Gottlob bidermann biography of william hurt

Translated by Derek S. Series: Modern War Studies.

Gottlieb Biedermann was born circa Gottlieb married Dorothea Elisabeth Schneider on month day , at age

Gottlob Herbert Bidermann served in that lethal theater from to , and his memoir of those years recaptures the sights, sounds, and smells of the war as it vividly portrays an army marching on the road to ruin. A riveting and reflective account by one of the millions of anonymous soldiers who fought and died in that cruel terrain, In Deadly Combat conveys the brutality and horrors of the Eastern Front in detail never before available in English.

Wounded five times and awarded numerous decorations for valor, Bidermann saw action in the Crimea and siege of Sebastopol, participated in the vicious battles in the forests south of Leningrad, and ended the war in the Courland Pocket. He shares his impressions of countless Russian POWs seen at the outset of his service, of peasants struggling to survive the hostilities while caught between two ruthless antagonists, and of corpses littering the landscape.

He recalls a Christmas gift of gingerbread from home that overcame the stench of battle, an Easter celebrated with a basket of Russian hand grenades for eggs, and his miraculous survival of machine gun fire at close range.

Life and Death in Ukraine under Nazi RuleCambridge, MA Bidermann, Gottlob HerbertIn Deadly Combat.

In closing he relives the humiliation of surrender to an enemy whom the Germans had once derided and offers a sobering glimpse into life in the Soviet gulags. Despite the vast expanses of territory captured by the Germans during the early months of Operation Barbarossa, the war with Russia remained tenuous and unforgiving. His story commits that living hell to the annals of World War II and broadens our understanding of its most deadly combat zone.

The translator has added important events derived from numerous interviews with Bidermann to provide additional context for American readers. Gottlob Herbert Bidermann, who served in the nd Infantry Division, is retired from a career in the textile industry and currently resides in southern Germany. Derek S. Released for the first time in English, it offers battle descriptions of unprecedented detail.

It is a story worth making available to American readers. Preface Acknowledgments Introduction Map 1. The March Toward the East 2.