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.

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

History

Huber, Christian

Europe

The History Press

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.

German Accounts from the Dying Days of the Third Reich

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Leutnant Gerhard Ehlert was one of the few survivors of 2. Nachtaufklärungsstaffel, part of the Luftwaffe’s 6th Air Fleet, which operated on Eastern Front during the Second World War. Although he came from a family that spoke out against Hitler and the Nazi regime, he volunteered to join the Luftwaffe. He went on to undertake combat patrols under the most extreme circumstances.\nFacing hazardous weather conditions – often landing his aircraft ‘blind’ in heavy fog – and mountainous odds against Soviet air superiority, Ehlert completed twenty-two sorties before his Dornier Do 217M-1, coded K7+FK, was shot down on 14 June 1944. Despite strenuous efforts to escape the Soviets, along with his rear-gunner Feldwebel Wilhelm Burr, he was captured by the Red Army. What followed changed his life forever.\nThough interrogated repeatedly, Ehlert revealed nothing about his missions or duties. Then, during his transfer to a prisoner of war camp, he had to face a hostile crowd of Russian civilians who had suffered from the devastating effects of the Luftwaffe’s bombs. In the long journey eastwards across the bleak Russian steppes to the camp at Yelabuga, a town in the Republic of Tatarstan, Ehlert reflected on his early years and the road he took to the east and the horrifying situation he was in. But it was not the months he endured in the freezing prisoner of war camp which became his most haunting memory – it was when the war ended.\nThe Russians announced that with peace came new rules. Now the prisoners must work and the food ration would be reduced. Their uniforms were removed, and all privileges of rank dismissed. To the Soviets they were no longer prisoners of war, they were mere criminals and were treated accordingly.\nTransferred to Bolshoy Bor in the north, day after day the men had to transport logs, even through the snow and ice of winter, with many of the prisoners dying of malnutrition and exposure. The Russians told them they were ‘to rebuild what they destroyed in the Soviet Union’.\nEhlert’s suffering finally ended in 1949. He was able to return to his parental home, initially being treated as an unwelcome stranger. When he related his story to Christian Huber, Gerhard Ehlert was in his 90s, by then a happy father and grandfather, and undoubtedly a survivor.

A Prisoner of Stalin: The Chilling Story of a Luftwaffe Pilot Shot Down and Captured on the Eastern Front

Ehlert, Gerhard

Frontline Books

Centuries ago, humankind fled Earth to escape an unknown cataclysmic event. Now, ancient astronaut researcher Jackson Bible uncovers a startling secret that threatens to wipe out human and Reborn civilization across the galaxy. Driven to prevent this tragedy,&nbsp;Bible teams up with an obstinate Reborn efficiency officer, a human with the ability to relocate his consciousness, and a young posthuman who just happens to be involved in a revolution against the government. But salvation may rest in the hands of a sullen private investigator named Terrance Holloway - a man who may not be&nbsp;reliable.&nbsp;For Holloway believes that his hard-boiled, time-twisted world of 1946 Los Angeles is real life... Digging into&nbsp;the sociological and anthropological aspects of post-Earth society,&nbsp;They All Lived In Castles is a thrilling post-apocalyptic SF novel in the tradition of "soft sci-fi."&nbsp;It combines the mind-bending style of Philip K. Dick with Clifford D. Simak's free-wheeling sense of wonder and well-rounded development of character.

They All Lived In Castles

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Science Fiction

Independently published

Der Code: Der neue Weg zum Positiven Denken

Kastner Druckhaus

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