Customer Reviews

Frontsoldaten: The German Soldier in World War II

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This is an indispensible, if somewhat superficial, look at the ideological motivations of the German soldier (or "landser" as he called himself) during WWII. It is the only book I've ever read that actually attempts to probe the mindset of the rank-and-file soldiers and junior officers who fought Hitler's war rather than dismissing them as brainwashed robots or mindless products of a militant culture, content to "just follow orders."

Author Fritz genuinely wants to understand why the Landser fought so long and so hard, and against such overwhelming odds, for a government that committed such outrageous crimes against humanity. To do this he examines the correspondence of, and some of the memiors and fiction written by, the average Wehrmacht soldier (he excludes works written by veterans of the Waffen SS, because he feels they come from a different place ideologically than the guys in gray). In his examination, Fritz makes a number of assertions, observations and discoveries, some of which are extremely interesting, while others which come off as facile and opinionated.

On the plus side, Fritz does an excellent job of examining how Hitler's promise of a 'social revolution' which would produce a truly classless society by transferring the selfless, all-for-one values of the combat soldier (the 'frontsgemeinschaft') to the whole civilian population (creating the 'Volksgemeinschaft'), intensely motivated millions of young men. He does a fairly poor job of explaining why Germans had such intensely anti-class feelings (it is not generally knpwn that Germany has traditionally had intense class divisions and hatreds going back centuries....see Bailey's excellent work, 'Germans'); the two go hand in hand. Anyway, Fritz comes to the conclusion that for many in the German army, the war was not about conquest, but about an attempt to create a totally new world, one where all the old, corrupt ways of doing business would be thrown out the window, and a sort of socialist meritocracy created. He also does a very insightful job of showing that the Hitler Youth was not merely a brainwashing factory but a place where children were taught to ignore social status and think about the group before the individual, and how emotionally moved many of the children were by this notion. One of the most startling comments comes from a committed German communist who admitted, 'The HJ was a positive sight in my neighborhood.'

The German soldiers' reaction to combat, hardship, and suffering was largely the same as any other combatants', but Fritz points out that the superior German educational system of the 1930s and 40s produced rank-and-file soldiers who could quote philosophers and theologians in their letters home, and had a firm grasp of military and political history in Europe. This is why the letters of many privates sound like master's dissertations, and makes for good insight.

Fritz is also on the ball with his analysis of German training methods, which relied heavily on psychology (amusing in light of the Jewish origin of this science...somehow I'm sure Freud got no credit) and the understanding that cameraderie and initiative were more important than any other factor in producing first-class soldiers. He points out that the British and Russian armies actually showed far less imagination in battle, and they, rather than the Germans were closer to being 'robots' than the Germans.

Where Fritz stumbles is in his sources, which rely too heavily on Sajer's "Forgotten Soldier" and on the letters of two or three particular soldiers. He also has a tendency to throw in disclaimer-type statements, as if he fears he is being too sympathetic to the Nazis. The book sometimes has the feel of a graduate thesis itself.

Overall, though, I would strongly recommend "Frontsoldaten" to anyone who wants a better understanding of why one poor nation led by a man who was probably insane before the war even started, came to within a hair's breadth of conquering the world.

I had high expectations for this book as a "human story" supplement to the more technical or tactical perspectives of the Wehrmacht. I was rather disappointed as Fritz for the main simply regurgitates excerpts from the memoirs of Sajer, Knappe and other Eastern Front survivors. I also find it rather odd that the author does not include material on the Waffen SS who fought along side the Wehrmacht Landser, yet the dustjacket cover photo (which has been widely reproduced in WW2 literature) is the photo of a young SS panzer-grenadier from the Battle of the Bulge.

Fritz takes the reader into the heart and mind of the German infantryman. He presents them as individuals, not merely mindless cogs in the German war machine. The reader comes to realize the incredible suffering that was life on the Eastern front. These men were little more than children placed in circumstances that made them monsters, indifferent to society's conventions or their own human conscience. Unlike another reviewer, I did not find the book heavily padded. The author exhibits a clear and powerful style of writing, reading more like a good novel than a history book. The overwhelming bulk of the book consists of quotations from the Landsers themselves translated from their letters and diaries. Fritz does give a fascinating comparison of the Landser to their American counterparts in the last chapter, but this is hardly padding. All in all, this is a moving account of life for the German infantyman, who has been often ignored in favor of the members of the SS. It is a must-read for any student of military history and World War II, but it is also valuable for those interested in the human soul and how it is altered by the horrors of war.

Mr. Fritz does a remarkable job of painting a picture of the "average" German infantry soldier or Landser by pulling quotes from diaries, letters and interviews. The young men who marched to war under the swastika were motivated, well trained and indeed raised to carry the ideology of the Reich to their enemies. This book does not paint a glorious picture of the Germans, nor does it make the average soldier look like a war criminal. Nor does it glorify war and destruction.

Some of the quotes from the front are remarkably poignant and insightful, especially when one considers the conditions under which they were written and by young men besides. There are two reasons that I did not give this book 5 stars, they are: No photographs, even simple photographs to put faces with the voices in this book would have been incredibly powerful. The photo on the cover of the book is of an SS troop (you can see the edge of the emblem under the knife hilt), which Mr. Fritz claims is different than the average Landser. Two many quotes from the same people are recycled. Mr. Fritz uses some of the arguably better quotes 2 or 3 times in the text. With as many Landsers as were involved in the war, it seems that other voices could have been added to this text to make the points necessary. Guy Sajer is quoted many times, which is a shame since he already has a published voice, so many others do not.

