Download or read book Mortar Gunner on the Eastern Front Volume II written by Hans Heinz Rehfeldt and published by Greenhill Books. This book was released on 2019-10-30 with total page 469 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This second volume of a Nazi soldier’s WWII diary continues the chronicle of his experiences on the Easter Front. A member of the Hitler Youth before the outbreak of World War II, Hans Heinz Rehfeldt volunteered for the Grossdeutschland’s panzer arm in 1940 and fought with them for nearly the entire war. He was decorated with the Iron Cross First and Second Class, the Eastern Front Medal, the Close Combat Clasp, and the Infantry Assault Badge. His diaries offer a historically significant chronicle of German military actions on the Eastern Front as well as a rare look inside the mind of a committed Nazi soldier. This second volume of Rehfeldt’s wartime diary covers his experience as a platoon commander in Romania, East Prussia and Lithuania during 1944. After being transferred by ship from Memel to Königsberg later that year, he took part in the battles for Ostprussen. Fleeing Russian imprisonment, he traveled west, where he fell into American captivity on May 3rd, 1945. In July, he was released and returned home.
Download or read book At Leningrad s Gates written by William Lubbeck and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2006-11-30 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A first-rate memoir” from a German soldier who rose from conscript private to captain of a heavy weapons company on the Eastern Front of World War II (City Book Review). William Lubbeck, age nineteen, was drafted into the Wehrmacht in August 1939. As a member of the 58th Infantry Division, he received his baptism of fire during the 1940 invasion of France. The following spring, his division served on the left flank of Army Group North in Operation Barbarossa. After grueling marches amid countless Russian bodies, burnt-out vehicles, and a great number of cheering Baltic civilians, Lubbeck’s unit entered the outskirts of Leningrad, making the deepest penetration of any German formation. In September 1943, Lubbeck earned the Iron Cross First Class and was assigned to officers’ training school in Dresden. By the time he returned to Russia, Army Group North was in full-scale retreat. In the last chaotic scramble from East Prussia, Lubbeck was able to evacuate on a newly minted German destroyer. He recounts how the ship arrived in the British zone off Denmark with all guns blazing against pursuing Russians. The following morning, May 8, 1945, he learned that the war was over. After his release from British captivity, Lubbeck married his sweetheart, Anneliese, and in 1949, immigrated to the United States where he raised a successful family. With the assistance of David B. Hurt, he has drawn on his wartime notes and letters, Soldatbuch, regimental history, and personal memories to recount his four years of frontline experience. Containing rare firsthand accounts of both triumph and disaster, At Leningrad’s Gates provides a fascinating glimpse into the reality of combat on the Eastern Front.
Download or read book Radio Operator on the Eastern Front written by Erhard Steiniger and published by Greenhill Books. This book was released on 2021-04-14 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The true and dramatic testimony of a German grenadier during World War II. Erhard Steiniger joined his Wehrmacht unit on 12 October 1940 as a radio operator, a role which required his constant presence with troops at the Front, right during combat. On 22 June 1941, he accompanied his division to Lithuania where he experienced the catastrophic first day of Operation Barbarossa. He later witnessed intense clashes during the conquest of the Baltic islands and the battles leading up to Leningrad on the Volkhov and Lake Ladoga. He describes the retreat from battles in Estonia, Kurland and East Prussia and his eventual surrender and captivity in Siberia. He finally returned to Germany in October 1949, a broken man. From the first page to the last, this is a captivating eyewitness account of the horrors of war. Praise for Radio Operator on the Eastern Front “This often subdued, but continuously hypnotic, memoir is rare since it offers so much information, knowledge, and insight about the enemy from the beginning of the war on the Eastern Front right up to Steiniger’s release from a prison camp in Russia and return to Germany in 1949.” —ARGunners.com “Witting testimony of a German radio operator—a extraordinary account from a German perspective. Fascinating.” —Books Monthly
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 Mortar Gunner on the Eastern Front Volume I written by Hans Heinz Rehfeldt and published by Greenhill Books. This book was released on 2019-09-30 with total page 521 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first volume of the World War II diaries of Nazi mortar gunner constantly pushed to the brink of death while fighting against Russia. Following his Abitur (A-levels) in 1940, Hans Heinz Rehfeldt volunteered for Germany’s Panzer Arm but was trained on the heavy mortar and heavy MG with Grossdeutschland Division. In 1941, he was on the Front fighting for the city of Tula, south of Moscow. Battling in freezing conditions without winter clothes, they resorted to using those taken from Soviet corpses. In 1942, his battalion fought near Oriel, suffered heavy losses, and disbanded. Ill with frostbitten legs, Rehfeldt was treated in hospital, and once recovered, was dispatched back to the Front. Following various battles (Werch, Bolchov) his battalion again suffered heavy losses and it merged. In agony from severe frostbite to his legs, Rehfeldt defied the odds and astonished his surgeon when he walked again. He was promoted from Gunner to Trained Private Soldier in 1942, and to Corporal for bravery in the field in 1943. He was also awarded numerous honors, including the Wound Badge and the Infantry Assault Badge. On 3 May 1945, he was captured by U.S. Forces and held as a POW for one month in a camp at Waschow before internment in Holstein where he was released in July 1945, after agreeing to work on the land. Then, in December 1945, he put his past behind him and began studying for his future career: veterinary medicine.
