In Deadly Combat: A German Soldier's Memoir of the Eastern Front (Modern War Studies)

by Gottlob Herbert Bidermann (Author), Denis E. Showalter (Introduction), Derek S. Zumbro (Editor)

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  Illustrated
  2000

  $15.22

  In the hell that was World War II, the Eastern Front was its heart of fire and ice. Gottlob Bidermann served in that lethal theatre from 1941 to 1945, and his memoir of those years vividly recaptures his gruelling experiences with an army marching on the road to ruin. A reflecting account by one of the millions of anonymous soldiers who fought and died in that cruel terrain, In Deadly Combat conveys the brutality and horrors of the Eastern Front in detail. Wounded five times and awarded numerous decorations for valour, Bidermann saw action in the Crimea and siege of Sevastopol, participated in the vicious battles in the forests south of Leningrad, and ended the war trapped in the Courland pocket. Bidermann's account debunks the myth of a highly mechanized German army that rolled over weaker opponents with impunity. Despite the vast expanses of territory captured by the Germans during the early months of Operation Barbarossa, the war with Russia remained tenuous and unforgiving. Translator Derek Zumbro has rendered Bidermann's memoir into a compelling narrative that retains the author's powerful style. This English-language edition of Bidermann's story is based upon a privately published memoir entitled Krim-Kurland Mit Der 132 Infanterie Division . Zumbro has also added important events derived from numerous interviews with Bidermann to provide additional context for American readers.