Customer Reviews

Shades of Gray: Memoirs of a Prussian Saint on the Eastern Front

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SHADES OF GRAY is a remarkable story of a young man, a Mormon Prussian, Art Naujoks, and his battle to survive World War II as a soldier on the German side. It is vivid with detail of what it was like to be a German soldier on the Eastern Front where Art endured miles of walking on frozen legs, months of long marches, several severe injuries, incredible lonliness as he longed for home and peace, being brave while in great fear in the heat of famous fierce battles on the Ukrainian Front, as well as surviving the war against incredible odds for 4 years. He sadly watched all his friends and a love interest perish in the struggle. All through the war, he turned to his steadfast Mormon faith to see him through impossible odds where he "did his duty" as he was called to do and survived. Michael Eldredge is a sensitive, versatile, and most talented author with a gift for his craft in many literary arenas, as well as an Historian. He's taken Art's memoirs and brought the reader along in step with historical accuracy of the battles and locations with maps and treasured pictures of Art and his friends and family at that time period. You can be assured of true facts and historical insights as you live through this up close and personal WWII struggle of Art's. This well written book is up there with the best of Steinbeck's nonfiction works. It will teach you, renew your compassion and appreciation for all good people, and keep you on the edge of your nerves. I highly recommend SHADES OF GRAY!

Interesting autobiography-biography of a German soldier on the Eastern front. Written from the unique perspective of a Mormon in the German army. An East Prussian Mormon at that, raised in the Memel area of Prussia-Lithuania. Readers who have read Guy Sajer's "The Forgotten Soldier" may remember the intensity and horror of the fighting around Memel towards the end of the war.
The author's situation was fascinating, since Mormonism advocates obedience to governmental authorities. Hence, Naujok being under Nazi German authority, was in a difficult situation of serving a morally questionable regime.
My only complaint was with the poor quality of the book itself. This was the fault of Mill Creek Press in Salt Lake City, Utah. The quality of the binding was poor, with pages coming out on a regular basis. Since my copy was brand new, this was wholly unacceptable.
Overall -- good read, but avoid books by this publisher.
-CFL

I discovered this book while judging a writers contest. I coundn't put it down because it is, quite simply, one of the absolute best books I've ever read. I am not a Mormon, but I am a World War II buff. Over the past 60 years, I've wondered what it was like being a German during Hitler's reign of death and terror. This book is one German soldier's memoirs of his experiences on the Eastern Front. At the end, I was saddened to learn that he has passed on; I so wanted to write him and let him know what his book has meant to me. As a young woman in college, I read Hitler's book about his plans, and it changed me........I thought forever. Now that I've read Shades of Gray, I have been changed again and turned around in my thinking about the German people and my own German roots.
Read this book. Please. It is without peer.

Mill Creek Press is a micro-publisher that publishes books manufactured by BookSurge, an Amazon.com company. Recently, BookSurge has been undergoing a move to a new location in Charleston, SC. The move was necessary to cope with the explosive growth of BookSurge in the last two years. Occasionally, during this move, a POD book as been shipped that didn't meet BookSurge's normal quality control standards. Please be patient, and if you do happen to get a book with pages falling out, kindly return it to BookSurge for a replacement. The new address will be available on the BookSurge website shortly (www.booksurge.com), if it is not already posted. Thank you for your cooperation and patience during this move. Mill Creek Press

This book is such a wonderful story from such a unique perspective of a Prussian soldier fighting for a country he is stripped of. This book is filled with an emotional and gripping story of a mans service and survival while riding through a history lesson of the realities of war on the Eastern Front in the 1940's. I highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone. It truly makes you appreciate your freedom, those who fight for it, and those who are on God's side. I hope to see more from this wonderful and extraordinary author.

SHADES OF GREY is an interesting book. Its subtitle, MEMOIRS OF A PRUSSIAN SAINT ON THE EASTERN FRONT, is a bit misleading, however.

