Customer Reviews

Heaven & Hell: The War Diary of a German Paratrooper

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Many are not aware that the Fallschirmjäger, or German paratroopers, were among the most elite of the fighting forces in WW2. So, those who are interested in the FJ and their history should be more than interested in this book. How many German paratrooper accounts of World War 2 can you think of? You can count them on one hand.

From the start to the finish - Poppel recalls the days of his Hitler Youth, his naive views of Germany & the world before his entrance in to war (which becomes understandable), his and his comrades' views of Italian, British, and American troops, and inevitably, the loss of his friends and his own country. His accounts of battle range from the disastrous jump at Crete, to Holland, Russia, France and Italy. You'll watch Poppel go from a very enthustiastic trooper to a very tired veteran, wishing for nothing more than the entire ordeal to be done with.

Note that German paras were not used in many combat jumps during WW2 because of "failure" at Crete - don't be angry when you find alot of the book is from the view of an FJ trooper with his wings clipped.

Also, don't expect for the book to be a grand story of his life. It is exactly what it says - a war journal. Some entries are rather abrupt and not entirely descriptive. Regardless, considering the amount of days chronicled, it's quite an achievement. Those who are interested in the FJ or simply the German perspective during the war will know full well that finding information on the troops is scarce, especially an account directly from one of the elite. That said, trying to fathom what the man must have gone through on some occasions is difficult, especially since he doesn't get too far into the psychology of his time in the field - how he felt on most occasions. He simply states what he went through and leaves it up to you to understand the impact of what he is saying.

While it may not be as descriptive as Donald Burgett's US para accounts, its definitely informative - and a treasure for anyone interested in German paras or paratroops in general. Add it to your war library.

This is, as far as I know the only account in the market by a German paratrooper. As such it is an important document.
What Mr Poppel writes is so obviously heartfelt. He comes out as just about as nice a fellow as they come. As a paratrooper he literally existed between heaven and hell. He is lyrical in his descriptions of the actual parachuting. It is when he tries to describe his combat experience where his language falters. The man is not a writer. And the translation is atrocious.
The fact is that the only major paratdrop by the Germans was Crete. Mr Poppel just states that the fighting was so horrible that he does not want to write about it. We must respect that decision. It does make it a weaker book though. It is an interesting war memoir. He sees action in Sicily, at the D-Day, and Holland. If you want to read about paratrooper warfare I would not recommend this book.

Poppel's book does give some good first hand accounts of combat, but it does have some limitations.

It seems he did not start keeping a diary until '42 so his experiences up to that point are not very detailed and very general. Which is disappointing since his unit was rushed to the Russian front in December(?) of 1941 to help stop the Soviet's counter attack. Accounts of combat with Red Army soldiers in '41 would have been very informative.

He also does not fill in periods of the war where he was not in combat. Yes it is not easy to remember events 50 years ago, but it would have been nice to know some general info about where he was staying and what he was doing there. We learn he has a fiancé but nothing as to where they met and so forth.

I think the worst thing is the translation, it is atrocious. Sometimes I would have to read a sentence two or three times to figure out what was being conveyed. There were a few sentences that I could never figure out, it seems as if they were literally translated from German into English. Also the translator used British slang which make comprehension even harder.

Having said that I would recommend this book, it is not perfect but parts of it were very interesting and entertaining.

Matin poppel gives some ggod descriptions of where he fought, in particular Crete and the Ostfront. However this book is a compilation of his war diary entries. I found it lacked smoothness in it's reading. For those searching for a good war novel this is not it, I will recommend Gottlob Herbert Biderman's book titled In Deadly Combat or Black Edelweiss by Johan Voss.
Poppel does give and insight into what it meant to be a Fallschirmjager and how they were often used to hold particular front lines, He did not participate in the legendary battles of Monte Cassino does mention the battles if only briefly. Overall if you like books on Paratroopers then this will suffice.

This is by far one of my most favorite books. The only problem that I have with this book is that the second half is not as interesting as the begging.

