For such a junior officer, an unusual amount of speculation has surrounded Wittmann's death, both as to its cause and the party responsible. Agte states that "the English" could have possibly placed a bounty on him. This is contradicted by Allied records and the testimony of Allied troops involved that he was not singled out during the battle. [43] Franc Lorber and Vladimir Cerjak with Mag. Marjan Tos: " Slovenci v tuji vojski". This book brings vivid war recollections of two Slovene soldiers in the Wehrmacht during World War II. Vladimir Cerjak from Untersteiermak was mobilised in December 1942 and sent for training in Alsace (near Strasbourg) and the Netherlands (Leiden). In autumn 1943, the author's howitzer battery was sent to the Russia (around Kirovgrad). Returned to the front after a brief furlough, saw further fierce engagements in Bessarabia (Moldavia) and Carpathian mountains, where he was wounded by a siper in June 1944 and sent to a hospital in Breslau. He moved with his hospital through Germany and Austria only to reach Slovenia at the end with one of the resettlement railway transports. Franc Lorber was working for the German State Railway (Deutsche Reichsbahn) in Potsdam near Berlin, when he was called into the German army in December 1942. Trained for a radio operator in Berlin, he was sent with his battalion via Gdansk, Oulu and Kemijärvi to Lapland (Finland). Remained on the frontline until 1944 and attended a Russian language course in Rovaniemi. Evacuated with his unit via Lakselv in 1944 to Trondheim and later Oslo from where his unit was shipped to Aarhus (Denmark). From there they were sent to the East Front on the Oder River. In the last days of the Third Reich he decided to desert the army and eventually reached Slovenia safely after many weeks of pleasant and unpleasant adventures. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.

As the Germans advanced towards Leningrad (St Petersburg) in July 1941, the young officer is convinced of the Nazis' goal to end Bolshevism, calling the local population a 'big herd of submissive cattle.' Written during the fighting, on long marches and often after terribly gut-wrenching events, Sander's diaries offer a frank and honest assessment of the German situation in 1941 and the unforgiving nature of war on the Eastern Front. Hastings, Max (2006) [1985]. Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy. Vintage Books USA; Reprint edition. ISBN 0-307-27571-X.

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erman infantry soldiers alongside a Panzer tank. The diaries were discovered by Mr Schaefer in an estate clearance in Germany in 2018, with work on the documentary starting in 2020 Mitcham, Samuel W (1983). Rommel's last battle: the Desert Fox and the Normandy campaign. New York: Stein and Day. After serving as a gunlayer on a Pz.Mk.III during Barbarossa, he led a Company of Tigers at Kursk. Later he led a company of King Tiger panzers at Normandy and in late 1944 commanded a battle group (12 King Tigers and a flak Company) against the Russians in Hungary in the rank of junior, later senior lieutenant (from November 1944, his final rank.) ? By December 21, 1941, when the Red Army had turned the tide of the German advance and the invaders were enduring the harsh conditions of the Russian winter, Leutnant Sander started to doubt the Nazi cause. Erich Raeder: " My Life". The autobiography of Admiral Erich Rader, the Commander-in-Chief of the wartime Kriegsmarine in which he tries to portray the development of German navies from both wars in his role in this.

His secret journals have been found 80 years later and are to be turned into a documentary by History Hit, the streaming network set up by historian Dan Snow. With an unverified record of 130 tanks destroyed, [61] Wittman may have been Germany's top tank ace; [62] although it is possible his tally might have been surpassed by Kurt Knispel.

Hans Schmidt: " SS-Panzergrenadier: A True Story of World War II". Schmidt at the young age of 16 was a Hitler Youth leader and decided to enroll in the Waffen-SS in 1944. He probably belonged to the last batch of recruits to experience the extremely tough but excellent regular training of this elite force, and therefore Schmidt and his comrades fought with such discipline to the bitter end. Schmidt's first combat assignment was in December of 1944 in the First SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte and arrived in the Ardennes forest at the very beginning of the Battle of the Bulge. At the conclusion of that battle most of his comrades were dead and he in the hospital. Heavy fighting in Hungary followed and he ended the war in brutal combat in Austria. At war's end he voluntarily went into U.S. captivity and tells of his firsthand experiences in the death by starvation and neglect of hundreds of thousands of German soldiers. Schmidt through solid determination was able to get out of the camp and with the aid of some U.S. soldiers able to reach his home .... Fraser, David (1993). Knight's Cross: A Life of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-018222-9. Otto Skorzeny: " My Commando Operations - The Memoirs of Hitler's Most Daring Commando". Otto Skorzeny's fame began with the successful raid to free Benito Mussolini from the Gran Sasso, Italy in 1943. His elite commandos surprised Italian guards in a daring daytime raid. Hitler presented Skorzeny with the Knight's Cross for this operation. Not only is this raid explained in minute detail, many of Skorzeny's previously unknown operations in all European and Russian theatres of World War II are given in detailed accounts. Operation Griffin - the innovative use of German Kommandos dressed as American soldiers working behind enemy lines - during the Ardennes Offensive in 1944 is given in-depth coverage, as is Skorzeny's rememberances on the Malmedy massacre. Skorzeny also offers his insights into the mysterious Rudolf Hess mission to England in May 1941, and offers a behind the scenes look at German and Russian secret military intelligence, and the workings of Canaris and Gehlen. Lindgren, Ian (August 1998). "Panzer Commander". PC PowerPlay. No.27. Next Media Pty Ltd. p.94 . Retrieved March 26, 2021. H.G. Schütze: " Operation unter Wasser". The author describes his patrols as a doctor on board U-382, U-221 and U-358.