Amazon lists Micheal S. Eldredge as the author, for example, not Arthur O. Naujoks, Jr.. Eldredge is an attorney from Salt Lake who first met Naujoks in 1995. It was Naujoks, not Eldredge, who served on the Eastern Front. Naujoks gave Eldredge a copy of his typed memoir of his youth, family and military service and the latter revised it into a manuscript suitable for publication. In my opinion, Naujoks should be listed as the author instead of Eldredge. This is not an insurmountable point, however, and it may be a simple oversight by whoever listed the book.

Although this is a book with a soldier's profile on its cover, I would not classify it as military history. Instead, it is a memoir about Naujoks' youth in Tilsit, East Prussia, his family and his service on the Eastern Front. There are soldiers in this book, but the tone reminds me more of an old man trying to leave a portrait of the people and places he loved.

A devout Mormon, Naujoks describes his spiritual journey and the experiences of his co-religionists during the Third Reich. I hadn't realized that there were any Mormons at all in East Prussia.

The most interesting parts of the book to me, a non-Mormon of East Prussian ancestry, were Naujoks' descriptions of Tilsit and the East Prussian country side. It's very difficult to find such information.

It was also interesting to see Naujoks' adjustment to the horror of fighting on the Eastern Front. One of his best chapters describes a frozen retreat west from the Don Basin and Stalingrad. Fleeing soldiers survived, in part, by packing into structures so densely that they could sleep standing up. This conserved warmth.

Naujoks deplores the brutal treatment of Russian civilians and makes it a point to state that neither he, nor any of his comrades engaged in that. "As hungry as we were," he recalls on pp. 123-124, "none of those around me ever considered stealing a chicken or slaughtering a cow for food. We knew it could mean the death of an entire family. I resolved to die of starvation before I would ever take food from the mouth of a Russian."

I'm sure Herr Naujoks was a wonderful fellow and meant every word of that, but it does raise some questions when compared to other books on the Eastern Front. Not all German soldiers seemed as devoted to honor and humane treatment of the Russians as the author was.

Herr Naujoks blames the atrocities on the SS and rear-echelon Nazi fanatics. Much as I would like to agree, I am forced to concede that the Army itself engaged in some brutal conduct toward civilians, especially Russians. I'm sure the SS was more active and more brutal, but it's misleading to suggest that the German Army came out Russia with clean hands. Maybe individual soldiers, like Naujoks did, but the Army itself didn't according to what I've been able to read. That's the tragedy of the Eastern Front. Almost nobody on either side came away from it clean.

My edition of this book was solidly bound and well put together. The book has some very useful appendices on Prussian history, a good bibliography and an index. While it's not written with the elan of Guy Sajer's FORGOTTEN SOLDIER, it's easy to read and probably just as factual, if not more so.

If you're interested in East Prussian history, World War II, or the Red Army's advance into Germany in 1945 and its catastrophic consequences for East Prussian men, women and children, then SHADES OF GRAY will be of interest to you. I liked it and gave it four stars.

This book should make you question sterotypes about the German physche at the time of World War II. It's way too easy to judge the past using the values of the present. This book provides a different view of history, in that it tells the story of a poignant period of history through the eyes of someone who was there, and wasn't on the side of the victor. Arthur Naujoks is clearly not so different to you and I and his story forces you to think about what you might have done had you been born into that place and time. Very moving. I thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend it.

M-U-S-T read. A very Christian person in the German army WWII and all the challenges of fighting and dying along with trying to live his conscience.

People who are enthusiastic about the dogs of war should spend time in the kennel. This work of non-fiction, while not preachy or sententious, opens the gate to the kennel wherein the dogs of war are savagely tearing each other to bits. It is not a judgement or a sermon. It is, rather, an insight into reality--sans drums and flags and glory (presumptive).

Just blood and guts (spilled) and pain and misery and, oh yes, hunger and lice. And lest we forget, stupidity of the IIC (Idiots In Charge). There are always, it seems, at all times in all climes, Idiots in Charge, at the higher or highest levels.

Maybe, at most times, in most climes, a prerequisite for being in charge is idiocy. And a heartfelt disregard for those who bleed.

This book is worthless as a history of the battles of the eastern front. There is no real descriptions of what the author experienced as a soldier. The book only talks about his retreating from the front. I can't believe this book has such a high rating.