Twelve years of rule by Hitler and the Nazi Party could have made Germany a third world country after the end of the war, and according to some highly placed Allied officials of the time; that would not have been such a bad idea. Whatever treatment the Allies had in mind for the Germans could not have been much worse than the conditions already in existence for them just before and just after the end of the war. The German economy and infrastructure was already a wreck and the inflation continued after the surrender with prices of essentials (if they could be bought) rising to double and triple that of 1943. Only the war industry continued to function reasonably well right up to the end. He has never voted for any political party and does not support one now, saying that the only honest politician he remembers is Adolf Hitler. “Hitler said, ‘Give me five years and you won’t recognize Germany’. This book is a memoir of Wilhelm Gehlen and his childhood in Nazi Germany, as a Nazi Youth and the awful circumstances which he and his friends and family had to endure during and following the war. Including a handful of recipes and descriptions of the strange and sometimes disgusting food that nevertheless kept people alive, this book sheds light on the truly awful conditions and the common feeling and aim among members of the Hitler Youth – that it was their duty to do everything possible to save the Thousand Year Reich in 1945.

Hitler’s Home Front: Memoirs of a Hitler Youth

Biographies & Memoirs

Gehlen, Wilhelm R.

Gregory, Don A.

Historical

Pen and Sword Military

This is the wartime memoir of a boy named Will, who happened to be the nephew of the head of Nazi Germany’s intelligence agency, Foreign Armies East. After reading this book, the reader will wonder who had the most exciting time during World War II. Will Gehlen’s father, a trolley driver, was drafted into the Wehrmacht to man a Sturmgeschutz assault gun in Russia. His older brother, Len, was enlisted in the Hitlerjugend. The author, only 10 years old when the war began, became a helper at the local Luftwaffe flak battery, fetching ammunition. It was exciting work for Will (a member of the “Jungvolk”) and by the end of the war he had become expert at judging attacks. As fighter raids increased in frequency he noted that the pilots became less skilled. Aside from aircraft kills, Gehlen had other adventures during the war, as when his mother dragged him to visit his aunt in Luxembourg in 1944. Crossing the lines they found no aunt but met American troops, and were surprised when the German Army launched an offensive, overrunning the village and forcing US soldiers to retreat with casualties. Making their way back to Germany was even more perilous, until they discovered the most secure vehicles were mail trucks. No one, not even the SS, tried to interfere with their progress. Gehlen’s town was repeatedly bombed and he often had to help with the wreckage or to pull survivors from basements. He witnessed more death than a child ever should; nevertheless, his flak battery continued firing until US tanks were almost on top of the position. In this book Gehlen, provides an intimate glimpse of the chaos, horror and black humor of life just behind the front lines. As seen through the eyes of a child, who was expert in aircraft identification and bomb weights, food-rationing and tank types, one encounters a view of life inside Hitler’s wartime Reich that is both fascinating and rare. Table of Contents Preface Chapter 1 Home, Family &amp; Herr Meyer Chapter 2 Everyone Works Chapter 3 Bombings &amp; 88’s Chapter 4 88’s in Action Chapter 5 Dad’s Home Visit Chapter 6 On to England Chapter 7 Dad’s Assignment Chapter 8 Krefeld Chapter 9 Jungvolk Build a Bunker Chapter 10 Giant Chapter 11 Runner for the Quads Chapter 12 The Attacker Becomes the Attacked Chapter 13 The Stork Chapter 14 New Weapons, New Hope Chapter 15 A Journey &amp; the Americans Chapter 16 Saint Nicholas Day, 1944 Chapter 17 A Christmas Story Chapter 18 Our Last Bullet Chapter 19 The End of the War for Us Chapter 20 V-E Day &amp; Dad’s Homecoming Epilogue

Jungvolk: The Story of a Boy Defending Hitler's Third Reich

Arts & Photography

Study & Teaching

Casemate

On sand and snow for Hitler . . . This book is built around two recently discovered war diaries—one by a member of the 23rd Panzer Division which served under Manstein in Russia, and the other by a member of Rommel’s AfrikaKorps. Together, along with detailed timelines and brief overviews, they comprise a fascinating “you are there” look at the German side of World War II. The stories are told primarily in the first person present tense, as events occurred, and without the benefit (or liability) of postwar reflection. The assignment of keeping the first diary was given to a soldier in the 2nd Battalion, 201st Panzer Regiment by a commanding officers and the author never saw fit to include his own name. This diary covers the period from April 1942 to March 1943, the momentous year when the tide of battle turned in the East. It first details the unit’s combat in the great German victory at Kharkov, then the advance to the Caucasus, and finally the brutal winter of 1942–43. The second diary’s author was a soldier named Rolf Krengel, and the diary was the original, handwritten copy. It starts with the beginning of the war and ends shortly after the occupation. Serving primarily in North Africa, Krengel recounts with keen insight and flashes of humor the day-to-day challenges of the AfrikaKorps. During one of the swirling battles in the desert, Krengel found himself sharing a tent with Rommel at a forward outpost. Neither of the diarists was famous, nor of especially high rank, and no books have been written on their military careers. However, these are the brutally honest accounts written at the time by men of the Wehrmacht who participated in two of history’s most crucial campaigns. DON A. GREGORY, is a Professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. WILHELM R. GEHLEN joined the French Foreign Legion and served in Indochina and North Africa. The authors previously collaborated on Mr. Gehlen’s childhood memoir, Jungvolk: The Story of a Boy Defending Hitler’s Third Reich (Casemate 2008). Table of Contents Preface PART I: TO STALINGRAD AND BACK Introduction 1: Departure from Paris and Arrival in Charkov 2: The Battle for Charkov, 5–29 May 1942 3: Forward to the Oskol River, 31 May–22 July 1942 4: Toward the Don and Ssal, 23–30 July 1942 5: Advance to the Caucasus, 1 August–24 November 1942 6: Our Part at Stalingrad, 25 November–25 December 1942 7: Our Retreat from Stalingrad, 26 December–19 March 1942 Historical Timeline Part II: TO NORTH AFRICA AND BACK Introduction 1: Conscription and On to France (“Case Yellow”), 1939 2: My North Africa Campaign, 1941 3: Chase and Being Chased through the Desert, 1942 4: Home to Germany 1943 5: The End of the War, 1945 6: After the End Epilogue: The Fall of Berlin and the Airlift Historical Timeline Appendix 1: Biography of Ludwig Bloos Appendix 2: Obituary of Rolf Krengel Bibliography and Sources

Two Soldiers, Two Lost Fronts: German War Diaries of the Stalingrad and North Africa Campaigns

Casemate Pub

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