Books By German veterans on the Western Front.

Hey, Is there any good books by German soldiers on the Western Front? Because all I've seen is a few by German vets oon the Eastern front, none on the Western.

 

Martin Poppells Heaven and Hell.

German paratrooper. Includes section before wars outbreak, traiing in Germany, service on Eastern front too, but has individual sections on Invasion of Holland, Crete, Defence of Sicily and Italy. Defence of Normandy landings timezone and on into defence of Homeland and time as prisoner of war afterwards and his return to Germany.

Sure others have lots more...But this isnt a bad read by a very brave guy.

 

Panzer Meyer's Grenadiers is good but some claim it is biased. It is based on his whole career which takes place on both the East and Western Fronts

 

I kind of want it more of a junior officer or Enlisted men's story, and prefered infantry. Sorry, that narrows it down a ton.

 

Martin Poppells book then. He rose thru ranks. Quite a large part of it is dedicated to his leading as a junior officer. Paras rather than infantry but the parachute role became obsolete for unit for most of war and as we all know they became some of the best infantry of the war.

 

Ya paras is awsome too, I mean I just don't want any Luftwaffe or kreigsmarine stuff.

 

Would there be a unit or division that you are edging towards?

 

Hey Urqh, good to see you back on the forum, and Heaven and Hell has as you say got it all, i read it some years ago but IMHO it is a classic

 

Not a specific unit, just some type of Infantry. Maybe armored aswell.

 

There's not a whole lot out there in English as memoirs. Grossjohann's are very disappointing. Pöppel's are excellent, so are Meyer's - with the caveat that he's politically 'unreconstructed'. Helmut Ritgent's Western Front 1944 is pretty good; he served in the Panzer Lehr. In fact, there's not a great deal in German - a handful of memoirs. There's a lot of material scattered around in divisional histories - 12th SS and 1st SS are very, very good, and in English.

 

Just to add to Halder's recommendation - a book I never tire of mentioning is Wilhelm Tieke's 'In The Firestorm Of The Last Years Of The War'.

Sadly, it's neither cheap nor easy to get, and it isn't an individual memoir. But it is almost an 'oral history' of the 9th & 10th SS Panzer Divisions and is full of vivid personal accounts ; certainly it has the best descriptions of the Falaise fighting from the German perspective that I've come across.

 

For Luftwaffe we could recommend Herr Spoden's book.

I also have My War Diary by Otto Renger. He was a (young) Paratrooper in Italy. So more Med, than western front.

 

It's not complete by any stretch of the imagination, but this is my bibliography for The Germans in Normandy:

Feldgrau.net • View topic - Bibliography: Normandy 1944

 

Don't forget Paul Carell's "They are coming" about D-Day

 

A Welshman with a Liverbird stuck to him....Now Ive seen it all....Yep mate good book...And a pretty brave author too.

A welsh scouse...I'm emigrating.....

 

Soldat is covers pre enlistment and the entire career of a German Artillary officer. He goes to most of the famous battles and pulls artillary pieces with horses. Ends up in Soviet POW camp. Very good book.

 

Hi Martin, is £40 a fair price as I have a chance to get a copy, have had been on the lookout for it for a few years but remembered this post so thought I would ask yourself

 

have not read any of those yet