Customer Reviews

Eastern Front Combat: The German Soldier in Battle from Stalingrad to Berlin (Stackpole Military History Series)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is a collection of stories, six of them, by German combat veterans who fought on the Eastern Front. Unfortunately there are many better first person books relating the authors' experiences on the Eastern Front. I will list a few below.

The first story by Ernst Panse is a shortened version of his earlier book, which was very short to start with, covering his experiences from November, 1942 to his surrender at Stalingrad. This is an excellent story, but leaves the reader wanting more.

The second story is by Joacchim Stempel that makes up the bulk of the book but is often nothing more than directives and Wehrmacht communiques. This was simply not in the spirit of the book.

Chapter Three written by Albert Liesegang was too short (4 pages) to do much of anything.

Chapter Four was the best of the bunch and told the story (by Alfred Regeniter) of his combat experiences during the death throes of Army Group North in Lithuania and East Prussia. The author was an assault gun commander, and his view of the battles was captivating.

Chapter Five was a composite by Gerd Doehler and Hans Kamradek fighting along the upper Oder in Poland/Silesia. This was moderately interesting, but difficult to follow.

The last chapter by Guenther Meyer, named as "Surviving the Russian Offensive at the Seeloewer Heights", was only six and a half pages long and covered very little combat.

Pass this one up. Read instead:
Allenberger; "Sniper On The Eastern Front"
Carius; "Tigers In The Mud"
Knappe; "Soldat"
Sajer; "The Forgotten Soldier"
Koschorrek; "Blood Red Snow"
Zieser; "The Road To Stalingrad"

If you are still hungry after this feast, read the Stackpole books, "Infantry Aces" and "Panzer Aces", Volumes I and II.

I really enjoy books on World War II's Eastern Front, so I picked this one up with high hopes. While I don't completely regret my decision, I wish I had known more about this book prior to purchasing.

The title isn't exactly accurate--some of the chapters have very little combat. In my opinion, the only chapter worth reading was the one by the assault gun commander. The others, while providing a good view of the terrible conditions endured by the German soldiers, lack action and provide only general narratives about combat. One chapter, which takes up a fair amount of the book, is filled mostly with OKW communiques and Wehrmacht battle reports, thus giving the reader very little of the personal recollections this book purports to have. There are virtually no maps as well, so bone up on your Russian, Polish and Eastern German geography!

I have high regard for the various books published by Stackpole and have found several of them to be really good. However, this one had quite a few typos and grammatical errors (some probably caused by translational issues, but still...) and this was surprising given my previous experiences with Stackpole books.

There are plenty of better books on this subject if you can find them:
The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer, War on the Eastern Front by James Lucas and The Black March by Peter Neumann are a small sampling of much better personal accounts of Eastern Front combat.

Hans has gotten a reputation as an honest writer who gets the story right. He draws his info right from the source and puts it into an easy to digest and well represented format. His use of private photos, sometimes being released for the first time, backed up with good maps of the area, really put the reader right in the middle of the action. Everybody who studies WWII knows the big picture on most of the battles, but what Hans brings to the reader is the personal, on the ground and in your face perspective of the battle. He has actually walked, taken photos of some of the areas he writes about and interviews combatants from BOTH sides of the battle, to give the reader a look into what really happened on a deep, meaningful and personal level. He gives a couple of lines of the battle as an over view, then gets right into the battle, usually teaming up past combatant interviews so you know what happened on both sides. There is a reason Oliver North and BBC have sought Hans out for his indepth knowledge of the battles when they did their Ardennes pieces. I HIGHLY recommend this book and look forward to seeing more of his stuff on the shelf!!

[...]

ENJOY!!!

Jon W. Russell

Don't waste money on this. Parts are interesting, but the majority of the book is just german press releases. Very disappointing book for such an interesting subject.

Brutal conditions and a very well written account of the struggles of real German fighting units in Russia. Recommended historical reading that will keep you riveted to the book.

If you love WW2 history as much as I do, then this is a great book to buy. I have a collection of many memoirs from the German point of view from all sectors of the Eastern Front, and this book really throws the reader into Stalingrad and many other fronts which I found fascinating and worth reading. The only thing that I found slightly disapointing, is the book is made up of 6 different soldiers recollections and just as you are starting to enjoy and immerse your self in their story it ends far to quickly and a new one begins. Having said this it should not deter anyone from buying this book. If you love this type of history then this book is worthwhile to have in your collection.

A collection of first hand accounts. I got the feeling if you read the stories you sit first row seat, and follow the soldier during its fight for survival. Not every story is full of fighting, dead, horror, but also give a view on the daily live of those men. Reading these accounts, and knowing that these escaped death, to tell how it was, is a weird feeling. You can tell the difference of the first battles and the last, that wasn't about defending anymore a town in a far away country, no, they had to defend their own home, their own family sometimes. Though there are short stories amongst them, they do give the reader a very good feeling of how it was fighting at the Eastfront.

Personal accounts from Germans on the front. Not dry analytical numbers and tactics or the same old rehash of what happened in the big picture.

Each chapter is another soldier and his story that leaves your toes numb from the cold Stalingrad winter.

Unfortunatly, I haven't come across many of this books from this publisher that I have enjoyed. There are a cople but, this isn't one of them. I found myself putting the book down after only a few pages.

This book was a bit of a disappointment. The book is a translation of course. The writers are very fact oriented. If this is what you are looking for great, but I was looking for more of a description of the human side of things....feeling and emotions. Maybe the memories are too horrible for them to remember.