Best of
German-Literature

2015

Ardennes Sniper


David Healey - 2015
    As German forces launch a massive surprise attack through the frozen Ardennes Forest, two snipers find themselves aiming for a rematch. Caje Cole is a backwoods hunter from the Appalachian Mountains of the American South, while Kurt Von Stenger is the deadly German “Ghost Sniper.” Having been in each other’s crosshairs before, they fight a final duel during Germany’s desperate attempt to turn the tide of war in what will come to be known as the Battle of the Bulge. Can the hunter defeat the marksman? Even in the midst of war, some battles are personal.

Liberating Belsen Concentration Camp


Leonard Berney - 2015
    T.D. is the only book to be published that recounts the events that led up to the British Army’s uncovering of the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp and its 60,000 prisoners, how the Army dealt with the unprecedented horror that existed in the camp, how the surviving prisoners were rescued, how the inmates were evacuated, how the Royal Army Medical Corps established the world’s largest hospital to care for the many thousands of sick and emaciated ex-inmates, how the survivors were rehabilitated and cared for, how they were repatriated to their own countries, why many thousand refused to return ‘home’ and the eventual establishment of the Belsen Displaced Persons camp, the largest DP camp in Germany. The author of this book was a senior British Army officer who participated in the liberation of the Camp, who was in charge of evacuating the ex-prisoners to the vast Rehabilitation Camp that the Army set up, and who was then appointed as the Commandant of that Camp until its management was handed over to the United Nations, and who gave evidence against the SS guards at the Belsen War Crimes Trial. Forewords by Nanette Blitz Konig, Belsen survivor and former classmate of Anne Frank, and Major-General Nicholas Eeles CBE, with the introduction by the Oscar®-nominated film director, Joshua Oppenheimer.

The Weight of Freedom


Nate Leipciger - 2015
    After the war. The words blended into the clang of the wheels. Would there ever be an end to the war?"Nate Leipciger, a thoughtful, shy eleven-year-old boy, is plunged into an incomprehensible web of ghettos, concentration and death camps during the German occupation of Poland. As he struggles to survive, he forges a new, unbreakable bond with his father and yearns for a free future. But when he is finally liberated, the weight of his pain will not ease, and his memories remain etched in tragedy. Introspective, complicated and raw, The Weight of Freedom is Nate's journey through a past that he can never leave behind.

Hans Sturm: A Soldier's Odyssey on the Eastern Front


Gordon Williamson - 2015
    However, few can match Hans Sturm in his astonishing rise from a mere private in an infantry regiment, thrown into the bloody maelstrom of the Eastern Front, to a highly decorated war hero. A young man who had displayed fearless heroism in combat, earning him some of Germany's highest military awards, Sturm hated bullies and injustice, and reacted in his normal pugnacious and outspoken manner when confronted with wrongdoing. From striking a member of the feared Sicherheitsdienst for his treatment of a Jewish woman, to refusing to wear a decoration he felt was tainted because of the treatment of enemy partisans, Sturm repeatedly stuck to his moral values no matter what the risk. Even with the war finally over, Sturm's travails would not end for another eight years as he languished in a number of Soviet labour camps until he was finally released in 1953. ** This electronic edition includes 60 black-and-white photographs **

Immigrant Soldier, The Story of a Ritchie Boy


K. Lang-Slattery - 2015
    On a cold November morning in 1938, Herman watches in horror as his cousin is arrested. As a Jew, he realizes it is past time to flee Germany, a decision that catapults him from one adventure to another, his life changed forever by the gathering storm of world events. Gradually, Herman evolves from a frustrated teenager, looking for a place to belong, into a confident U.S. Army Intelligence officer who struggles with hate and forgiveness. Immigrant Soldier tells a true story using the craft and style of a novel, totally drawing the reader into an extraordinary adventure.

Youth in Flames: A Teenager's Resistance and Her Fight for Survival in the Warsaw Ghetto


Aliza Vitis-Shomron - 2015
    In September 1939, when the Nazis began their reign of terror in Europe and invaded Poland, Aliza was eleven years old. In her diaries—furtively written on scraps of precious paper that she kept throughout the war—she described the history of her family, struggling to survive in the occupied Warsaw Ghetto. Those diaries and later writings formed the basis for this memoir. Becoming a member of Hashomer Hatzair, the noted youth movement in the Warsaw Ghetto, gave Aliza hope and encouraged her to fight for survival. As a result of an extraordinary series of “miracles,” Aliza managed to survive after being sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. She was among those liberated by American troops, and she has continued to tell the story throughout her life. Aliza is among the last of the Warsaw Ghetto survivors. She has been passionately lecturing around the world about the revolt, and she has escorted numerous youth groups on their visits to Poland. This book has been previously translated and published in Hungarian, Polish, and Hebrew.

