Gods of War: A Memoir of a German Soldier PDF
Preview Gods of War: A Memoir of a German Soldier
An engaging, meaningful and memorable memoir of a German soldier in World War II that reads like a novel.
The author reminds us that there are many sides in any conflict; there are guns and tanks, death and destruction, but most of the young men who march off to war are strong, spirited, romantic and reckless. The soldier in this account combines all those qualities.
When he was seventeen, he joined the Waffen SS because the line was shorter than at the other divisions. He became a good soldier, a lieutenant in the Das Reich Division. Fighting on the Eastern front, his big battle was at Zhitomir, occupied by the Axis in August 1941, and retaken by the Soviets on the thirty-first of December, 1943. Here he was wounded and eventually lost a leg.
Seventeen years after the war, on a summer vacation with his wife, brother and sister-in-law, Woltersdorf revisits the French countryside were he had been during the war. He finds his French sweetheart and for the first time learns that he has a son, Julien.
Weaving back and forth from this present to the war years, Woltersdorf relives those years. He adds his mature wisdom and a philosophical perspective to the vividness of his fighting memories.
The gods of war, to which the author often prayed, had mercy and he survived. With the British and American occupying forces, however, life was even more difficult. All Waffen SS were sought as war criminals. There was that ineradicable tattoo on the upper left arm that could not be disguised.
And so he changed his name, he ran, he evaded, but was finally captured and taken to a prison camp, where he was interrogated daily. Woltersdorf personally was not guilty of any war crimes, had not been a Nazi, but he makes no apologies for his countrymen. His voice is important for us to hear, and what he has to say is most relevant to the world today. =
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