Download or read book Blood and Soil written by Sepp de Giampietro and published by Greenhill Books. This book was released on 2019-02-28 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Available for the first time in English, a memoir of a member of the World War II Brandenburg German special forces unit. The Brandenburgers were Hitler’s Special Forces, a band of mainly foreign German nationals who used disguise and fluency in other languages to complete daring missions into enemy territory. Overshadowed by stories of their Allied equivalents, their history has largely been ignored, making this memoir all the more extraordinary. First published in German in 1984, de Giampietro's highly-personal and eloquent memoir is a vivid account of his experiences. He delves into the reality of life in the unit from everyday concerns and politics to training and involvement in Brandenburg missions. He details the often foolhardy missions undertaken under the command of Theodor von Hippel, including the June 1941 seizure of the Duna bridges in Dunaburg and the attempted capture of the bridge at Bataisk where half of his unit was killed. Given the very perilous nature of their missions, very few of these specially-trained soldiers survived World War II. Much knowledge of the unit has been lost forever, making this is a unique insight into a slice of German wartime history. Widely regarded as the predecessor of today’s special forces units, this fascinating account brings to life the Brandenburger Division and its part in history in vivid and compelling detail.
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 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 Infantry in Battle written by Infantry School (U.S.) and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1934 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Memoirs of a Stuka Pilot written by Helmut Mahlke and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2013-05-10 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Well-written and holds the reader’s attention . . . an engaging book and a rare personal view of flying one of the most iconic aircraft of WWII.” —Firetrench After recounting his early days as a naval cadet, including a voyage to the Far East aboard the cruiser Köln and as the navigator/observer of the floatplane carried by the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer during the Spanish Civil War, Helmut Mahlke describes his flying training as a Stuka pilot. The author’s naval dive-bomber Gruppe was incorporated into the Luftwaffe upon the outbreak of war. What follows is a fascinating Stuka pilot’s-eye view of some of the most famous and historic battles and campaigns of the early war years: the Blitzkrieg in France, Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, the bombing of Malta, North Africa, Tobruk, and Crete, and, finally, the invasion of the Soviet Union. Mahlke also takes the reader behind the scenes into the day-to-day life of his unit and brings the members of his Gruppe to vivid life, describing their off-duty antics and mourning their losses in action. The story ends when he himself is shot down in flames by a Soviet fighter and is severely burned. He was to spend the remainder of the war in various staff appointments. “An engaging, engrossing and exceptionally informative book. A worthy addition to any military enthusiast’s library and is unhesitatingly and heartily recommended.” —Aviation History
Download or read book Born Under a Lucky Star written by Ivan Makarov and published by . This book was released on 2020-11-17 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Synopsis.History is written by the victors, but the harsh reality of war can only be depicted by its soldiers. As a Russian recruit in World War II, Ivan Makarov witnessed General Chuikov pull out his pistol and shoot their regimental commander as a traitor. Then thrown into an open field to face German tank and artillery fire with only rifles and machine guns of their own, it took only six days at the Eastern Front for three-quarters of a regiment of 2,000 men to be wiped out. Not only by the Germans, but also by their own Russian blocking detachment. At this rate, Ivan struggled to comprehend how he would survive the hundreds of battles that lay before him, with death seeming to be the only certainty. But Ivan was a wise soul and a brave soldier, who fought for his life, no matter how hopeless or fatal the situation. In his raw and trenchant memoir, Ivan recounts in detail the terror and despair faced by a Red Army soldier on the Eastern Front.He has no sympathy for Stalin and his incompetent commanders, who sought awards and recognition at the expense of their soldiers' lives. He simply wanted to serve his country. It is rare to find first-hand accounts of the Great Patriotic War from Red Army soldiers, as many did not survive to tell the tale. For the first time, Ivan reveals his gripping recollections of battles, times, places, and people encountered over the course of World War II from when he was drafted in 1941 until their victory. These recollections re-lived over a lifetime he dared not put on paper until 1992. About the Author. Ivan Makarov was my grandfather on my mother's side. He was a veteran of the Great Patriotic War. From my childhood, I remember that he loved to tell stories about the war--about his childhood and life. Ivan also had an old typewriter and was constantly typing on it. In early 2000, he came to visit us, gave a bundle of printed stories to my mother, and said, "These are my memoirs of the war, one day you should publish a book. Let people know the real truth about the war, as all my life, I have never seen the