Stolen Legacy: Nazi Theft and the Quest for Justice at Krausenstrasse 17/18, Berlin


Dina Gold - 2015
    The building at Krausenstrasse 17/18 in Berlin was seized by a German businessman with direct ties to the very top of the Nazi Party hierarchy and German Railways - the state-owned organization that participated in the logistics of sending millions of Jews across Europe to the death camps—and was the head of the Victoria Insurance Company, then and now one of Germany’s top insurance companies which, according to the book, played a role in insuring the Auschwitz death camp during World War Two.The book, written by the daughter of one of the original owners of the building, details the history of the Wolff family’s ownership of the building, its confiscation by the Nazis, and the family’s 50 year legal fight to reclaim ownership of the building, which was finally awarded to them in 2010. There has been no previous written account of a successful claim of a property seized by the Nazis in Germany. Former US Ambassador to the European Union, Stuart E. Eizenstat, has written the book’s foreword.

World War II: The Resistance


C. David North - 2015
    It was not until 1942 that widely dispersed underground organizations would band together to form a united opposition to the occupying Germans. It was not until then that resistance would become the Resistance - a disciplined multi-national movement that would play a significant part in the outcome of World War II. In each occupied nation, resistance groups would grow, gathering and sending information to London, planning increasingly complex sabotage operations, and assisting thousands of people, particularly Jews, in fleeing Nazi-occupied territories. Their actions would eventually become a focused counteroffensive against the German army in 1944, when Allied troops gathered in Great Britain to prepare for the invasion of France. As their widespread activity weakened German outposts in France and other occupied countries, the Allies would gain the foothold they needed to win the war. This is their story.

Napoleon and the Struggle for Germany: The Franco-Prussian War of 1813, Volume 1. The War of Liberation, Spring 1813


Michael V. Leggiere - 2015
    Michael Leggiere reveals how, in the spring of 1813, Prussia, the weakest of the Great Powers, led the struggle against Napoleon as a war of national liberation. Using German, French, British, Russian, Austrian and Swedish sources, he provides a panoramic history which covers the full sweep of the battle for Germany from the mobilization of the belligerents, strategy and operations to coalition warfare, diplomacy and civil-military relations. He shows how Russian war weariness conflicted with Prussian impetuosity, resulting in the crisis that almost ended the Sixth Coalition in early June. In a single campaign, Napoleon drove the Russo-Prussian army from the banks of the Saale to the banks of the Oder. The Russo-Prussian alliance was perilously close to imploding only to be saved at the eleventh-hour by an armistice.

Speak German Now! The Go-To Guide for Essential German Basics


Kevin Marx - 2015
    Thank you!Traveling to Germany? Curious about the German language? Want to learn the essential German basics in no time? Look no further! Speak German Now! is THE go-to guide for essential German basics, and contains everything necessary to get around Germany and have conversations with new friends! The content includes:Pronunciation: An easy and accurate guide to German pronunciation.Vocabulary: Over 500 of the most common German vocabulary words for common situations: family, hobbies, weather, the city, food. Grammar: Learn how to use nouns, verbs, adjectives, and prepositions with the simple, easy to understand explanations.Example Conversations: See how to use everything you've learned in an example conversation.Practice Exercises: Test your grammar knowledge with short quizzes.

