Memoirs of German officers in WW2

[Baron Conrad]

I just read Panzer Commander (Hans Von Luck) and Soldat (Siegfried Knappe). They are both the memoirs of the writers. Both had similar stories, they joined the Wehrmacht before the war and became officers, fought all over Europe and then ended up spending almost five years as prisoners in the Soviet union.

As an American it was really refreshing to read from the other side, (most memoir books I've found were written by Americans).

Discuss

 

[Almalexia]

You may be interested in Battleground: Prussia, which includes anecdotes from a few soldier's diaries. It is, however, the most monstrously depressing thing I have ever read, so you may want to stay away if you want to maintain faith in humanity.

 

[Jean_a_Normandie]

 

[Baron Conrad]

 

[Seff]

You may be interested in Battleground: Prussia, which includes anecdotes from a few soldier's diaries. It is, however, the most monstrously depressing thing I have ever read, so you may want to stay away if you want to maintain faith in humanity.

Not as glorious as some people make it out to be, is it?

 

[Almalexia]

You may be interested in Battleground: Prussia, which includes anecdotes from a few soldier's diaries. It is, however, the most monstrously depressing thing I have ever read, so you may want to stay away if you want to maintain faith in humanity.

Not as glorious as some people make it out to be, is it?

Hardly. The one part from this German guy's diary when he was a gunner for a tank was probably one of the more horrifying things I've read in a long time. The German lines were breached by a massive Soviet offensive, and the whole area was in a rout. It was around night-time, and they could only see from the firelight of burning villages and supply dumps. The guy's tank, and their partner tank, were driving full throttle through the shattered lines, trying to get back to German held lines, but they ran into a massive rout of around a battalion strength unit. So they pick up around a dozen infantry on the back of their tank, but Soviet armor shows up and begins firing on... everyone, really, so the tank squad resumes their full throttle retreat. The Soviet tanks largely miss with their tank guns, but the tank gunner can hear the machinegun rounds pinging off their armor. Up ahead, their driver sees the other German tank run into a ditch, but manages to climb out, but he avoids the ditch all the same.

Eventually, after four or five miles or so, they get back into friendly territory. They've lost sight of the other tank. However, the turret cannot turn, so they stop and the gunner gets out of the turret to inspect the damage. On the back, there is only one infantryman left, clinging on in a death grip. He doesn't say anything. The rest of the twelve soldiers are gone. The gunner finds a rifle stuck underneath the turret and pries it out. Meanwhile, the rest of the crew gets out for a rest. The driver is ashen faced. After a while, he asks if anyone saw the lead tank. They reply no, but one of the crew asks what the driver was getting at. He replies that when the lead tank dipped into the ditch, it was filled with their own soldiers. He saw the tank climb out of the ditch, covered in blood, limbs poking out of the treads as it ran over their own comrades.

The crew is silent, and the only sounds are the sounds of guns over the radio. 

 

[Temuzu]

...It may sound a bit douchy to say this, but that book would make an Oscar winning movie.

 

[bgfan]

I want to read that book very badly now.

 

[Almalexia]

There's also that completely idiotic Soviet submarine captain who kept sinking passenger ships, thinking they are war ships, singlehandedly causing two of the five worst disasters at sea ever. ****er was all proud of it, thinking he sunk warships the rest of his life, received a Hero of the Soviet Union medal or something, before ending up in a Gulag and dying. That was unreal to read.

 

[Baron Conrad]

There's also that completely idiotic Soviet submarine captain who kept sinking passenger ships, thinking they are war ships, singlehandedly causing two of the five worst disasters at sea ever. ****** was all proud of it, thinking he sunk warships the rest of his life, received a Hero of the Soviet Union medal or something, before ending up in a Gulag and dying. That was unreal to read.

Were they German passenger ships? I imagine he would be proud of it even if he knew in that case. You should hear how horrendous the Russians were to their prisoners. They often broke the gold crowns off the prisoners teeth to make a little money. Sometimes they had trials and convicted Germans to "war crimes". For example, if they found out that during the war a German had let his horse eat Russian hay, they would sentence him to five or ten years of hard labor. Of course slightly worse "crimes" had worse penalties of up to 25 years. If the person had been present when Russian villages were burnt he could be shot. Of course the Russians just wanted slave labor, they didn't care that the war was over.

