Five Years, Four Fronts: A German Officer's World War II Combat Memoir

By Georg Grossjohann

Book Overview

After Hitler's invasions of Poland and France came the Russian Front-and that's when the real war started. An infantryman who rose from the enlisted ranks to regimental command in combat, Georg Grossjohann fought on four different fronts during World War II, but saw most of his fighting-from 1941 to 1944-against Russians in the Soviet Union and Romania. He provides shattering glimpses of the horror and chaos of the war, as well as profound insights into everyday life in the Wehrmacht. Five Years, Four Fronts chronicles the combat experiences of Grossjohann and his men as they triumphantly roll across Poland, France, and the sunny steppes of the Ukraine, only to ultimately sustain grinding defeats in the endless, freezing plains of the Soviet Union and the grim, dark Vosges Mountains of France. Grossjohann was a soldier's soldier, respected by his men, undaunted by his superiors, and, as can be observed in this raw, brutally honest account, not afraid to call the shots as he saw them.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345476107
• ISBN13: 9780345476104
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.39 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.3" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

Heartbreaker...

This one is an excellent book, with lots of nice and detailed stories, data, and more. It's hard to read and not become nostalgic, and sometimes envy, of those great men, all my respects for them, a beautiful story.

incredible insight behind 'enemy lines'

An incredible book that reveals the humanity of the 'enemy'.It makes the Germans humans, who also had feelings and fears just the same as their Allied counterparts.Traditionally, growing up in an Allied country one is tought that the Germans were all evil personified. This book gives insight to the fact that the German soldier was just an ordinary human being, being sent into battle to fight a politicians war.

Interesting book; disjointed presentation

An interesting and easy to read first person perspective from a former German officer. Grossjohann enlisted in the late 1920s and finished the war in 1945 as a major. It provides insight into what it was like to fight at the tactical level in Poland, the Russian Front, and the west. He fought against the Poles (limited action), the Russians (quite a bit), the Americans, and the French. Provides insight into the steadily decreasing capabilities of German units as the war progressed. Unfortunately the book is a bit disjointed as it jumps from experience to experience, with the odd sidebar thrown in. Fortunately there is an attempt to put Grossjohann's battles into the larger picture so the reader has some context.