Thought Flights


Robert Musil - 2015
    The texts presented here have been selected by translator Genese Grill from Musil's 'Nachlass' and collected for the first time under the title 'Thought Flights'. They include material originally published in journals, newspapers, and magazines--but not included in Musil's Posthumous Papers of a Living Author--as well as literary fragments and heretofore unpublished texts. Despite the temporal, geographical, and cultural distance between Musil's world and ours, our own time and troubles are all too recognizable in Musil's portrayals of the ' age of money,' of simulation, and of standardization. Thought Flights is a lament of contemporary complacency, optimism, and homogenization as well as a celebration of living words and original thought by one of the great Modernists if the 20th century.As an astonishing master of metaphor and self-described 'monsieur le vivisecteur', Musil explores the psyches and lives of himself and his contemporaries with illuminating insight. The lucid, striking prose of his stories and vignettes, and the wise and witty commentary of his glosses, show Musil's response to innovations in technology, art and politics, and his efforts to enact a strategy for both illuminating and ameliorating the crisis of language that haunted his contemporaries. Moving effortlessly from discussions of fashion to Kant's categorical imperative, 'le vivisecteur' writes with humor, lyricism, and fervor in an open genre availing itself of poetic prose, philosophical essay, fictional narrative, and feuilletonistic lightness. Through unlikely combinations and metaphoric syntheses, Musil brings " beauty and excitement" into the world, and when things that are usually separate unite, thoughts "fly". With this publication, the now growing English-language corpus of the author of 'The Confusions of Young Toerless', 'Five Women', and 'The Man without Qualities' is expanded further. Other volumes of Musil's writings will be forthcoming from Contra Mundum Press over the next decade.

Duel of Wits


Peter Churchill - 2015
    The SOE, similar to the American OSS (predecessor of the CIA) was formed to conduct espionage and sabotage in occupied Europe, and to aid local resistance movements. The book describes Churchill's training in England and his four missions into occupied France, including two harrowing night-time parachute drops and two submarine landings. Notable too is the underlying love story with Odette Sansom, another Allied agent (code-named Lise), who along with Churchill were captured, imprisoned, and tortured for two years until the war's end. Churchill's narrative ends with their capture by the Germans; his prison experiences are related in The Spirit in the Cage, published in 1954.

Mileva Marić Einstein: Life with Albert Einstein


Radmila Milentijević - 2015
    Numerous biographies that have dealt with Einstein have contributed little to a deeper understanding of Mileva Marić and her role in Albert Einstein’s life. This is the first in-depth study of Mileva Marić Einstein and her complex life-long relationship with Einstein. It attempts to explain why she failed to realize her potential in her own right. It offers new insights into Einstein’s private life and character, and brings to light Mileva’s role in Einstein’s personal and scientific development. This book is based on the correspondence between Mileva Marić and Albert Einstein. While Mileva Marić preserved most of Einstein’s letters to her, most of her letters to him have been lost or destroyed, along with evidence of her contributions to Einstein’s scientific achievements. Those letters that have survived resonate with a compelling voice. Consequently, the author has chosen to let Mileva Marić and Albert Einstein tell the story of their lives together in their own words as much as possible. It reveals a detailed dramatic picture of Einstein and Mileva, until now unknown to the world.Mileva Marić was the only woman to enter the Section of Mathematics and Physics at the elite Polytechnic in Zurich in 1896. She was a person of extraordinary intelligence and talent. However, when Mileva met Albert Einstein that year, her fate became bound to his life and ambition. Raised in a patriarchal Serbian family, she was willing to sacrifice her own academic career and even her visibility to the dream of achieving something greater, together. Mileva’s decision to put her exceptional talents in the service of Einstein’s career led to her invaluable contributions to his scientific achievements. Einstein wrote about her as an “equal” referring to “our new studies,” “our investigations,” “our views,” “our theory,” “our paper,” ”our work on relative motion.” He also relied heavily on Mileva for emotional support at a critical time in his life. “Without you I lack self-confidence, pleasure in work . . . without you my life is no life.” Before their marriage, she bore Einstein a daughter, whom she gave up for adoption to protect Einstein’s career, an act that cast a heavy shadow over the remainder of her life. Einstein married Mileva in defiance of strong opposition from his parents. She wasn't beautiful, she was older, she walked with a limp and she wasn't Jewish. “You are ruining your future and blocking your path through life . . . That woman cannot gain entrance to a decent family,” his mother wrote to him. Yet, Einstein was magnetically drawn to her independence, strength and formidable intellect during the most creative period of his entire life.As Einstein’s reputation and adulation surged so did his womanizing. Einstein’s conduct in ending their marriage was so brutal that it dismayed even their closest friends and came perilously close to destroying Mileva. Although Einstein resisted, the divorce decree awarded all future Nobel Prize money to Mileva as her property. This was poetic justice, for it represented a symbolic measure of recognition for her contributions to Einstein’s scientific achievements.Despite their bitter divorce, they shared concern for their two sons, and maintained a steady, if often troubled, relationship until Mileva’s death. Einstein sought the comfort of her company, stayed at her Zurich apartment numerous times, and tried to provide help in his own way when she needed it. While sometimes touchingly considerate, Einstein was vindictive and brutal when challenged or hurt.A true understanding of Einstein as both a man and a genius, is impossible without a detailed study of the woman who loved Einstein so deeply with an emotional and intellectual bond that bore a very rare fruit. It changed our view of the universe.

