and the USSR to losing; the severity of the Soviet losses, which have been minimized due to Soviet propaganda; and the importance of the Allied invasions of North Africa and Sicily, among other factors, in forcing Hitler to re-deploy troops, saving the Soviets from disaster. The German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, began a war that lasted nearly four years and created by far the bloodiest theater in World War II. In the conventional narrative of this war, Hitler was defeated by Stalin because, like Napoleon, he underestimated the size and resources of his enemy. In fact, says historian John Mosier, Hitler came very close to winning and lost only because of the intervention of the western Allies. Stalin’s great triumph was not winning the war, but establishing the prevailing interpretation of the war. The Great Patriotic War, as it is known in Russia, would eventually prove fatal, setting in motion events that would culminate in the collapse of the Soviet Union. Mosier argues that the Soviet losses in World War II were unsustainable and would eventually have led to defeat. The Soviet Union had only twice the population of Germany at the time, but it was suffering a casualty rate more than two and a half times the German rate. Because Stalin had a notorious habit of imprisoning or killing anyone who brought him bad news (and often their families as well), Soviet battlefield reports were fantasies, and the battle plans Soviet generals developed seldom responded to actual circumstances. In this respect the Soviets waged war as they did everything else: through propaganda rather than actual achievement. What saved Stalin was the Allied decision to open the Mediterranean theater. Once the Allies threatened Italy, Hitler was forced to withdraw his best troops from the eastern front and redeploy them. In addition, the Allies provided heavy vehicles that the Soviets desperately needed and were unable to manufacture themselves. It was not the resources of the Soviet Union that defeated Hitler but the resources of the West. In this provocative revisionist analysis of the war between Hitler and Stalin, Mosier provides a dramatic, vigorous narrative of events as he shows how most previous histories accepted Stalin’s lies and distortions to produce a false sense of Soviet triumph. This is the real story of the Eastern Front, fresh and different from what we thought we knew.
Download or read book SS Hell on the Eastern Front written by Christopher Ailsby and published by Spellmount, Limited Publishers. This book was released on 1998 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gives an account of the Waffen-SS on the Eastern Front, its battles, organisation, tactics and equipment.
Download or read book Red Army Sniper written by Yevgeni Nikolaev and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2017-11-30 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'I did not regard myself as a slacker. Even in childhood I taught myself to carry out tasks entrusted conscientiously and carefully. In war, it is no secret that the casual don't survive'.Yevgeni Nikolaev was one of Russias leading snipers of World War II and his memoir provides and unparalleled account of front-line action in crucial theaters of war. Nikolaev is credited with a remarkable 324 kills and his wartime service included time in the siege of Leningrad in 1941/1942.His memoir is not a neutral, apolitical account. Far from it. Nikolaev asserts, for example, that Finland attacked Russia. As a member of the NKVD, it is not surprising that his memoir full of historical misinterpretation and justification of the agencys actions.Equally, Nikoalev is dismissive of his Nazi opponents. On several occasions, he discusses his Nazi counterparts as bandits and scum, and implores the reader to take a look, fellows, at the beast of a bastard Ive laid low.In vivid, arresting recollections he paints his actions in a saintly heroic light. He describes the comfort of the German foxholes, wired with telephone connections, relative to the Russians who fasted without food or water awaiting the moment for a perfect shot. He claims the Russian soldier was a moral warrior, killing only with head or heart shots.In addition to describing details of his kills, Nikolaev explains how his life was saved when an explosive rifle bullet struck a watch that he kept in his jacket pocket. His life was saved by a surgeon who extracted all the watch parts.
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 505 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.