Siegfried met one officer who, after the surrender was announced, broke out of Russian encirclement and fought his way to the American army to get better treatment. After losing most of his men getting there, the Americans handed them back over to the Russians.

It was also pitiful to see the way civilians lived in Germany during the constant bombing raids. He saw German women would line up at a water spigot and when a bomb fell killing and injuring some, they carried the casualties into the houses and then ran back out to retain their places in line.

 

[Untitled.]

Hah. Simply being a German soldier was enough for them to send you to a Gulag till -55. Not saying the western Allies were better. I strongly recommend 'Prisoners of War' (dunno if that's the correct translation of the title) by Guido Knopp.

Also, you guys know any books about general Vlasov? The way the Russian Liberation Army went down wasn't too glorious either.

 

[Familyguy1]

I really want to read that book now....

 

[Wellenbrecher]

Hah. Simply being a German soldier was enough for them to send you to a Gulag till -55. Not saying the western Allies were better. I strongly recommend 'Prisoners of War' (dunno if that's the correct translation of the title) by Guido Knopp.

Also, you guys know any books about general Vlasov? The way the Russian Liberation Army went down wasn't too glorious either.

Never.Read.Anything.Written.By.Knopp.
That guy is a shame for ANY upstanding historian who is worth his or her degree. ****, even those who don't have it yet should be ashamed to be put in the same category.

Don't read Knopp. Don't believe him. Don't quote him. He's scum.
Both from the technical side of things as well as from the personal one.

 

[Sir Saladin]

Bombing cities full of civilians including mothers and babies fleeing towards bomb shelters was okay but passenger ships were sacred. Strange. It was a war, war means kill everyone including passenger ships, merchant ships and oil tankers. The people in a passenger ship must have known they might get killed. The modern nice guy, football game style war hadn't been invented yet. The "I burned your house down and killed your relatives but I gave you a sandwich so let's be friends" kind of war that we love so much these days.

 

[rejenorst]

All wars are the same. The perception with which we enter them is not.

 

[Untitled.]

Spoiler

Hah. Simply being a German soldier was enough for them to send you to a Gulag till -55. Not saying the western Allies were better. I strongly recommend 'Prisoners of War' (dunno if that's the correct translation of the title) by Guido Knopp.

Also, you guys know any books about general Vlasov? The way the Russian Liberation Army went down wasn't too glorious either.

Never.Read.Anything.Written.By.Knopp.
That guy is a shame for ANY upstanding historian who is worth his or her degree. ****, even those who don't have it yet should be ashamed to be put in the same category.

Don't read Knopp. Don't believe him. Don't quote him. He's scum.
Both from the technical side of things as well as from the personal one.

Why the negative impression? Also, it is nonetheless a fact that people stayed in the Gulags far into the fifties.

 

[Wellenbrecher]

They made up a new category of "historical working" just to fit his style of "expertice" in there. "Knoppismus".
The way he treats his contemporary witnesses is horrible. The way he treats their statements is outright unprofessional. The way he treats ANY source is solely fuelled by the the goal to sell more books and ****ty TV series.

He's an unprofessional, greedy arsehole.


Yes, people were in Gulags and I'm sorry if it looked like I denied that. I was just referring to the fact that Knopp is laughing stock among German historians because of his methods.

 

[Untitled.]

Aren't they all greedy arseholes? It's not like I disagree with your statement, though.

As for the Gulag part, I was just saying that just to make sure in case you were opposing that.

 

[Wellenbrecher]

As long as they're fair and treat the sources and witnesses with the respect they deserve, i.e. if they are professional greedy arseholes, I don't see why anyone would object

 

[rejenorst]

Out of curiosity I took a look at his German wiki page. Apparently one of the major criticisms is that his style seems to aim at somewhat excusing the German peoples actions during WW2 by pushing the blame more directly onto Hitler.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guido_Knopp



However the exact opposite is being said by plenty of other sources that regard him as constantly presenting the story from an allied propagandist point of view.

I am not sure what to make of it.

EDIT:
Ok listening to one of his documentaries I can see he has a pretty heavy bias slant against Germans and Germany during the time, where anyone under the regime was a mass murdering liar, even if they were just a common soldier etc.  His style is entertaining though funnily enough.