German World War 2 Biographies and Memoirs. Books recounting the first-hand experiences of combatants in WW2. Read the war memoirs of famous generala, the war diary of soldiers and their frontline accounts of their actions in WWll

Memoirs & Biographies

Sort by:          Product     Price      Default     see details An Artilleryman in Stalingrad Wigand Wuster: Leaping Horseman Books The latest book from the publishers of “An Infantryman in Stalingrad” and “Death of the Leaping Horseman: 24. Panzer-Division in Stalingrad”. In August 1942, Wigand Wüster was a veteran 22-year-old officer leading an artillery battery in Artillerie-Regiment 171 (71. Inf.-Div.) as it approached Stalingrad. The preceding months had been marked by heat, dust, endless marches, and brief skirmishes with the enemy – but mostly by an ongoing battle with his bullying battalion commander. In this brutally honest account, Wüster provides a glimpse of the war on the Eastern Front rarely seen before. With frankness, humour and perception, Wüster takes us from the heady days of the German 1942 summer offensive to the icy hell of Stalingrad’s final hours, and finally into captivity. 264pp. 160 photos, 3 maps, Signed and numbered copies Price: £37.95 Quantity   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50  Add to cart  see details AN INFANTRYMAN IN STALINGRAD Another superb book from the publishers of “Death of a Leaping Horseman”. Adelbert Holl was a 23-year-old infantry Leutnant when he rejoined his unit in Stalingrad after recovering from a severe wound he suffered in April 1942. The infantry bore the most laborious and difficult role during the battle. They almost stood eye to eye with the enemy during the tough city-fighting in central Stalingrad. This is a very impressive account written by a front-line soldier. Adelbert Holl was awarded many medals including the wound badge in Gold. This is one of the best eyewitness accounts by a German soldier of the fighting in Stalingrad. Includes a good selection of maps and Orders of Battle for the 16. Panzer Division. 250pp. 25 ohotos. 24 maps. Plus 19 aerial photos & documents. Price: £32.95 Quantity   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50  Add to cart  see details At Leningrad’s Gates: The Combat memoirs of a Soldier With Army Group North Captain William Lubbeck with Daivid B. Hurt This is the remarkable story of a German soldier who fought throughout World War II, rising from conscript private to captain of a heavy weapons company on the Eastern Front. As a member of the 58th Infantry Division. Lubbeck’s unit entered the outskirts of Leningrad, making the deepest penetration of any German formation, the unit suffered brutal hardships the following winter as they fought both Russian counterattacks and the brutal cold. A soldier who preferred to be close to the action, Lubbeck served as forward observer for his company, dueling with Russian snipers, partisans and full-scale assaults alike. In September 1943, Lubbeck earned the Iron Cross First Class and was assigned to officers’ training school in Dresden. By the time he returned to Russia, Army Group North was in full-scale retreat. Now commanding his former heavy weapons company, Lubbeck alternated sharp counterattacks. In April 1945 Lubbeck was able to evacuate on a newly minted German destroyer. He recounts how the ship arrived in the British zone off Denmark with all guns blazing against pursuing Russians. A fascinating glimpse into the reality of combat on the Eastern Front. 264pp. 16pp photos Price: £19.99 Quantity   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50  Add to cart  see details AT THE HEART OF THE REICH The Secret Diary of Hitler’s Army Adjutant Major Gerhard Engel Major Gerhard Engel The first English edition of the army aide at Hitler’s side from 1938 to 1943. Engel discloses the decision-making processes behind crucial military actions. He also addresses the intrigue within Hitler’s inner circle, and recounts Hitler’s conversations with Halder, Guderian and Brauchitsch. This secret diary reveals the mechanisms and personalities at the epicentre of the Third Reich, and provides a fresh perspective of the Nazi leadership. 192pp Price: £19.99 Quantity   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50  Add to cart  see details BAYERLEIN FROM AFRIKAKORPS TO PANZER LEHR The Life of Rommel’s Chief-of-Staff Generallieutnant Fritz Bayerlein P.A. Spayd This book is the first and only comprehensive biography of the life of General-leutnant Fritz Bayerlein. Erwin Rommel’s former Chief-of-Staff and commander of the elite Panzer Lehr Division during World War II. His experiences with Guderian in the invasion of Poland, France and Russia, along with North Africa, Hungary, Normandy and the Ruhr cover six years of intense war. During the Russian winter of 1943-1944, Bayerlein commanded the famous Berlin-Brandenburg 3rd Panzer Division. Officers and soldiers describe his battle experiences and provide valuable insight into the character and personality of this highly unusual panzer general. In addition, Spayd has edited many of the military manuscripts, articles and correspondence Bayerlein wrote which serve as the backbone of many of the chapters. The author also had the cooperation and help of Beayerlein's nephew. This is the first in a multi-volume work planned on Bayerlein and is packed with photos, most previously unpublished. 