Looking for an Eastern front book

Black Edelweiss was written by a member of the SS who was in Finland from '43 until the armistice with the Soviets. He missed the early fighting in that area. The description of the march out of Finland into Norway in the Winter is the stuff of nightmares.

 

Otto P. 30 Years' Journey volume II covers his experience in the 1/137th Regt. 2nd Gebirgjager Div. in Russia. They attempted to capture Murmansk and were driven back. He later fought the Western Allies, was wounded and recovering at home when Germany surrendered.

Vol 1. covers his childhood, flight from Austria to join the SA Legion and enlistment into the 9th MG Battalion (destroyed at Stalingrad). He later transferred to the 137th Gebirgjager Regt.

 

Slipdigit - bet his journal is in the Soviet Archives.

 

BTW slipdigit - thanks for getting that book out. I read it years ago and still have it on my bookshelf.

I'm active at other forums and read things by people who want war with Russia. They have no idea about war fighting against Russia. While Russia is the smallest it has been since the days of the Czar or Soviet Union, it is still nothing to laugh at or dismiss lightly. In addition to the mud and weather, everybody regardless of age or gender fought against the Nazis (if they didn't become hiwis/Vlaslov Army) including men, women and children. War makes for great reading, but we don't need another one.

 

I have several shelves groaning under the weight of Eastern Front books. There are some good recommendations above ( especially the David Stahel books ). Also worth looking for are two books by Robert M Citino ; Death Of The Wehrmacht - The German Campaigns Of 1942' ( University Press of Kansas, 2007 ) and 'The Wehrmacht Retreats - Fighting A Lost War 1943' ( ditto, 2012 ).

An excellent introfuction to the reality of the 'Babrbarossa' phase is Robert kershaw's 'War Without Garlands - Operation Barbarossa 1941-1942' ( Ian Allan 2000, reprinted 2008). This links quotations from many German first-hand accounts, often which have never been published in English. It is very powerful. It also features a superb bibliography listing all the books he used. But be careful - deciding to acuire those books van be expensive - as I found out !

O/T but it's interesting that good books about the Ostfront in English used to be few and far between ( Clark, Carell, etc ) but since the turn of this century a huge amount of good quality research and publishing has been done. Where would we be without those American University publishers....?

( I should also point out that I am no academic ! I do like books to be both accurate and readable )

 

Yoy are t)arting right? Otherwise i lead you to our aud())()dience. The man the man!

 

Welĺlcome back you lot!​

 

I noticed in this thread that someone mentioned Guy Sajer's 'The Forgotten Soldier'. I remembered that we've had some good discussions in the past about this book ; here's one thread from when we were a bit younger...

http://ww2f.com/threads/forgotten-soldier.3615/#post-58875

The overall consensus is that while Sajer's memory may have played some tricks, and some scenes may have been embellished, his book remains a very powerful evocation of conditions on the Eastern Front. Either way, it's 'required reading'.

 

Jeff, this is O/T, but just for you.............

http://ww2f.com/threads/ambush-at-p...f-german-propaganda-photos.33556/#post-434076

Still a great memory !

 

Glad you like it ! It's actually my favourite of all my 'Then & Nows'. It seems like yesterday but scary to think that it was in fact 2004........

 

Don't over look books from the (former) Soviets combatants who fought in the Great Patriotic War. While I realize that Soviet era publications can have the heavy hand of the censor in it (Vlassili Zaistev's book Stalingrad Sniper about sniping in Stalingrad overlooks that he shot Soviet women and children who were running erands like fetching water for the Germans) and must be approached with caution (Lyudmilia Pavlichenko's assertion in Lady Death she destroyed an entire German sniper platoon at a time when no such thing existed), or Dmitri Lvov's failure to mention his own Sherman tanks being shot out from underneath him (Fighting in the Red Army's Shermans), they are worth reading for a Soviet perspective. Pen & Sword (Barnsley, UK) has done an excellent job of publishing heretofore Soviet memoirs that were previously inaccessible to us. I've read of brave political commisars who led men when the regular officers fell Petr Mikhin's (Guns Against The Reich) and of some who refused to go to the front Boris Gorbachevsky's Through The Maelstrom. Boris Gorbachevsky's Through The Maelstrom is particularly good because Gorbachevsky wrote his book after emigrating to Estados Unidos (though he may have self-censored if loved ones remained within the clutches of the KGB).

 

Vlassili (sp) Grossman (Russian Jew) wrote an epic novel on Stalingrad. He was a Red Star reporter who covered Stalingrad during the Siege. It's supposed to be very good and a significant contribution to Soviet Era literature. Never read it (b/c it's a novel).