Führer, Folk and Fatherland

This is a true story — a rare, first-hand account of one soldier’s experiences during the Third Reich. It is also a love story, for amid the strife and devastation of war, Albin Gagel found the love of his life.
By 1943, it had been four long years since he had left his home in a small village in Bavaria to begin what was supposed to be only two years’ mandatory military service. Although a seasoned veteran of the Wehrmacht, nothing he had experienced during the Blitzkrieg across France, or even the siege of Leningrad, had prepared him for the horror and desperation that surrounded him during the Battle of Kursk, the biggest tank battle of World War II and the start of Nazi Germany’s slow retreat from the Eastern Front.
Now Albin was in the fight of his life. Any dreams he might have harboured about honour and glory had long since vanished. Political rhetoric meant nothing on the battlefield. Medals were just trinkets and would never equal the value of lives lost in their purchase. His world was reduced to the men in his company and the enemy that shadowed their every manoeuvre. Yet there was also Gisela—his hope, his dream, his future — if ever he could get out of Russia alive.
Captivating from start to finish, this account offers an uncommon insight into what most Germans really thought about Hitler and his regime — and it is not quite what the wartime newsreels portrayed.