I Am a Victor: The Mordechai Ronen Story


Mordecai Ronen - 2015
    By the time he turned eleven years old, the world had gone mad. He became one of the millions of Jews to be shipped to a Nazi death camp. How he survived that ordeal and what followed is the incredible story told in these pages. That Mordechai is alive today is nothing short of a miracle. His is an incredible story of triumph and unwavering determination to survive, which is what he did against all odds in the Nazi death camps. The journey that began in the Holocaust carried Ronen through the establishment of Israel, immigration to Canada, and finally to an emotional return to Auschwitz, this time as a guest of Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, who called that moment one of the most extraordinary he had seen in his four decades in politics.

Hidden Inheritance: Family Secrets, Memory, and Faith


Heidi B. Neumark - 2015
    Late one night while her family slept, Neumark discovered her hidden Jewish heritage—and uncovered hundreds of questions: Did her grandfather really die in a concentration camp? How did she never know her grandmother was a death-camp survivor? Why had the family history and faith been rejected and hidden? Heidi’s search for the truth quickly became more than a personal journey; it also became spiritual. It caused profound ponderings on her thirty-year vocation as a Lutheran pastor. It was a shocking revelation that her Jewish roots and successive family loss and trauma now suddenly and inherently connected her to the multi-ethnic, marginalized community she had been ministering to for three decades. Hidden Inheritance takes the reader on a journey that seamlessly weaves personal narrative, social history, and biblical reflection to challenge readers to explore their own identity, vocation, and theology. Neumark boldly calls readers to explore the harsh places of the past, uncover the possible buried secrets, ask new questions, forge new understanding, and discover new hope for transformation that is only possible when what has been hidden is finally brought to light.

The Sweet Dell: The True Story of One Family's Fight to Save Jews in Nazi-Occupied Holland


Nicholas John Briejer - 2015
    Pieter Schoorl listened to the heavy iron doors of a basement cell in the Gestapo's Amsterdam headquarters close behind him.  It had been easy for him to hide the first Jew—a blonde-haired, blue-eyed three-year-old.  And had Dr. Schoorl and his wife Anne helped only the one child, this would be a far simpler story.  But the pleas for help never ended.  Dutch commandoes met at the Schoorls' kitchen table, and shot-down Allied pilots shared breakfast with their five children.  Jews continually arrived at the Schoorls' farm unannounced in the dark of night.  The couple eventually filled their two homes with “guests.”  When there was no room left, they searched the countryside for more hiding places.   Nearly seven decades later their American grandson, Nicholas Briejer, travels to Europe in search of the grandparents he did not know.  Through the memories of Piet and Anne’s elderly children, he discovers not only their secluded farm, but the qualities of the heart that drove the couple to—in the words of his grandfather—do “what any man should.”

In Their Own Words: Lasting Memories of the Holocaust Survivors


Anthony S. Pitch - 2015
    Who else will tell it?”Award-winning history author Anthony S. Pitch takes this plea to heart and presents survivors’ true accounts in his new work, In Their Own Words, to remind readers of the horrors that took place so they may never happen again.There are a wide variety of events and life circumstances among the over 400 compelling narratives. A GI who liberated Buchenwald said it was worse than a dream as he walked around like inmates “in a trance.” With their hair shaved off sisters standing side by side could not recognize each other. The tattooed number on a woman’s arm was thought by Texans, after the war, to be a reminder of a good time at a summer camp.In Their Own Words is directed at a new generation, too untutored to know much of anything about the Holocaust. It will surely add to the perspective of others who may regard the Holocaust as a remote and distant happening, too far removed from our modern age to have relevance.These are the words of those who knew. They lived it. They endured it. They saw it. And they survived it.

