Are there any books about the Second World War from a German soldier's perspective - i.e...

Are there any books about the Second World War from a German soldier's perspective - i.e., why they thought about the war in the West and especially the East which they were fighting?

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The Third Reich at War 1939–1945 by Evans

Sven Hassel

Novels though.

Otto Carius has a memoirs called "Tigers in the Mud."

wolfe

Von Manstein has a few publications on his tenure as field marshall, but a lot of his excuses amount to "all our failures were hitler's fault" and "I never participated in the holocaust, the Wehrmacht was clean"

Albert Speer's "inside the third reich" have gained some acclaim, even though Speer himself said to take the information with some skepticism

Several! I can recommend the memoires of;

Siegfried Knappe, who served in an artillery regiment prior to and during the war. About halfway through he is targeted for higher advancement and enrolls into General Staff College but the war situation prevents him from ever graduating. He serves in the Czechoslovak campaign, Polish campaign, French campaign, Russian Campaign and Italian campaign before being sent home to fight the defence of Berlin. The name of the book is "Soldat".

"At Leningrad's Gates" by William Lubeck. Also memoires, he was a soldier serving in Army Group North during the Siege of Leningrad. He voulenteers to become a forward observer and has his sights set on leadership.

"Panzer Commander" by Hans von Luck. The title says it all. von Luck served with Rommel in France and North Africa. He also fights briefly on the eastern front during Barbarossa and later on in Normandy before being transferred to the east again to fight a desperate last stand.

All three books also deal with their lives after the surrender. Siegfried Knappe and Hans von Luck both serve in Siberian prisoner camps, the tales of which are almost as fascinating as the stories from the war.

There is a book called 'Im Auge des Jägers' ( In the eye of the hunter or more loosely in the hunters crosshair) by Albrecht Wacker. It's about Sepp Allerberger, a sniper on the russian front. Includes warcrimes like german soldiers getting cut apart in a saw mill, splatter like people getting run over by tanks and the daily life bore like trying to wash the shit out of your pants. Decided to never join military after reading this book, war is hell and nothing more.

"Holt Hartmann vom Himmel" by Toliver&Constable - biography of Erich Hartmann, greatest fighter ace of all time. Also includes postwar POW in Russia, return home, and rebuilding the FRG air forces.

"Angriffshöhe 4000" by Cajus Bekker - in his own words, a "war diary" of the Luftwaffe. Tons of eyewitness reports of how things happened, great read.

Pic related. (Yea I'm an aviation nerd)


Not directly related but very similar:
"MiG-29 Pilot in NVA and Luftwaffe" by Manfried Skeries - autobiography of a pilot, later general officer, in the GDR air force and later, after the collapse of the soviet block and the reunification of Germany, in the FRG air force.

Black Edelweiss is the memoir of an SS soldier.

Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer.

Brutal, emotional, and not enitrely anti-war, which always pisses me off in most war memoirs since fucking WWI.

In high school I wrote a book report about a book I found in the library that was written from the perspective of a young German soldier near the end of the war. I forget what it was called, unfortunately. I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure it ends will him getting strafed by a P-51 and dying.

"Storm of Kikes" and "All Quiet on the Eastern Camp" come to mind

It was propably a book called something like "the bridge", one of my favorites, if it is the same one it was about young german soldiers holding a bridge near the end of the war. It went pretty deep in to their lifes before the war as well.

Thanks for this. Can you recommend any other good aviation reads? Not necessarily about war. I'm especially interested in research/development. I think I've only read Fate is the Hunter and that Crichton novel about a plane crash.

Sure thing.
The other three in the pic I posted:
"Aces High" - WW1, mostly brit pov
"Ten fighter boys" - essentially, pilot diaries. Exactly what OP is looking for, only that it's the brits again.
"Wings like Eagles" - selfexplanatory

then

"Wings of the Luftwaffe" by Eric Brown - a British test pilot tests (duh) captured German planes during and shortly after WW2.

Pretty much anything by Robert Jackson or Jim Winchester for a general but alas not too in-depth overview.

"Stealth warplanes" by Doug Richardson is pretty good for learning the basics about LOTs (low observability technologies, aka "stealth") but it being printed in 2001 some parts are hillariously out of date or revised - for example the "fact" that in the far future of the year 2004, the US is planning to have 3 squadrons with a total of 78 F22s operational. Which, as I recall, was not the case.

"Postwar air weapons 1945-present" by Thomas Newdick - if you can drop it out or launch it from an airplane, its in this book. VERY niche, extremely cool.

And lastly, if you're a fan of crazy ideas and even crazier engineering, "Die deutschen Raketenflugzeuge bis 1945" ("The German rocket aircrafts before 45") by Hans-Peter Diedrich. Because vy use conventional means ov propulsion when you kann just shtrap rocket boosters to your aircraft, is zat not right Doktor von Braun?

As for fiction...

Dale Brown. Full stop. "Flight of the Old Dog" is the best imho, but the (subsequent) others are pretty good too, albeit powertripping.

"Flight of the Intruder" maybe?

And technically, Dirk Pitt (sen) from Clive Cussler's Numa Files novels is a reassigned air force pilot, and they do a bit of flying every now and then.

Thanks! My German's a little rusty, so I'll stick to the English.

The German War:A nation under arms 1939-1945. Nicholas Stargardt

Anyone have a link to english versions of Ernst Junger's WW2 books?

Fuck I loved Storm of Steel

>Soldat

Soldat was a pretty good read, but I liked the one called Panzer Commander better simply for the content.

Soldat was an artillery man and although he did some bad ass shit like point blanking a French barricade with a 150mm arty peice, he was mostly on the back lines during the war.

The Forsaken Army
The Forgotten Soldier
Stuka Pilot
And a plethora of memoirs/diaries on amazon

Lot of the recommended ones in here:

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Forgotten Soldier by Sajer.
He also made made a lot of good comic books under the name of Dimitri, including the autobiographical "Kursk, Storm of Steel", a really great comic.

Kursk by Lloyd Clark features a ton of recollections from the soldiers on both sides.

Didn't Junger just hang out drinking in Paris for most of WW2? Count me in if there's more combat reading to be done.