Gods of War: A Memoir of a German Soldier

by Hans Werner Woltersdorf

Book Overview

. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0891414029
• ISBN13: 9780891414025
• Release Date: January 1990
• Publisher: Presidio Press
• Length: 227 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Absorbing Account of one Soldier's Experiences in Das Reich

This book is a fascinating rare account by a 2nd Lt. in the notorious Waffen-SS Das Reich Division, Der Fuerher Regiment. He tells his story by going back and forth between his meeting up with an old girlfriend in France, whom he met while training a company of SS soldiers, late in the war, and who bore his child, and the things she helps him remember about the war, both when he was with her, as well as before and after. The story is not hard to follow. In fact, it is very well told and extremely well written. The author has a keen sense of humor that is almost biting at times as he reflects on the circumstances he was in and the often nonsensical actions of others. About a third of the book consists of the author recounting his time in France, another third is spent reminiscing about his other experiences in the war, and the rest is about his immediate post-war experiences as he outfoxed time and again the British and others who were arresting all former Waffen-SS members as war criminals. (He repeatedly evaded arrest and, even when arrested, repeatedly evaded detection despite his having the Waffen-SS blood tattoo.) The author was a member of the Waffen-SS, and the elite Das Reich division, from the outset of the war, but claims to have known nothing of the mass killings of Jews or the Commissar Order and that the alleged wrongdoings by the Waffen-SS at Malmedy or Oradour were not in fact true. His explanations for his lack of knowledge about the killings of Jews and the Commissar Order are somewhat suspect. But his explanations about how certain massacres occurred (e.g., a hospital bombing blamed by the Soviets on Das Reich when in fact it was the Soviets themselves who had done the bombing) are intriguing even if, as the author laments, the self-interest of too many other people was, and is, at stake to allow the truth to be heard. In any event, many readers who lack an open mind may find the author's explanations repellant. Another weakness of the book is a lack of detail about the author's training and his experiences in the early years of the war. Nonetheless, this book is well worth reading as it presents a rare, and often unabashed, insight into this era by one who actually experienced it firsthand.