German Memoirs

This book presents the remarkable personal journals of German soldier Hans Roth. Writing as events transpired, he recorded the mystery and tension as the Germans deployed on the Soviet frontier in June 1941. In these journals, battles are described in "you are there" detail, as Roth wrote privately, as if to keep himself sane, knowing that his honest accounts of the horrors in the East could never pass through Wehrmacht censors. 

It is sometimes difficult to remember that in war there are innocents on all sides who suffer. German citizens who had no connection to the atrocities committed by their countrymen nonetheless endured great hardships because of them.

In December 1943, with the rising realization that the Allies are planning to invade Fortress Europe, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel is assigned the title of General Inspector for the Atlantic Wall. His mission is to assess their readiness. His superior, theater commander, crusty old Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, who had led the Reich to victory in the early years of the war, is now fed up with the whole Nazi regime. He lives comfortably in a plush villa in a quiet Paris suburb, waiting for the inevitable Allied invasion that will bring about their final defeat.

Gunter K. Koschorrek was a machine-gunner on the Russian front in WWII. He wrote his illicit diary on any scraps of paper he could lay his hands on. As keeping a diary was strictly forbidden, he sewed the pages into the lining of his thick winter coat and deposited them with his mother on infrequent trips home on leave. The diary went missing, and it was when he was reunited with his daughter in America some 40 years later that it came to light and became Blood Red Snow. 

Wounded five times and awarded numerous decorations for valor, Gottlob Herbert Bidermann saw action in the Crimea and siege of Sebastopol, participated in the vicious battles in the forests south of Leningrad, and ended the war in the Courland Pocket. In his memoir, he shares his impressions of countless Russian POWs seen at the outset of his service, of peasants struggling to survive the hostilities while caught between two ruthless antagonists, and of corpses littering the landscape.

Australien steht für Weite, Freiheit und Abenteuer. Doch auch dieses Land hat eine dunkle Seite. Adrian Langenscheid erzählt wahre Kriminalfälle aus Australien: von kaltblütigen Morden, rätselhaften Vermisstenfällen, zerstörten Familien, grausamen Entführungen und menschlichen Abgründen, die fassungslos machen. Sachlich, präzise und ohne Sensationsgier führt dieses Hörbuch in echte Fälle, echte Ermittlungen und echte Schicksale. Gerade die nüchterne Erzählweise macht die Geschichten so erschütternd – denn nichts daran ist erfunden.

Vierundzwanzig Jahre. Acht verschlossene Türen. Drei Kinder, die nie das Sonnenlicht gesehen hatten. Und ein höflicher österreichischer Ingenieur, der jeden Abend seelenruhig nach oben stieg, um mit seiner Frau zu Abend zu essen. Wie hat Josef Fritzl es getan?

Like many Germans, Berlin schoolboy Erwin Bartmann fell under the spell of the Zeitgeist cultivated by the Nazis. Convinced he was growing up in the best country in the world, he dreamt of joining the Leibstandarte, Hitler's elite Waffen SS unit. Tall, blond, blue-eyed, and just 17-years-old, Erwin fulfilled his dream on Mayday 1941, when he gave up his apprenticeship at the Glaser bakery in Memeler Strasse and walked into the Lichterfelde barracks in Berlin as a raw, volunteer recruit.

In this brilliantly received memoir, former senator James Webb has outdone himself. It is rare in America that one individual is recognized for the highest levels of combat valor, as a respected member of the literary and journalistic world, and as a blunt-spoken leader in national politics. In...

Sizilien, 1893: Ein Notar wird im Zug nach Palermo brutal ermordet – ein Verbrechen, das als einer der ersten prominenten Mafia-Morde in die Geschichte eingehen sollte. Doch wie wurde aus lokalen Schutzgruppen auf Zitronenplantagen ein globales kriminelles Imperium, das heute bis tief in die deutsche Wirtschaft reicht? In dieser Ausgabe von Erzähl mir alles: Geschichte räumen die Hosts Jasmin Kröger und Robert Rauh mit der gefährlichen Gangsterromantik auf. Gemeinsam mit Experten und Expertinnen blicken sie hinter die Kulissen von „Der Pate" und Co.

A searing memoir of a broken childhood and the hope of escaping it—from the iconic Black Flag frontman and legendary punk musician Henry Rollins What happens when a child grows up in an almost total vacuum of love? That was the reality for Henry Rollins, pioneering punk frontman of the seminal...

Family Business: Gier, Geld, Geheimnisse erzählt die Geschichten großer Familien und schillernder Dynastien. Die Schwestern Anna Dushime und Amélia Umuhire geben Einblicke in das Innere von Familien, die über Jahrzehnte oder gar Jahrhunderte Unternehmen und Imperien gelenkt haben. Denn die ganz großen Dramen der Weltgeschichte um Macht, Geld und Einfluss spielen sich nicht selten in Familien ab.

The author could be described as a veteran in every sense of the word, even though he was only age 21 when the war ended. Armin Scheiderbauer served as an infantry officer with the 252nd Infantry Division, German army, and saw four years of bitter combat on the Eastern Front, being wounded six times. This is an outstanding personal memoir, written with great thoughtfulness and honesty.

Der Mann, in den ich mich verliebt hatte, und mit dem ich sogar verlobt war, war ein Betrüger, und als er durch einen dummen Zufall erwischt wurde, kam plötzlich sein Wahnsinn zum Vorschein. Mein Leben bestand nur noch aus Schikanen und es wurde immer unerträglicher. Je mehr ich nachforschte, desto mehr Scheußlichkeiten deckte ich auf.

Almost all accounts of D-Day are told from the Allied perspective, with the emphasis on how German resistance was overcome on June 6, 1944. But what was it like to be a German soldier in the bunkers and gun emplacements of the Normandy coast, facing the onslaught of the mightiest seaborne invasion in history? What motivated the German defenders, what were their thought processes - and how did they fight from one strong point to another, among the dunes and fields, on that first cataclysmic day?

Heinz Knoke was one of the outstanding German fighter pilots of the Second World War. This vivid firsthand record of his experiences has become a classic among aviation memoirs and is a fascinating counterbalance to the numerous accounts written by Allied pilots.

The complete war memoirs of the resistance leader Charles de Gaulle, who led France out of its darkest hour during the Nazi occupation during World War II. “Faced with the political disaster, I had to become France.” This was how Charles de Gaulle answered the call of history. One of the few...

Wahre Verbrechen - Die 70er und 80er ist ein Muss für alle Fans des True-Crime-Genres und bietet einen tiefen Einblick in die Abgründe der menschlichen Seele. 26 schockierende True Crime-Fälle in einem 2 in 1-Sammelband. Drei der echten Kriminalfälle aus dieser True Crime-Sammlung: - Binden. Foltern. Töten: Ein skrupelloser Mörder hinterließ in Kansas in den 70ern eine Blutspur, indem er ganze Familien auslöschte.

Erhard Steiniger joined his Wehrmacht unit on October 12, 1940, as a radio operator, a role which required his constant presence with troops at the Front, right in the midst of combat. On June 22, 1941, he accompanied his division to Lithuania where he experienced the catastrophic first day of Operation Barbarossa. He later witnessed intense clashes during the conquest of the Baltic islands and the battles leading up to Leningrad on the Volkhov and Lake Ladoga.

The first book of D Day Through German Eyes has fascinated listeners around the world with its insight into the German experience of June 6, 1944. Now, book 2 contains a completely different set of astonishing German testimonies from the same archive. These newly translated eyewitness statements by German veterans show the defenders to be determined but psychologically insecure, often deluded in their thinking, and all too human in their shock at the onslaught they faced.