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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
63 of 74 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Other Side of the Hill,
By Spudgun (Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Condemned to Live: A Panzer Artilleryman's Five-Front War (Hardcover)
History truly is written by the victors, but now 'Condemned to Live' joins the the ranks of books such as Guy Sager's 'The Forgotten Soldier', Hans von Luck's 'Panzer Commander' and Siegfried Kappe's 'Soldat' to help destroy the image of the average Wehrmacht soldier as being a ruthless, stupid, brutal, amoral automaton. Dr. Frisch was anything but ruthless, stupid, brutal or amoral ,but was simply a young Austrian caught up in the great events of his time, as were so many young men on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Like most of his comrades in the Wehrmacht, there was no question of choice involved in his military service. It was compulsory for all young Germans and Austrians. This type of obedience is difficult for those of us who live in democratic countries to understand, even though our news media are full of examples of just such behaviour from our own people. We call it expediency. In the case of Germany, Hitler and the Nazi's had been slowly chipping away at personal freedom ever since they had come to power in 1933, so that by 1939 they had turned the screw to the point that disobedience or protest became a death sentence for oneself and one's family. Like the majority of Wehrmacht soldiers outside of the ranks of the 'true believers', whose numbers probably never exceeded 10% of regular Wehrmacht soldiers, the name of the game was 'do one's duty to the Vaterland and survive to go home'. In battle loyalty, as in the Allied armies, was given to one's comrades and reality rarely extended beyond that small group. Dr. Frisch takes us on his tour of European battlefields with his Panzer Artillery Battalion from Poland to France, then Russia and on to Sicily and Italy, where he was captured. We get to know a kind, decent man making his way as best he can through the insanity of war, supported by his friends, his sense of humor and a lot of luck. Along the way he meets decent people of a variety of nationalities. He also meets some not so nice people, proving again that decency or the lack of it are not restricted to one ethnic, racial or national grouping. I am glad that Dr. Frisch decided to share his story with us after so many years of silence. The victors have dominated the story of WW2 for too long now. The crimes of Hitler and his Nazi thugs are hideous beyond belief, but many of the young men he press ganged into his army where also victims, and their stories are more pieces in the puzzle of WW2. Perhaps we will eventually have enough of the pieces to understand the greatest calamity which has befallen the human race since the Black Plague of the Dark Ages, and which created and shaped the world we all live in today.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Waging War and Waging Survival,
By James F. Neel "Jemcollector" (Texas, USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Condemned to Live: A Panzer Artilleryman's Five-Front War (Paperback)
The author of this short ( 156pp. + xlii ) memoir was, in his words, eine Einfache Deutsche Soldat, or "a simple German soldier" who served on five different fronts throughout the entire course of the Second World War. He credits his survival in part to the fact that he was usually stationed somewhat to the rear with his unit, a battery of heavy artillery. Nonetheless, he was also lucky, because another battery in his regiment of artillery wound up on the bottom of the Mediterreanen Sea enroute to Tunisia, while the rest disappeared into oblivion following the mass surrender at Stalingrad. His story, however, isn't really one of the thunder of battle, though a little of that is present; but rather the day-to-day struggle to survive in an often hostile environment, especially in the Russian winters. He never rose above the rank of Obergefreiter, or lance-corporal, due to his studious avoidance of responsibility, having early learned to "keep his mouth shut".
Enlivening his somewhat rambling account, composed some fifty years after-the-fact, are over 130 photos ( several occupying an entire page ) taken by or of the author using his trusty Kodak box camera, along with other items, photographs, documents, maps, etc.; these lend an immediacy which many similar memoirs sadly lack. However, my main complaint with this book is in its slipshod arrangement of both photos and text. Frisch devotes a chapter to each of his theatres of activity; unfortunately, the pictures are scattered somewhat randomly throughout, in many cases with little apparant regard for chronology or continuity. In some degree of fairness, he states that he was unable to get film for his camera ( which he eventually lost or misplaced ) after the middle of 1943, so there are no representations of Sicily and Italy. His photos survived the war because he sent them home to his mother in Vienna for development; HE survived because he was rescued by black American G.I.'s in the waning days of the war from the inept clutches of vengeful Italian partisans. He then served an additional two years in prisoner-of-war camps prior to release and his subsequent return to Germany where he completed his degree in engineering. In his 80's when he set this all down, his memory remains sharp and clear, befitting one of his intellect and subsequent achievements. His English is good as well, since he has been a resident of the U.S. since 1958, working in government, industry, and advanced education. I found most enlightening his theory that Germany actually "lost" the war in the terrible Russian winter of 1941-42 with its attendent irreplaceable loss of material, not at Stalingrad or Kursk as is so often postulated. His apprasial is that they were never able to make those losses good, continually playing a game of "catch-up" they couldn't win. Most cautionary, however, is his warning that we in America are in danger of losing our own freedoms to the current climate of "Political Correctness" which stifles our free expression much as Hitler's Gestapo and SS overawed that of Nazi Germany.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good Read But Lacking in Detail,
By
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This review is from: Condemned to Live: A Panzer Artilleryman's Five-Front War (Paperback)
"Condemned to Live: A Panzer Artilleryman's Five-Front War", is an account by an Austrian draftee of his time in the German Army before, during, and after World War II. The book was co-written by Franz Frisch and Wilbur Jones, Jr. As the book was written more than 50 years after the close of the war, it is much more of a reminiscence of what it was like to serve in the German Army rather than describing actual fighting and campaigning. Mr Frisch served from the beginning of the war till the end, and spent two years in a PoW camp in Italy after the war.
While I found the book to be interesting, details and specifics were somewhat lacking. For example, although Mr Frisch served as a panzer artilleryman, he didn't provide much detail of what that actually entailed ... how the artillery piece or battery functioned, his role in it, or clear examples of any military actions he could recall. Since he was working primarily from memory (he did not keep a diary during the war), some of the lack of detail is understandable, but it limits the usefulness of the book other than to give a general impression of what it was like to serve. The book itself is a short 200 pages, and a lot of that is taken up by photographs. However, the photographs are one of the book's strong points. They were taken by Mr Frisch himself from 1939 through 1943 (after that he was not able to obtain any more film for his camera.) All of the pictures were new to me, and many of them were startling. Mr Frisch states that he was not a Nazi and was perhaps considered politically unreliable by the Nazi regime. Given that he served the entire war as a lowly private, it is very probably true, especially given the success he enjoyed after the war as an engineer, both in Germany and here in the United States. (He emigrated to the U.S. in 1958, and eventually taught at MIT and worked for the Government, among other things.) The book was a good read, but it didn't add much to my knowledge or understanding of World War II, and was more along the lines of a conversation you might have with your grandfather about his wartime service. While not every war memoir is going to be groundbreaking or offer deep insights in the condition of war, especially when written from the perspective of a private fresh out of High School, such books do exist, such as E. B. Sledge's "With the Old Breed". This book is probably better suited to people who haven't read much about World War II, and are looking to read about what it was like to serve in the German Army during that time frame. I recommend the book to that audience.
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