Writing the War: Chronicles of a World War II Correspondent


Anne Kiley - 2015
    The correspondence between Charles Kiley and Billee Gray also tells the poignant tale of two young people in love but forced apart by the circumstances of war. Edited by Charles and Billee's daughter, son, and son-in-law, this never-before-published compilation of letters is a striking example of the heroic, call-to-duty spirit that characterized "the greatest generation."Charles was a soldier-journalist for the U.S. Army's Stars and Stripes newspaper and reported on the war from London, Normandy, Paris, Reims, Belgium, and Germany. As the sole reporter allowed direct access to Eisenhower's staff, he was the only reporter on the scene when the German high command was negotiating its unconditional surrender on May 7, 1945. Among his army newspaper friends and colleagues was Andy Rooney, later CBS correspondent and 60 Minutes commentator. Billee, like many young women of her time, witnessed the war years from the home front and filled vital civilian roles--defense-industry plant worker, Red Cross volunteer, war bonds salesgirl, and civil defense plane-spotter--and wrote about it all in her letters to Charles. Peppered with fascinating details about soldiers' and civilians' lives, and including Stars and Stripes articles and personal photographs of the era, Writing the War is both important history and a tribute to two remarkable people as well as their extraordinary generation.

Fall Irmgard: Operation Irmgard


Rand Charles - 2015
    Addie is ordered to remain in Paris as a material witness to the murder, threat of war or no. The fragile balance of the occupation's first well-mannered year could careen into violent oppression if it turns out the French engineered Ritter's death. And nothing would benefit the SS more in their desire to wrest control of France from the army. Charged with uncovering the truth, Abwehr major Rolf von Gerz begins to tally the suspects: Was it the spiteful chanteuse at the Club l'Heure Blue? Or the club's crafty Alsatian manager, with well-known ties to the Paris underworld? Ritter's estranged business partner? Or could the recent murder of a French stockbroker somehow be connected? And most troubling of all: Can the beautiful young American be trusted? A riveting murder mystery, spy thriller, and love story, with uniquely colorful characters and a surprise ending, Fall Irmgard is a true page-turner that draws the reader into the high-brow, seductive world of 1940s Paris, a city on the cusp of unraveling. EDITOR'S CHOICE. HISTORICAL NOVEL SOCIETYHNS REVIEWFALL IRMGARD"An American woman, Addie Bridges, accidentally finds herself in the center of a tense power-struggle in Rand Charles’ gripping and tremendously effective debut novel Fall Irmgard.The year is 1941, and Addie Bridges is in Paris when she witnesses the murder of a popular German businessman, Konni Ritter. The authorities order her to remain in Paris, and Charles complicates things greatly by introducing the fascinating character of Abwehr major Rolf von Gerz and putting him in charge of investigating Ritter’s death.In classic whodunit fashion, it quickly turns out there are many equally possible suspects, many of them connected with Paris demimonde. Charles does an extremely skillful job of deploying one plot-twist and unforeseen revelation after another, all while filling out his book with atmospheric and well-researched details of life in Paris as it passed into the dark days of Nazi occupation. His characters are well-drawn, and his dramatic pacing maintains an absorbing momentum throughout.An extremely satisfying (and beautifully designed) book.Strongly Recommended"Steve Donaghue. US Editor Historical Novel Society"I love this story, the characters, the way the characters interact, the way the subplots intertwine, the author's sense of Paris and Germany at the time, and his overall commentary on the historical and political issues of the day. Fall Irmgard brings occupied Paris to life, and exposes the rich tapestry of people that lived there."

Schindler's Krakow


Andrew Rawson - 2015
    Hans Frank's General Government then subjected the Polish and Jews to four and a half years of terror.The story begins with the plundering of the city's treasures, the relocation of the people and the first arrests and executions. The Jews were soon confined to Podgorze Ghetto, where they were forced to work in factories such as Oskar Schindler's. The terror increased with deportations and the bloody liquidation of the ghetto as the Jews were moved into Amon G�th's Plaszow concentration camp. Selections and murders followed, while Schindler bribed and conned his way to save his workforce before moving them to his Sudetenland home town. The Polish underground also fought back through sabotage, assassinations and propaganda, until the Soviets captured Krakow.This is an essential guide to Krakow - a city of contrasts, with a medieval center and communist-era outskirts. Rawson details the relevant sights, including the Jewish Quarter, Wawel Castle, Podgorze Ghetto and Plaszow camp. He also explores the relevant museums, including the Schindler factory, the Gestapo headquarters and the Home Army Museum. The city is an ideal base for visiting nearby Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Shot Down: The Secret Diary of One POW's Long March to Freedom


Alex Kerr - 2015
    At first hospitalised with hopes of repatriation, he unexpectedly found himself a prisoner in a German POW camp. Throughout those trying four years he was held captive, Alex kept a secret diary. This book reproduces his diary entries in a fascinating account of all aspects of life in a wartime prison.He describes being part of the infamous ‘Long March’ during which he and his comrades were strafed by Allied aircraft; 60 POWs were killed and 100 wounded. Alex escaped the march with a mate, passing through the front lines betweenthe British and German forces to commandeer a German mayor’s car and drive back to Brussels to take the next aircraft to freedom.Alex’s charm and optimistic outlook will buoy the reader throughout, and the camaraderie between he and his captive comrades is always entertaining.This is an authentic World War II adventure — from being shot out of the sky, to incarceration and the ultimate triumph of escape and the end of the war.

