"Panzers on the Vistula: Retreat and Rout in East ---" Topic
3 Posts
All members in good standing are free to post here. Opinions expressed here are solely those of the posters, and have not been cleared with nor are they endorsed by The Miniatures Page.
Please don't call someone a Nazi unless they really are a Nazi.
For more information, see the TMP FAQ.
Back to the WWII Media Message Board
Areas of InterestWorld War Two on the Land World War Two at Sea World War Two in the Air
Featured Link
Top-Rated Ruleset
Featured Showcase ArticleMal Wright 's first experience with 1:4800 scale naval models.
Featured Workbench Article
|
Please sign in to your membership account, or, if you are not yet a member, please sign up for your free membership account.
Tango01 | 01 May 2019 9:48 p.m. PST |
--- East Prussia 1945 by Hans Schaufler "Hans Schaufler's "Panzers on the Vistula" offers readers a look at some of the retreats the 4th Panzer Division participated in during the final few months of the Second World War on the northern section of the Eastern Front – mainly through Latvia and East Prussia. Readers can experience the chaos of this final period of the war as German losses kept mounting as a result of repeated Soviet offensive operations and German counterattacks that aimed to restore some coherence to the front but all too often proved pointless. Schaufler's account hits many of the usual Cold War clichés about the Second World War, Eastern Front, Soviet Union, and Red Army that one would one expect from a former soldier who took part in the fighting on the Eastern Front and was regularly exposed to German propaganda. Interestingly, at the same time that the author is calling out German reports as presenting a "totally false analysis" about the fighting situation on the Eastern Front, he himself offers a skewed look at the struggle against the Red Army. Schaufler presents the German situation in January of 1945 as disastrous and doomed while claiming the only reason for the Wehrmacht to keep fighting "was to save the innocent victims of this senseless war from the vengeance of the Red Army…" Apparently, he's forgotten that Germany began this "senseless war." Even though the author realizes that German defensive actions are merely prolonging the inevitable, "even the dumbest long knew the war was long," and himself question what the correct course of action is, he nonetheless claims that the civilian population, fearing the Red Army, "all sought protection from the German troops." This idea of German troops continuing to put up resistance to help civilians flee from the Red Army to the west – along with the idea that to surrender would be perceived as cowardly by their comrades – is a constant theme that's repeated by the author and others from whose reminiscences and articles he quotes throughout the book. In some respects, it isn't surprising that soldiers came up with reasons to convince themselves that they needed to keep fighting rather than simply surrender to the Red Army. The excuse that they needed to buy time for civilians fleeing the Red Army presented their ultimate actions as those of soldiers protecting future victims rather than the last defenders of a regime that began a Second World War and a genocidal campaign against the Soviet Union…." Main page link Amicalement Armand
|
Marc the plastics fan | 02 May 2019 12:10 p.m. PST |
|
Tango01 | 03 May 2019 11:29 a.m. PST |
|
|