real war portrayed in any book or movie."There are hardly any accounts detailing what the war was like for a Red Army soldier from the front line, especially in the first years. A profoundly changed man returned from there. Those who managed to return, as a rule, did not like and could not recount the real events that had transpired, and many of the Russian military documents of those years are still inaccessible to the public.Ivan wrote these stories from 1992 to 1998, after the Soviet Union collapsed and it became possible to talk about what had really happened openly. Before this time, he could easily go to prison for such writings. This book is a collection of individual stories. These events Ivan recalls in detail, from Stalingrad to Germany. During the first half of the war, Ivan was a machine gunner and a regimental scout during the second. He talks about what he personally saw and experienced during the war, and what difficulties were faced by ordinary soldiers. Ivan describes how he was captured by the Germans, escaped, and returned to the Red Army, and how he served in the machine gun company once more. Later, he was assigned to the army's intelligence services and performed special tasks. Despite all the difficulties on the front line, he maintained his desire to live, managed to survive, and returned to Russia.These stories I found in my mother's house before I moved to Australia in 2014. I started reading and could not stop, I found them captivating. After reading and making copies, I decided that it was necessary to publish the book and even translate it into English. Usually, the authors of Russian war memoirs were commanders or political workers, whose stories were vastly different
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 257 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 Red Road From Stalingrad written by Mansur Abdulin and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 1990-12-31 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mansur Abdulin fought in the front ranks of the Soviet infantry against the German invaders at Stalingrad, Kursk and on the banks of the Dnieper. This is his extraordinary story. His vivid inside view of a ruthless war on the Eastern Front gives a rare insight into the reality of the fighting and into the tactics and mentality of the Soviet army. In his own words, and with a remarkable clarity of recall, he describes what combat was like on the ground, face to face with a skilled, deadly and increasingly desperate enemy.
Download or read book Toward Combined Arms Warfare written by Jonathan Mallory House and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1985 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
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 Rangers written by Michael Julius King and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Leavenworth Paper is a critical reconstruction of World War II Ranger operations conducted at or near Djebel el Ank, Tunisia; Porto Empedocle, Sicily; Cisterna, Italy; Zerf, Germany; and Cabanatuan in the Philippines. It is not intended to be a comprehensive account of World War II Ranger operations, for such a study would have to include numerous minor actions that are too poorly documented to be studied to advantage. It is, however, representative for it examines several types of operations conducted against the troops of three enemy nations in a variety of physical and tactical environments. As such, it draws a wide range of lessons useful to combat leaders who may have to conduct such operations or be on guard against them in the future. Many factors determined the outcomes of the operations featured in this Leavenworth Paper, and of these there are four that are important enough to merit special emphasis. These are surprise, the quality of opposing forces, the success of friendly forces with which the Rangers were cooperating, and popular support.
Download or read book Hitler s Swedes written by Lars T. Larsson and published by Grub Street Publishers. This book was released on 2015-02-19 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “For those interested in the fighting on the Eastern Front in general . . . give[s] us some of the vast scale of the SS by the end of the war.” —HistoryOfWar.org Though Sweden was neutral during the Second World War, Swedish SS volunteers saw action on both the eastern front and NW Europe, and participated in some of the bloodiest clashes: the initial stages of Operation Barbarossa, the winter of 1941–42, the battles of Kursk, Arnhem, Normandy, Narva, the Warsaw uprising, the Cherkassy and Kurland pockets and, finally, the end in Berlin. There was never an official recruitment drive in Sweden, which is why only some 180–200 men enlisted. Those who wanted to recruit themselves often had to make their way to the occupied countries—a fact that makes those Swedes who joined the SS volunteers in the truest sense. This book lets us follow individuals such as Hans Lindén, who was the first named Swedish volunteer to fall in action aged barely nineteen years old; the unpopular Swedish SS officer Gunnar Eklöf; Elis Höglund, who after several years on the Eastern Front deserted and returned to Sweden; Gösta Borg, who volunteered for the SS a second time as he was denied the chance of becoming an officer in Sweden; and Karl-Axel Bodin, the only Swede to be included in the list of suspected criminals at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, who joined the SD in March, 1945. The book includes over 150 photos and is thoroughly researched from primary sources, making it a valuable addition to the history of the SS, and the men who volunteered to serve in it.
