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Joined: Oct 2011
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grin Yes, there is that. It was the personal details of the soldiers I found interesting. It's the only book I've read by a person who claimed to be in the German army who mentioned soldiers killing themselves to escape the cold.

Late war German army rations had a very high fat content in an attempt to keep their soldiers from freezing to death. This was done after autopsies found zero fat levels in front line soldiers.

In Band of Brothers, one character tried to eat some German rations and felt they were uneatable because they were all fat.

In the book I also found it interesting how poorly the Germans had their transportation corps set up. They often had no idea where the troops were who were supposed to get the supplies. Also that other German units were liable to steal the rations they were transporting.

I've forgotten most of the details at this point in time but do remember it as an interesting read.

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I've read that book, by Guy Sajer. Long but a good read.

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It actually is a good book, I was being a bit facetious about the synopsis. And not to make light of the experiences of any soldier in any war, but it really brings home just how horrible the German soldiers had it on the Eastern front - relentless attacks by massive amounts of troops supported by thousands of pieces of artillery for the better part of 4 years straight. No rest or respite from it except when they were wounded or on short and very rare leaves.


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This thread needs to keep going.

One of my uncles was in the 103rd Infantry, fought in the Vosges, the Alsace and Austria - Siegfried Line, Operation North Wind, Lord knows what else. Undoubtedly dealt with PTSD for 50 years. Sometimes he'd tell us stories of what he went through. One of my favorites went something like this:

They were riding on tanks thru some woods, German horse-drawn anti-tank gun destroyed the first tank in line, the others turned off the road into the woods. All the infantry baled off the tanks and began searching the woods for the Nazis they knew would be there with Panzerfausts or Panzerschrecks to ambush the other tanks. At some point he spotted a hidden German and emptied his Garand, missing him each time. After the last round the German flipped his helmet off, put up his hands and surrendered. So did several others near him. My uncle's comment was they were looking for a chance to surrender and took that one.

P.S. Uncle said he checked his sights and he had set them for extreme range earlier and forgot to lower them - he'd shot over the German 8 times. I'm thinking the excitement of the moment might have contributed to the misses too, but I wouldn't have said that to him.


'Four legs good, two legs baaaad."
----------------------------------------------
"Jimmy, some of it's magic,
Some of it's tragic,
But I had a good life all the way."
(Jimmy Buffett)

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