This book also helps to understand how so many fell under the spell of Hitler, when viewed from below, so many of the policies of the Nazi's seem to make sense. Especially when the subjects are immersed in the reams of propaganda generated by the regime. It is easy to see why these young men, raised in the Hitler Youth, the socialist work force, and finally the Wehrmacht believed what they were told, especially after the devastation and poverty visited upon Germany after WWI.

This book is well worth the time. Reading it made me very happy to be living in a relatively peaceful era far, far removed from the battlefield.

Stephen Fritz' Frontsoldaten provides compelling reasons for the unrelenting determination of the WWII German Army soldier, or "Landser". (The SS is not discussed.) The overwhelming sense of creating a new order for Germany out of the ashes of defeat in the Great War provide the larger framework within which the "Landser" viewed his purpose in the war. "Kamaradschaft", or comradeship, provided an immediate means to endure the constant fear and difficult conditions on the front-line, as will as the will to fight. Quotes from font-line letters, post-war memoirs, and veterans' reflections from a distance of 50 or more years are exactly what make this book so compelling. Fritz focuses mainly on the Eastern Front, where the war took on extreme ideological, racial, and anti-Semitic dimensions. While I found his treatment of the Landser's opinion or role in the excesses of the war too light, he did not shy away from relating the general acceptance of National Socialism by the German Army soldier. This acceptance is related in the words of the front soldiers themselves as taken from their own letters. Frontsoldaten left me with a stark impression of the German soldier's front line experience--an experience filled with determination, fear, and fatigue, as well as a belief in a leader and an ideology that destroyed millions. Lastly, the haunting photograph on the cover sums up this book very well. The youthful face, filled with fear, exhaustion, and determination, stare out from under a helmut deeply associated with Nazism and German militarism.

If you have read The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer and Soldat by Siegfried Knappe then forget this one. I gave up half way throught. Nothing new here.

Fritz's study of the German infantry soldier was very moving. When you read about the day to day activities it makes you realize the hardship that a front line soldier goes through. My big complaint with the book was the several repeated quotes that appear. I think a little better editing would have made this book more enjoyable.

One thing's for sure, if it's one genre that's everywhere on the book market it's books about war in general and the Second World War in particular. From time to time new books arrive about certain important battles, or Allied or Nazi characters. Which is fine, obviously, war history is just as important as any other history, sometimes even more important, but many of these books forget to focus on the men who did all the real fighting: the soldiers themselves.

But alas, that has changed now. Frontsoldaten, which tells the stories of the Landsers (the German term for the common infantryman), focuses on the ordinary soldier. And the result is nothing but amazing.

Why? Because the book is almost exclusively based on letters, diaries, and other written sources created by the soldiers themselves when they were stationed out in the field, and these sources describe the war in all its gory details. For someone like me, who has never done military service or experienced war first-hand it's hard, impossible even, to understand what it really means to be a soldier, but by reading Frontsoldaten I imagine I at least got some sort of feel for it. Some parts that describe the gruelling battle scenes are bloodier than the bloodiest of horror movies, and even though I knew it was all true I still had difficulties comprehending the fact that it actually happened.

But it did. It's often a heavy read - since it tells it like it was without any romanticizing whatsoever - but you just have to endure, since the book is just as necessary as it is demanding. But more than anything else it's interesting. The Wehrmacht (German army) became known as a highly disciplined and efficient army, and Frontsoldaten will tell you why. The reader is taken to the camps where the soldiers were trained, to the insane front line in the East, to post-war Germany where the survivors tried to return to a normal life, and much more.

And everything is just as interesting. Many people have only experience the Second World War through black and white pictures and film where there's not a single drop of blood and where the war actually appears to be quite cosy and fun. Well, that's not really how it was, and if you read Frontsoldaten - and I really hope you do - you'll understand why.

Hopefully a Swedish publisher will decide to publish a translation edition of this book so even more people will be able to read it.

If I was the Swedish Minister for Schools I'd make Frontsoldaten mandatory reading.

For me this book offers a glimpse into the lives of soldiers whos story is seldom told. Placing aside the crimes of the Nazi's this book shows that the German soldier were still human beings. Their story is worthy of being told and despite which side of the battle they were on, their story is worth being heard and remembered. This book pays little attention to the cold over view of world war two that many books focus on, and sheads light on the war through the eyes of the men who had to do the fighting. This is truely a beautiful book that is brutally honest and human. Worth reading.

Frontsoldaten spans that gulf of understanding between those who have and those who have not been in a real, front-line shooting war. Simply put, it allows us to glimpse that comradeship that almost transcends love and goes to an emotional mindset that welds men together in the midst of the most extreme of all human experiences: war. Now, too many men who were supply clerks, MPs, etc try to make us believe that they have seen the horror of war. The reality, though, is that they have seen a mere glimpse. It is those men who have been over-run by an enemy, shelled and lived that uncertain day-to-day existence where life is compressed, magnified and reduced to its most elemental parts by the horror of war who have truly seen the brutal face of war. This book is written to those men and about those men. Not the rest of us. Fritz's unique understanding of Kameradschaft...this uniquely German side of the bond between fighting men...is at the center of this book, and he does an incredible job of using the words of the Landseren to tell his story. Magnificent book!!!! And.... by the way, an old Kamerad of the Grossdeutschland Division, a holder of the Ritterkreuz mit Eichenlaub, a personal friend, gave this book a resounding thumbs up. He says that this book, in many ways, stands alone. The other book that he recommends (and Fritz borows heavily from it) is "The Forgotten Soldier" by Guy Sajer.