Lwów - A City Lost: Memories of a cherished childhood


Eva Szybalski - 2015
    Disregarding all the mischief his brother thought up, Stanislaw Szybalski led a happy, sheltered upper-class childhood. That all ended on the day he went out to buy supplies for the new school year that was going to start the next day. It was on September 1, 1939 – the day Hitler bombed Lwów. Stanislaw is an amazingly factual boy with budding entrepreneurial talent. He allows us to see how his world turns with disarming honesty. His naive mishaps make us laugh, just as his pain touches us. His humorously dry assessments of whimsical, but all the more headstrong characters make us curious and we feel the unrelenting will and craftiness of an adolescent eager to take on his life – even if it wasn’t going the way his parents had planned. The Polish army defended Lwów for twenty days and nights. Its inhabitants sat in makeshift bomb shelters fearing Hitler’s impending invasion. What no one knew was that Hitler and Stalin had already secretly divided Poland. Stalin took his share and let his troops march into town as “Liberators”. For two years, the Soviets terrorized the population, and killed and deported thousands to gulags in Siberia and Kazakhstan. When Hitler declared Stalin was his enemy in 1941, the Soviets fled Lwów head over heels, but not without first murdering thousands of Ukrainians in their wake. The Nazis celebrated their arrival in Lwów, and then began murdering Jews, Poles and later even Italian officers. The moment Hitler’s Reich began to crumble after their defeat in Stalingrad, Poland’s underground Home Army mobilized, determined to regain Poland’s freedom and sovereignty. Stalin put an end to that by waging war against them and taking back “his” 40% of Eastern Poland, this time without its Polish population. The first time you hear a bomb, you’re in shock. The younger you are, the less you understand why this is happening. All you want is for things to return to normal again. In the midst of chaos, striving for normalcy becomes your most urgent need. This is the story of what became a very unusual childhood. Just like the millions of Poles expelled from their homeland, Stanislaw is forced to climb onto a horse-drawn carriage with his mother, grandmother and dog Czyki, and leave family, friends and his beloved hometown behind. Lwów or Leopolis – Lemberg – Lvov – L’viv Also known as the Paris of the East, Lwów was formerly the capital of the historical region of Galicia. It looks back at a long and interesting multi-ethnic history. For centuries, this cosmopolitan city attracted people as a place where various religions peacefully coexisted. Since 1945, the city has been Ukrainian. The spirit of this city lives on and has grown. Today, L’viv is not only one of the main cultural centers of Ukraine, but it is here where the spirit of the Orange Revolution blossomed. Here, not far away from the Polish border, the longing for freedom beats loudest.

Wehrmacht Priests: Catholicism and the Nazi War of Annihilation


Lauren Faulkner Rossi - 2015
    Men who had devoted their lives to God found themselves advancing the cause of an abhorrent regime. Lauren Faulkner Rossi draws on personal correspondence, official military reports, memoirs, and interviews to present a detailed picture of Catholic priests who served faithfully in the German armed forces in the Second World War. Most of them failed to see the bitter irony of their predicament.Wehrmacht Priests plumbs the moral justifications of men who were committed to their religious vocation as well as to the cause of German nationalism. In their wartime and postwar writings, these soldiers often stated frankly that they went to war willingly, because it was their spiritual duty to care for their countrymen in uniform. But while some priests became military chaplains, carrying out work consistent with their religious training, most served in medical roles or, in the case of seminarians, in general infantry. Their convictions about their duty only strengthened as Germany waged an increasingly desperate battle against the Soviet Union, which they believed was an existential threat to the Catholic Church and German civilization.Wehrmacht Priests unpacks the complex relationship between the Catholic Church and the Nazi regime, including the Church's fierce but futile attempts to preserve its independence under Hitler's dictatorship, its accommodations with the Nazis regarding spiritual care in the military, and the shortcomings of Catholic doctrine in the face of total war and genocide.