288pp. over 340 b/w & colour photos. 20 maps. LARGE FORMAT Price: £49.95 Quantity   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50  Add to cart  see details BLACK EDELWEISS A Memoir of Combat By A Soldiers Of The Waffen-SS J.Voss A compelling and unique memoir of service with the SS Mountain Infantry Regiment “Reinhard Heydrich”, part of 6th Mountain Division “Nord”. The author describes his participation in the little known war fought in the Far North of the Eastern Front, in Karelia and Finland. Additionally he recalls his service againts the US forces in the Vosges mountains, and in the Saar-Moselle Triangle in 1945. 240pp. 6 maps some photos. Card covers. Price: £21.95 Quantity   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50  Add to cart  see details BLOOD RED SNOW The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front Gunter K. Koschorrek Dramatic memoirs of a machine-gunner on the Russian Front. This harrowing book takes the reader to the front line and paints a very human picture of what life was like under relentless Russian attacks in freezing conditions. Includes a brutal and detailed account of fighting in Stalingrad. 288pp. photos Price: £24.95 Quantity   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50  Add to cart  see details DAEDALUS RETURNED Baron Von der Heydte One of the few memoirs ever written by a former German paratrooper. The Baron was in command of a battalion of paratroopers in Crete, being dropped at zero hour near Canea and seven days later received the surrender of the town. This book is the full exciting account of preparation, landing and seven days of terrifying battle. This is an excellent read and the Baron has a flair with the pen. Captured in 1945 in the Ardennes the Baron was bitterly attacked for his anti-Hitler sentiments as a P.O.W. 186 pages 11 photos Price: £27.95 Quantity   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50  Add to cart  see details DOCTOR AT STALINGRAD by Hans Dibold Limited reprint edition of the extremely scarce memoir. Dibold relates his experiences in Stalingrad during the battle, and the utter helplessness he felt as the casualties were so high and in conditions so appaling with little or no medical supplies. 196pp\r\n\r\n Price: £27.95 Quantity   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50  Add to cart  see details Field Marshal Von Manstein, A Portrait, The Janushead Marcel Stein A complete account of all phases of Manstein's career is given in one chapter, seven more chapters deal extensively with milestones in Manstein's career: his successful plan for the battle of France which led to the defeat of the French Army in less than one month, his dereliction of duty during the battle for Stalingrad, his hubris which led to the disaster of the battle for Kursk, his refusal to take part in the military resistance movement, his compliance with the Commissar order and his involvement in the Holocaust. The author has widened the subject well beyond the personality of its central figure. It shows how the Nazi system, step by step, succeeded in perverting the centuries-old traditions of the Prussian and German officer corps. Thus, an additional number of German generals are treated in detail to illustrate how moral decrepitude progressively penetrated the highest levels of the armed forces. 464pp Price: £29.95 Quantity   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50  Add to cart  see details FIVE YEARS & FOUR FRONTS The late Georg Crossjohann enlisted in the Reichswehr in 1928 as a soldier. His World War Two service began as an NCO officer aspirant in the Polish Campaign, and ended as a regimental commander. In between, he earned numerous decorations, including the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. This excellent book covers various "sideshow" battles and campaigns of WWII in Europe, and exposes the reader to a German Army that many readers will be surprised to find existed. 204pp. 28 original maps & 30 photos & documents from the authors collection. hardback edition Price: £27.95 Quantity   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50  Add to cart  see details FOR GERMANY THE OTTO SKORZENY MEMOIRS. Bender publication edited by Craig W.H. Luther, Ph.D. & Hugh Page Taylor Before Skorzeny died he personally entrusted Bender Publishing with the formidable task of producing the most detailed, up-dated and best\r\nillustrated version of his incredible life story. After painstaking research into the text and a hunt for unpublished illustrations, the ultimate story of Scarface Skorzeny, the most\r\ndangerous man in Europe and Hitler's commando extraordinary is the most complete book to be published. This is likely to be the last word on this larger than life personality, one of the great characters of World War II. 528pp. 248 photos Price: £37.95 Quantity   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50  Add to cart  see details GENERAL FELIX STEINER W. Schutz Excellent biography of this key Waffen SS general which is well illustrated with some great photos. 184pp. 200 photos. German text. LARGE FORMAT. Price: £49.95 Quantity   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50  Add to cart  see details GENERALFIELDMARSCHALL VON BOCK THE WAR DIARY 1939-1945 The von Block memoirs allows the reader to see the entire drama of the WWII through the eyes of one of Germany’s important military commanders. 