Holger Eckhertz

This second volume of recently discovered interviews with German soldiers who participated in the battle of Normandy on June 6, 1944, is as illuminating and fascinating as the first volume. It contains verbatim interviews with 8 German fighting men (one of them a Luftwaffe pilot) about their experiences on D-Day as the Allied forces invaded France. As with the first volume, some surprises are found. German propaganda had done a good job of inculcating in its Wehrmacht troops (though probably not in the Waffen SS) the fantasy that Germany was not the aggressor but the defender of France and a united Europe, and that the Allies, comprising American and British banking interests and Russian Bolsheviks, were in an aggressive war to overthrow the democracies of Europe. That so many soldiers on the German side seemed to believe this (during the war; most of the men interviewed revealed that they now understood the truth about their country's lies and atrocities) is remarkable. Also surprising are the reports from these soldiers that the French populace was primarily allied with the Germans in many ways, often (in the weeks following the invasion) spying on Allied positions and reporting back to German forces. Perhaps most surprising, though, are reports of a remarkable super-weapon known as Taifun 2 (Typhoon 2) which supposedly was capable of massive (though definitively less than atomic) destruction, and the fact that while German prisoners of war were shipped to England and the U.S. and treated well, Russian defectors who joined the German forces were, when captured, apparently turned over to the Russians for mass execution. Each man interviewed speaks straightforwardly about the terrors of combat, the shock at the overwhelming force and resources of the Allies, and each reveals an aspect of World War II history that has been known by comparatively few students of history in the Allied nations. This, like its predecessor, is a genuinely remarkable book.… (mehr)

This is a remarkable and fascinating series of interviews with German soldiers who served on the Atlantic Wall in Normandy on the day of the Allied invasion of France in 1944. Most of what we read and see about D-Day or the entire Second World War itself is depicted from the Allied perspective. This short but powerful book gives a fresh look at a battle that seems to many of us quite familiar. The horrors of the battle, the fear and also the compassion present on the German side are presented without varnish in these memories of ordinary soldiers, many of whom thought they were defending a united Europe and couldn't understand why the Allies wanted to kill them. It's a remarkable work. A follow-up volume exists, and I'll be reading it soon.… (mehr)