Martin Pöppel was a paratrooper during World War II and fought in Poland, Holland, Crete, Russia, Sicily, South Italy and Normandy. In this memoirs (wich is atrociously translated in English) he depicts his wartime life without glorious paint and fictious achievements. He admits that he was not a top notch soldier, neither the kind of hero that would earn the coveted medals. Although he began his war adventure with the enthousiasm of a youngster, he soon discovered that the reality was much more brutal and even boring sometimes. The war that Pöppel presents is not that of epic battles and breath taking firefights, but one of endless waiting, countless reconnaisance missions, constant "fog" about the enemy's strenght and condition and many losses due to accidents rather than the enemy fire. If the book has a strong merit, it is its honest realism. The author was not a hero (and it is obvious that he hated the military discipline!) and he did not pretend to be one. Sometimes he managed to save his skin by cunning and by avoiding the action altogehter and at war's end he was the only officer alive in his battalion! He was reprimanded by his superior officers and he talks about them with bitterness. The book is not a marvel of prose, but is recommended for anyone who wants to know how the daily routine of a real soldier was like.

This was a wonderful book to read. It is loaded with all of the details related to the life of a German Fallschirmjager. I highly reccomend this book for anyone interested in the German Fallschirmjager, and or other branches of der Wehrmacht.

Poppel's account appears reasonably honest from his initial enthusiasm for war to ultimate disillusionment. One of the better German WWII accounts of action. Good discriptions of actual actions

This is a very unusual book, one of the few written by a German paratrooper who saw active service throughout the whole of World War Two and lived to tell the tale. With the exception of Hans-Ulrich Rudel's STUKA PILOT, it is also the only German memior I've yet read which is largely written in "real time", that is, written from Pöppel's war diary in the present tense, which adds to its page-turning qualities.

Martin Pöppel's personality and outlook will be familiar to anyone who has ever read Ambrose's books on the 101st Airborne. He was a tough, outspoken, mischievous, and rather defiant kid who took these qualities with him when he joined the fledgling German airborne force prior to the outbreak of the war. In the paratroopers (the "Green Devils" as they came to be known) he found men of similar temperament - men who weren't afraid, to use a German expression, of death or the devil, and who lived to jump into combat and fight. Well, Hitler's ambitions allowed them plenty of opportunities for that, as Pöppel soon discovered - he takes us on a journey from his training to his service in Poland, Norway, Holland, Crete, Russia, Sicily, Italy, France, and finally Germany itself, rising from the ranks to become a highly decorated junior officer, albeit one with a tendency to get in trouble. What makes the book so interesting to me personally is not the battle sequences, but rather how Pöppel describes war for those who participate in it - largely a game of waiting, marching, retreating, listening to rumors, drinking, training, and getting into trouble. I was also thoroughly gripped by his descriptions of life in the English POW camp after the war and in postwar Germany.

This is not to say the combat accounts aren't interesting. Pöppel fought on Crete, which was such a blood-bath that even Hitler was jarred by the casualty list, and Pöppel does a good job of recounting just what made it so awful. Likewise, his reconstruction of the brutal, chaotic brawling that was the Normandy campaign is worth the price of the book alone. I also enjoyed his memories of Sicily, told in that present-tense style that makes the book such a page-turner.

Pöppel's estimations of Germany's allies and enemies make for even more interesting reading. Although he like most Germans was rather fond of "Tommy", he is thoroughly unimpressed with the British soldier after about 1940, and he utterly despises the Italians, "who only run and never fight." As to the Americans he has mixed feelings, though he is impressed by their sheer physical size and ferocious appearance, likening some of the prisoners he takes to "inmates of Sing Sing."

On the technical side, the German-to-English translation of this book is pretty awkward, the organization of the paragraphs is often clumsy, occasionally timeshifting from Pöppel in WW2 to Pöppel today in such a way that is extremely confusing, and the editing is also rather poor - I found typos everywhere. This shoddiness distracts a bit from what is otherwise a very interesting story, but I'd still recommend HEAVEN & HELL, especially to those who want to know what it was like to fight for the "other side" during World War Two.