Gottlob Herbert Bidermann Author (1 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, KS. 2000. Hardcover. First Printing by Line Number. Book is tight, square, and unmarked. Book Condition: Very Good; light soiling to textblock top and fore edge; light bumping to head and tail. DJ: Very Good; light bumping to head and tail; closed tear to bottom of front flap fold. Yellow paper over boards and spine with bright gilt lettering on the spine. 330 pp 8vo. War is hell and the Eastern Front in WWII was heart hell. The author served in that lethal theater from 1941 to 1945, and his memoir of those years recaptures the sights, sounds, and smells of the war as it vividly portrays an army marching on the road to ruin. A riveting and reflective account by one of the millions of anonymous soldiers who fought and died in that cruel terrain, this book conveys the brutality and horrors of the Eastern Front in detail. It offers a ground soldier's perspective on life and death on the front lines, providing revealing new information concerning day-to-day operations and German army life. Wounded five times and awarded numerous decorations for valor, 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. 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. He recalls a Christmas gift of gingerbread from home that overcame the stench of battle, an Easter celebrated with a basket of Russian hand grenades for eggs, and his miraculous survival of machine gun fire at close range. In closing he relives the humiliation of surrender to an enemy whom the Germans had once derided and offers a sobering glimpse into life in the Soviet gulags. A clean very presentable copy in a Brodart mylar jacket.…