To Die in Spring
A Novel

An unembellished anti-war novel told from the German perspective. No clear heroes in this one. The text and dialogue are matter of fact, impassive and detached, which, for me, added some authenticity because there was nothing easy or poetic about the last days of WWII. It was difficult to fully conn......more

To Die in Spring by Ralf Rothman takes us to the end of WWII, the Allies are closing in on Germany from the West and the Russians from the East. Walter Urban and Fiete Caroli are two young lads, working on a diary farm in Northern Germany in 1945 and are recruited to the armed branch of the SS – the......more

Let me start this review with this: I cried on the train because of this novel. Towards the end of WWII, the Russians and the Americans were closing in and Germany were desperate. Boys, as young as 8 !!, were being forced into becoming soldiers and pushed to the front to fight for a country that were......more

(revised for readability in July 2024). A powerful novel about two ordinary German working class boys, who are apprentices on farms learning how to milk cows, and are drafted into the army in the last harrowing months of the war when Hitler's Nazi Gauleiters were determined that every possible male w......more

milliyetçi ve militaristlere döve döve okutulacak kitaplar listeme kafadan girdi. savaşın kaybedilmesi aşikar olduğu halde zorunlu gönüllü olarak askere alınan süt sağıcısı 17 yaşındaki walter’ın yaşadıkları, en yakın arkadaşının ölümüne şahit olması hatta öldürmesi gerekmesi... hayvanların, suçsuz i......more