640pp. 62 photos Price: £34.95 Quantity   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50  Add to cart  see details Hitler’s Commander Field Marshal Walther Model, Hitler’s Favorite General Steven Newton Unlike many of his contemporaries—Rommel, Guderian, von Rundstedt—who have been rescued from the anonymity of defeat, Model (1891–1945) has "languished in relative obscurity." Historian Newton (Panzer Operations), hopes to remedy that in this first English-language biography of the general dubbed the "Führer's Fireman" and "the Lion of the Defense." Newton follows Model's career from his heroic service as a young lieutenant on the Western Front in WWI through his meteoric rise to the command of an army group during WWII. Newton aims not only to rescue Model from obscurity but to rehabilitate his frayed reputation as a "Hitler sycophant" and war criminal. (It didn't help that Model's "abrasive personality" made him few friends or admirers.) Drawing on his extensive research in German and American archives, German war diaries and memoirs, Newton presents a picture of a "tactical genius" who was "pro-Hitler" but not blindly so. Facing certain defeat in April 1945, Model destroyed his papers and committed suicide, making the task of any future biographer difficult. In the absence of personal papers, Newton manages to reconstruct Model the commander 432pp Price: £24.95 Quantity   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50  Add to cart  see details HOT MOTORS COLD FEET Helmut Günther Personal recollections of the author’s service with a motorcycle battalion of the SS-Division “Reich” during the early days of the Russian campaign. A revealing look at what it was really like to serve in the original SS division during 1940/41. His story is a rivetting account , as he and his comrades manhandle their 600cc BMW and NSU motorcycles through some of the roughest terrain and toughest combat imaginable. Many of the officers the author served with, such as Klingenberger and Tychsen, later became well-known SS commananders. 267pp. 100 photos Price: £32.50 Quantity   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50  Add to cart  see details Joachim Peiper A New Biography of Himmler's SS Commander Jens Westemeier In this new historical investigation, the author portrays the rise and fall of Joachim Peiper, and demolishes persistent myths of a Nazi icon. Using primary sources and personal interviews, a compelling image of the SS colonel emerges. The result is a highly readable and scholarly account with complete picture of Joachim Peiper. Now, a previously little understood Waffen-SS icon comes to life in a book that is at once an important contribution for the understanding of World War II history, as well as the place of the Waffen-SS in Hitler's Third Reich. 240pp. over 160 photos. Large format Price: £49.95 Quantity   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50  Add to cart  see details KESSELRING German Master Strategist of the Second World War K. Macksey Excellent biography of one of Germany’s finest panzer generals and a leading exponent of blitzkrieg in the East. The author sets Kesselring’s actions firmly within the context of Germany’s wartime strategy. 264pp. 23 photos. 9 maps. Card covers Price: £12.95 Quantity   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50  Add to cart  see details OTTO SKORZENY MY COMMANDO OPERATIONS The unbridged memoirs of the legendary Skorzeny. Includes his successful raid to free Mussolini which is explained in minute detail plus his other operations in Europe and Russia. 496pp. photos Price: £29.95 Quantity   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50  Add to cart  see details Panzer Gunner: In Action With 25th Panzer Regiment, 7th Panzer Division 1944/45 Bruno Friesen There are few memoirs available of German Panzer crews that focus on the climactic last 12 months of the war on the Eastern Front, 1944-45. The bulk of the book is a detailed account of the author's training, and his subsequent service with 25th Panzer Regiment, part of 7th Panzer Division. As the title suggests, Bruno Friesen served as a gunner aboard, initially, Panzer IVs, before crewing the lesser-known Jagdpanzer IV tank hunter. The author provides a fantastic amount of information about these two vehicles, and how the crews actually fought in battle with them. This kind of 'hands-on' detail has almost never been available before, particularly such extensive information concerning the characteristics and combat performance of the Jagdpanzer IV. If one wants to know how German tank crews fought the Soviets in the last year of the war, then this book provides an outstanding account, containing material simply not found elsewhere. 264pp. c 50 photos, ills, maps Price: £24.95 Quantity   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50  Add to cart  see details Penalty Strike The memoirs of a Red Army Penal Company Commander 1943/45 Alexander V. Pyl'cyn The focus of this book are the author’s vivid memories of service as a company commander in a Red Army officers penal battalion on the Eastern Front. 240pp. 20 photos. Due end August Price: £25.00 Quantity   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38