"A Stranger To Myself" by Willy Peter Reese, a young German soldier who served in the Wehrmacht 1941-44. These are his memoirs, published posthumously (he was KIA in '44). He had asprations to become an author, and his language and style is certainly more advanced and literary than the average front memoir.
Edit: After the prologue and first chapter, the language kind of loosened up, and the book got a better "flow". It is remarkable that something like this was written during the war, as it is very candid about the rough ways of the conquerors, and also the hardships they suffered (theory: poor supply made the German soldiers more brutal, as they had to live off the land (=Russian peasants) in order to survive). I've read stuff similar to this, but that has been written after the war. If the wrong people had got hold of Reese's stuff, he would've been in deep s**t. Remarkable book! I've reached New Year's Eve in the catastrophic winter of 1941-42, and the book gets more interesting by each page.
Edit #2: I've finished the book, and it ranks among the best German memoirs I've read. It isn't for everyone - Reese is a reluctant soldier, who was more interested in literature, poetry and music, and it shows in his style. He isn't one for grand tactical treatises; his descriptions of battle show the chaos and confusion, with desperate retreats and an army disintegrating. In more quiet moments, the soldiers live in peasants' huts or miserable dugouts, and in winter there's boredom, hardship, poor food, frostbite and despair. Reese is happy to stop a Soviet bullet, as it means a few months away from the front. But war changes him, and the young intellectual grows hard and accepts his fate that he's as good as dead. The book ends with a change in tone - living so close to death, he starts to love life. He has a last furlough home. About five months later, he becomes missing in action, and we'll never know what he experienced in those months. An interesting thing is that his fellow soldiers are anonymous (except in some of the notes in the back of the book, where a few are named). It is as if he distanced himself from them in order to not feel the pain of loss when they were WIA/KIA. Anyway, this book is recommended to those who have read the more traditional memoirs, written by men who survived. Reese is much more immediate, and kills the image of the stereotypical Nazi Hun. Seeing the author as a small boy in the photos supplied drives home the message that war is hell, and that the small boy just a few years later didn't make it.
Edit: After the prologue and first chapter, the language kind of loosened up, and the book got a better "flow". It is remarkable that something like this was written during the war, as it is very candid about the rough ways of the conquerors, and also the hardships they suffered (theory: poor supply made the German soldiers more brutal, as they had to live off the land (=Russian peasants) in order to survive). I've read stuff similar to this, but that has been written after the war. If the wrong people had got hold of Reese's stuff, he would've been in deep s**t. Remarkable book! I've reached New Year's Eve in the catastrophic winter of 1941-42, and the book gets more interesting by each page.
Edit #2: I've finished the book, and it ranks among the best German memoirs I've read. It isn't for everyone - Reese is a reluctant soldier, who was more interested in literature, poetry and music, and it shows in his style. He isn't one for grand tactical treatises; his descriptions of battle show the chaos and confusion, with desperate retreats and an army disintegrating. In more quiet moments, the soldiers live in peasants' huts or miserable dugouts, and in winter there's boredom, hardship, poor food, frostbite and despair. Reese is happy to stop a Soviet bullet, as it means a few months away from the front. But war changes him, and the young intellectual grows hard and accepts his fate that he's as good as dead. The book ends with a change in tone - living so close to death, he starts to love life. He has a last furlough home. About five months later, he becomes missing in action, and we'll never know what he experienced in those months. An interesting thing is that his fellow soldiers are anonymous (except in some of the notes in the back of the book, where a few are named). It is as if he distanced himself from them in order to not feel the pain of loss when they were WIA/KIA. Anyway, this book is recommended to those who have read the more traditional memoirs, written by men who survived. Reese is much more immediate, and kills the image of the stereotypical Nazi Hun. Seeing the author as a small boy in the photos supplied drives home the message that war is hell, and that the small boy just a few years later didn't make it.
War is best enjoyed in 1/6th scale.
I just finished "Billy The Kid: Beyond The Grave" which was pretty interesting. Currently I'm reading the Osprey series on the Italian Army in WWII.
