The Dying Days of the Third Reich : German Accounts from World War II

The defeat of the Third Reich is best told through the authentic voices of those who fought on the front line. This collection includes the stories of German soldiers fighting the Red Army on the Eastern Front. It includes those of Horst Messer, who served on the last East Prussian panzer tank but was captured and spent four years in Russian captivity at Riga; Hans Obermeier, who recounts service with Eastern Front training units, capture on the Czech front, and escape from Siberia; and an anonymous Wehrmacht soldier in Slovakia given orders to execute Russian prisoners. It has taken seventy years for the accounts of ordinary German soldiers during the Second World War to be made widely available to an English-speaking audience. This is hardly surprising given that interest in these important documents has only recently surfaced in Germany, where a long process of coming to terms with the past, or Vergangenheitsbewältigung, has taken place. Unlike other historical depictions of the fall of the Third Reich, Dying Days of the Third Reich presents the authentic voices of those German soldiers who fought on the front line. Throughout we are witness to the kind of bravery, ingenuity and, ultimately, fear that we are so familiar with from the many Allied accounts of this time. Their sense of confusion and terror is palpable as Nazi Germany finally collapses in May 1945, with soldiers fleeing to the American victors instead of the Russians in the hope of obtaining better treatments as a prisoner of war. This collection of first-hand accounts includes the stories of German soldiers fighting the Red Army on the Eastern Front; of Horst Messer, who served on the last East Prussian panzer tank but was captured and spent four years in Russian captivity at Riga; Hans Obermeier, who recounts his capture on the Czech front and escape from Siberia; and a moving account of an anonymous Wehrmacht soldier in Slovakia given orders to execute Russian prisoners. -- Provided by publisher Unlike other historical depictions of the fall of the Third Reich, German Accounts from the Dying Days of the Third Reich presents the authentic voices of those German soldiers who fought on the front line. Throughout we are witness to the kind of bravery, ingenuity and, ultimately, fear that we are so familiar with from the many Allied accounts of this time. Their sense of confusion and terror is palpable as Nazi Germany finally collapses in May 1945, with soldiers fleeing to the American victors instead of the Russians in the hope of obtaining better treatments as a prisoner of war. This collection of first-hand accounts include the stories of German soldiers fighting the Red Army on the Eastern Front; of Horst Messer, who served on the last East Prussian panzer tank but was captured and spent four years in Russian captivity at Riga; of Hans Obermeier, who recounts his capture on the Czech front and escape from Siberia; and a moving account of an anonymous Wehrmacht soldier in Slovakia given orders to execute Russian prisoners. CONTENTS: Introduction by Roger Moorhouse Prologue 1 Summer Night: Peter Stuffer, Obergefreiter, from Ruhpolding, Eastern Front, Army Group South 2 Hunted Down: Hans Klinger, Waffen-SS NCO, Eastern Front, Army Group South (Wasserburg) 3 Why We Were Fighting: Anonymous Paratrooper NCO Eastern Front, Army Group North 4 From the Ski Slopes to Siberia: Hans Obermeier, NCO, Eastern Front, Army Group Centre, Born Rosenheim 1925 5 Home and Yet Betrayed: Helmut Haubner, Sergeant, from Schnaitsee Bavaria, 1945 6 The Last Panzers at Libau: Horst Messer, Corporal, Eastern Front, Army Group North, from Bad Feilnbach 7 War Voyages on the Rhine: Joseph Rass, Senior NCO, Western Front, from Kolbermoor 8 Forester in Hell: Karl Hubner, Hermann Göring Regiment Driver/Flak-Gunner, Eastern Front, Army Group Centre, From Amberg 9 The Old Man of Gömörnanas: Memories of an Unknown Soldier, Eastern Front, Army Group South 10 Cemeteries: Gerd Rube, Second Lieutenant from Rimsting, Final Battle for Berlin First-hand accounts from the last days of the Third Reich: these are honest and striking accounts from the front line.