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Victor's avatar

I’ve been utterly fascinated by WW2 since high school, and specifically the eastern front. Despite the millions and millions of casualties it’s amazing there aren’t more first hand accounts. I think it mostly has to do with Germans being shamed post 1945, and Stalin sending everyone honest on his side to the gulags. I have a few books I’ve compiled (unread so far) but if anyone has a list by all means post it here.

Edit: Here’s what I have:

Blood Red Snow - the memoirs of a German soldier on the Eastern Front

By Gunter Koschorrek

Soldat - Reflections of a German soldier, 1936-1949

Siegfried Knappe

Sniper on the Eastern Front: the Memoirs of Sepp Allerberger

Albrecht Wacker

Panzer Commander: the Memoirs of Colonel Hans von Luck

Through the Maelstrom: A Red Army Soldier’s War on the Eastern Front, 1942-1945

Boris Gobachevsky

I am amazed at the lack of material from the soviet side. After all, war is written by the victors.

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J. Otto Pohl's avatar

A limited bibliography of memoirs by ethnic German citizens of the USSR that survived deportation and special settlement.

Bachman, Berta, trans. Duin, Edgar, Memories of Kazakhstan: A Report on the Life Experience of a German Woman in Russia. Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1983.

Bender, Ida, trans. Laurel Anderson, Carl Anderson and William Wiest, The Dark Abyss of Exile: The Story of Survival. Fargo, ND: Germans from Russia Heritage Collection, North Dakota State University Libraries, 2000.

Daes, Nelly, ed., trans. Nancy Bernhardt Holland, Gone without a Trace: German-Russian Women in Exile. Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 2001.

Toews, John B., ed., Journeys: Mennonite Stories of Faith and Survival in Stalin's Russia. Winnipeg, MAN: Kindred Productions, 1998.

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Adam A's avatar

Bloodlands

Gulag Archipelago

Red Famine

Gulag

Iron Curtain

White Pill

The Anti Humans

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Victor's avatar

Excellent list but I was specifically referring to first hand accounts, so Gulag Archipelago yes but not Applebaum or Snyder for example.

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Vasili Blokhin's avatar

Solzhenitsyn in general is an excellent author, although he came into the war late.

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