Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front
by Gunter K Koschorrek
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Book Summary Information
Author: Gunter K KoschorrekEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); German (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-02-19
ISBN: 1853675083
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Greenhill Books
Book Reviews of Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front
Book Review: A Great Account that needed a great editor
Summary: 4 Stars
Thank you, to Gunter Koschorrek and to any former Wehrmacht soldier with the fortitude to get their war-time experiences published.
You'll find it hard to get to sleep, after you pick up this book! To have your gun crew assistant shot in the head by a Soviet sniper -- TWICE in the same foxhole!! -- must make a strong impression on any reader who has ever served in uniform!
"Landser" and heavy machine-gunner Koschorrek had his diary captured by the Soviets, but was able to "smuggle" notes -- against orders at the time -- in his jacket lining to his relatives when on home leave. In a true-life amazing story, Koschorrek then received the notes back from his daughter in America almost forty years after the war!
While the frontline soldier's eyeview is riveting, it is overly limited as a WWII memoir, and this book could easily be turned into a great one by a talented editor. (I do hope Herr Koschorrek continues to expand the work in a second edition. The book definitely needs an "Epilogue" giving what must be the fascinating details of the author's survival in post-war Germany.)
In such excellent related books as __SOLDAT__ and __IN DEADLY COMBAT__, the reader gets the author's view, reaction, and details of some of the great personalities and major news of the day. Such things as the D-Day invasion are not mentioned in __BLOOD RED SNOW__, and it would be fascinating to read exactly what news these soldiers received on the eastern front and what their reaction to it was. Did they hear any of the propaganda broadcasts from captive German officers after Stalingrad? Did the stuka pilots overhead include Rudel or had he heard the name, in the trenches? Did anybody talk about North Africa or Rommel? What happened to the "Russian volunteers" in his unit? I could ask the author a million questions, and some talented editor should have and then rounded out this book with more "bigger picture" perceptions from the author's war-time experiences and memories. While it is a measure of a fantastic memory to relate that the coffee had been reheated, and was "thin and flat" in the hospital at the end of the war, surely the author also had impressions of other major events in Germany in those last few fateful years.
Mechanically, this Greenhill/Stackpole edition is below today's proofreading standards, which is surprising. It's littered with typographical errors such as the one on page 270: "through my sigh [sic], I spot..." The book needs an American English edition. While the translation seems to be of above-average quality, the British English spelling and idiom -- "that bloke over there" -- will be a distraction for many readers.
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