Frontsoldaten: The German Soldier in World War II

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This is not a book about war in the sense that such histories are usually understood; instead, it concerns the nature of men at war. Indeed, war serves as merely the backdrop against which human actions and emotions can be illuminated. As a consequence, I do not take a traditional “top-down” approach, relying on official documents and assessments of events, but rather approach history from the “bottom up,” from the perspective of the common fighting man. This approach, of course, has certain limitations, foremost among them the fact that the broad strategic sweep of traditional military history is absent. Nor is there any of the usual conjecture over matters of tactics, leadership, command decisions, or the relative merits of various weapons. Not only have those matters been dealt with elsewhere by other historians, but pursuing them here would negate the entire intent of everyday history. My purpose is to allow average German soldiers to speak, with a minimum of external interference; to hear their words and see the war through their eyes so as to get at the reality of the combat experience as lived by the men in the bunkers and foxholes. It is this sense of immediacy and drama, unfiltered and uncluttered by excessive analysis, that is at the heart of everyday history.

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