When I bought this last week it was an Amazon Kindle deal for a few bucks.
The book is an auto-bio of a German soldier in the 1st Waffen SS Leibstandarte division. The division started out as Hitler's guard and morphed into a Panzer division seeing combat pretty much everywhere.
The author enlisted in '40 or '41 (I can't remember). Wounded in the battle of Kursk (Operation Citadel), he spent the remainder of the war in various convalescent or training commands as an instructor before the battle for Berlin. There, after several fights, he managed to escape and eventually make his way to a POW camp in Scotland. He would obtain UK citizenship in 1955 or so.
What struck me about his story is how much it mirrored a soldier's experience in pretty much any war. Training. Treatment of soldiers vs. NCOs vs. officers. Equipment shortages. Lack of food and lack of sleep. Terror. Uncertainty and problem solving in the absence of orders. The list can go on.
He emphatically states his company did not participate in war crimes, so maybe that's true or not. He was pretty raw in recounting some of his experiences though which again, mirrors other soldiers' accounts I've read.
It's a very good book, especially for the price right now on Amazon. I recommend it and give it 8 out of 10 marching songs.
The book is an auto-bio of a German soldier in the 1st Waffen SS Leibstandarte division. The division started out as Hitler's guard and morphed into a Panzer division seeing combat pretty much everywhere.
The author enlisted in '40 or '41 (I can't remember). Wounded in the battle of Kursk (Operation Citadel), he spent the remainder of the war in various convalescent or training commands as an instructor before the battle for Berlin. There, after several fights, he managed to escape and eventually make his way to a POW camp in Scotland. He would obtain UK citizenship in 1955 or so.
What struck me about his story is how much it mirrored a soldier's experience in pretty much any war. Training. Treatment of soldiers vs. NCOs vs. officers. Equipment shortages. Lack of food and lack of sleep. Terror. Uncertainty and problem solving in the absence of orders. The list can go on.
He emphatically states his company did not participate in war crimes, so maybe that's true or not. He was pretty raw in recounting some of his experiences though which again, mirrors other soldiers' accounts I've read.
It's a very good book, especially for the price right now on Amazon. I recommend it and give it 8 out of 10 marching songs.
