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...

"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 Barbaro...

The Battle of Stalingrad was not only the psychological turning point of World War II: it also changed the face of modern warfare. From Antony Beevor, the internationally bestselling author of D-Day and The Battle of Arnhem.In August 1942, Hitler's huge Sixth Army reached the city that bore Stalin's name. In the five-month siege that followed, the Russians fought to hold Stalingrad at any cost; then, in an astonishing reversal, encircled and trapp...

A rare, first-hand account from a Swedish Waffen-SS soldier who fought against the Red Army on the Eastern Front during World War II.Few new personal accounts by Waffen-SS soldiers appear in English; even fewer originate from the multitude of non-German European volunteers who formed such an important proportion of this service's manpower. Twilight of the Gods was originally written in Swedish, and published in Buenos Aires shortly after the end of WWII. It...

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 wa...

"A tale drenched in drama and blood, heroism and cowardice, loyalty and betrayal."—Jonathan Yardley, The Washington PostThe Red Army had much to avenge when it finally reached the frontiers of the Third Reich in January 1945. Frenzied by their terrible experiences with Wehrmacht and SS brutality, they wreaked havoc—tanks crushing refugee columns, mass rape, pillage, and unimaginable destruction. Hundreds of thousands of women and children froze to death or...

Throughout World War II, German snipers were obliged to carry a 'Scharfshützen Buch' which recorded every kill. Each success noted had to be verified by a witness and signed by a superior officer.The journal of Sutkus is one of only a few such books to have survived the war. It records more than 200 kills, placing him as one of the war's most successful snipers. A large part of his journal is reproduced for the first time here.As a Hitler Youth member his skill as a marksman was quickly no...

"James is the sort of person they write legends about. A participant in the mass escape that was the basis for the movie The Great Escape." — AudioFileFrom the moment he was shot down to the final whistle, Jimmy James' one aim as a POW of the Germans was to escape. Moonless Night describes his experiences and those of his fellow prisoners in the most gripping and thrilling manner. The author made more than twelve escape attempts including ...

Dutch SS accounts are very rare, particularly ones such as this, covering recruitment, training, and front-line service first with 5th SS Panzer Division 'Wiking', then later with SS Regiment Besslein. He not only informs and illustrates the general politics of the time, but also explains how Dutch views of the Third Reich changed so radically, discusses the founding of the Waffen-SS, the recruitment of Dutch volunteers into it and why so many non-German Europeans volunteered to fight and ...

The 5th SS Division Wiking was the first 'international' – i.e. largely non-German – Waffen-SS division and the only German panzer division comprised largely of foreign troops. Approximately 75 per cent of the division's strength were non-German nationals, all volunteers, and the majority from occupied countries like Belgium, Holland, France, Denmark, and Norway.The Wiking division operated exclusively on the Eastern Front during World War II, where the division quickly earned itsel...

This is the illustrated history of the Waffen SS on the Eastern Front. The life and death of the Waffen SS can be traced in the surviving photographs, and the brooding saga of the decline from triumph into disaster is told through these powerful images which clearly document the reality of combat on the Russian Front. These rare images capture the optimism of opening stage of the war and the challenges of Barbarossa more clearly than words can ever tell. The seasons of mud and the white he...

The incredible story of an Englishmen imprisoned in Germany at the outbreak of World War II, then forced to join the SS Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler by his one time fencing partner Reinhardt Heydrich. In 1944 he was given the task of assisting in the formation of the British Free Corps, a volunteer Waffen-SS Unit consisting mainly of British POW's and deserters.