- Author
- A. Stephan Hamilton
“Panzergrenadiers to the Front!“ is the first in-depth look at the enigmatic Panzergrenadier-Division Brandenburg formation and its five-month combat career along the Eastern Front at the end of the Second World War. This book draws on the previously unpublished personal accounts by more than a dozen division veterans, and is supplemented by extensive use of new primary documents and relevant secondary German, Polish, and Soviet source material. While this book represents the most thorough and accurate treatment of Panzergrenadier-Division Brandenburg published to-date, it also provides extensive coverage of Heeresgruppe Mitte and 4. Panzer-Armee operations. The new Panzergrenadier-Division Brandenburg was forged in December 1944 from the nucleus of burnt-out commando regiments and the remnants of a half-dozen conventional units supplied by the Ersatzheer. Panzergrenadier-Division Brandenburg entered the frontline a month later where it fought in some of the most dramatic and relatively unknown late war battles in Poland, Silesia, Saxony, and Czechoslovakia.
The desperate fighting at places like Kutno, Raudten, Primkenau, Niesky, Bautzen, Olmütz and elsewhere is told through the words of the men who fought there. Revealed for the first time is the role of Brandenburg in the last operational Wehrmacht victory of the war that destroyed the Soviet 7th Guards Mechanized Corps, defeated the 2nd Polish Army, and spared Dresden from immediate capture. The raw, emotional, accounts by Brandenburg veterans shed new light on to the day-to-day operations of the Wehrmacht during the war's chaotic final months. Readers will experience the routine of frontline life, the despair of defeat that caused some to attempt suicide, and the euphoria of survival, with corks popped on champagne bottles to celebrate another day alive. The uncertainty of unconditional surrender drove many in Brandenburg to continue to fight amidst the certainty of a war they knew. In the words of Major Kurt Steidl: “I found out on the radio in the morning that our Führer had died in Berlin. All of us knew what that meant for us. Should we surrender for that reason like miserable cowards after years of struggle against forces many times our size? No! And again no! Now more than ever, they shouldn't have it easy with us old hands. We would prove that.“
“Panzergrenadiers to the Front!“ is a compelling narrative of the often brutal combat of war's end. The accompanying paperback book Contains c 110 colour maps.
Well troops I must grass myself up .. I took all the above from Amazons blurb . I was defeated, there is so much information in these two books that a mere mortal like myself couldn't provide a decent Precis for you nor could I have given the book the description that it wholly deserves .
Panzergrenadiers to the front! or, all you wanted to know about the Brandenburg Division in Russia but were afraid to ask, is a new fresh approach to their history . The author has dug out previously unrecorded materiel from his exhaustive and extensive researches . Somehow he then had to sift ,sort and select the items to put into this encyclopedic story. This must have been a labour of love because it shows in the final book, no final two books who else had seen another book supplied to supplement a first? 450 pages of history then another 119 pages of campaign maps in full colour.If this is your subject or Interest group you will only ever require this one book on your shelf, oh I mean two books . Don't take it from me buy a copy from Amazon or where ever you will not be disappointed I promise you.
This book is what I call a keeper, it will stay on my bookshelf for me to dip in and out of for the rest of this year I am so pleased I got to review it .
Five Mushroom heads.
Amazon product
The desperate fighting at places like Kutno, Raudten, Primkenau, Niesky, Bautzen, Olmütz and elsewhere is told through the words of the men who fought there. Revealed for the first time is the role of Brandenburg in the last operational Wehrmacht victory of the war that destroyed the Soviet 7th Guards Mechanized Corps, defeated the 2nd Polish Army, and spared Dresden from immediate capture. The raw, emotional, accounts by Brandenburg veterans shed new light on to the day-to-day operations of the Wehrmacht during the war's chaotic final months. Readers will experience the routine of frontline life, the despair of defeat that caused some to attempt suicide, and the euphoria of survival, with corks popped on champagne bottles to celebrate another day alive. The uncertainty of unconditional surrender drove many in Brandenburg to continue to fight amidst the certainty of a war they knew. In the words of Major Kurt Steidl: “I found out on the radio in the morning that our Führer had died in Berlin. All of us knew what that meant for us. Should we surrender for that reason like miserable cowards after years of struggle against forces many times our size? No! And again no! Now more than ever, they shouldn't have it easy with us old hands. We would prove that.“
“Panzergrenadiers to the Front!“ is a compelling narrative of the often brutal combat of war's end. The accompanying paperback book Contains c 110 colour maps.
Well troops I must grass myself up .. I took all the above from Amazons blurb . I was defeated, there is so much information in these two books that a mere mortal like myself couldn't provide a decent Precis for you nor could I have given the book the description that it wholly deserves .
Panzergrenadiers to the front! or, all you wanted to know about the Brandenburg Division in Russia but were afraid to ask, is a new fresh approach to their history . The author has dug out previously unrecorded materiel from his exhaustive and extensive researches . Somehow he then had to sift ,sort and select the items to put into this encyclopedic story. This must have been a labour of love because it shows in the final book, no final two books who else had seen another book supplied to supplement a first? 450 pages of history then another 119 pages of campaign maps in full colour.If this is your subject or Interest group you will only ever require this one book on your shelf, oh I mean two books . Don't take it from me buy a copy from Amazon or where ever you will not be disappointed I promise you.
This book is what I call a keeper, it will stay on my bookshelf for me to dip in and out of for the rest of this year I am so pleased I got to review it .
Five Mushroom heads.
Amazon product
