We Will Not Go to Tuapse, Fernand Kaisergruber
We Will Not Go to Tuapse, Fernand Kaisergruber
1 Rating(s)
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We Will Not Go to Tuapse
From the Donets to the Oder with the Legion Wallonie and 5th SS Volunteer Assault Brigade ‘Wallonien’ 1942-45

Author: Fernand Kaisergruber

Narrator: Paul Woodson

Unabridged: 18 hr 41 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 03/20/2018


Synopsis

Until recent years, very little was known of the tens of thousands of foreign nationals from Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, and Spain who served voluntarily in the military formations of the German Army and the German Waffen-SS. In Kaisergruber's book, the listener discovers important issues of collaboration, the apparent contributions of the volunteers to the German war effort, their varied experiences, their motives, the attitude of the German High Command and bureaucracy, and the reaction to these in the occupied countries. The combat experiences of the Walloons echoed those of the very best volunteer units of the Waffen-SS, although they shared equally in the collapse of the Third Reich in May, 1945.

Although unapologetic for his service, Kaisergruber makes no special claims for the German cause and writes not from any postwar apologia and dogma, but instead from his firsthand observations as a young man experiencing war for the first time, extending far beyond what had been imaginable at the time. His observations of fellow soldiers, commanders, Russian civilians, and the battlefields prove poignant and telling.

About Fernand Kaisergruber

After the war Fernand Kaisergruber raised a family and worked as a sales representative and insurance inspector. He became secretary and archivist of the Walloon volunteers veteran's league. He has participated and given interviews in documentaries on film and television, and assisted researchers and scholars for several decades in their work. Numerous scholars have read and endorsed the French edition of his war experiences as authentic and revealing with unique insights into the campaigning and military experiences of foreign volunteers in the German forces during the Second World War.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Eva on April 18, 2020

I still can't believe how stupid it was of me to think this was a book about Belgian resistance fighters and their experiences on different European fronts (needless to say, I haven't bothered to check the fine print on both audiobook's cover and its title). As a result of that, I ended up with almo......more

Goodreads review by Irene F Mackay on August 06, 2018

Another side of war Many books with war as a background focus on the fighting, the killing, the despair. This book was refreshing, written by someone who somehow survived some indescribable times. The book opened another side to war, especially WWII. Who washed the soldiers clothes? Where did they ge......more

Goodreads review by Larmie Fahrendorff on May 31, 2021

An excellent documentary of commitment: of survival of body and spirit. I found this book to be an outstanding "diary" of an everyday infantryman, an insightful and informative log of a soldier's daily experience in Germany's eastern campaign. His descriptions of his endless march through Ukraine and......more

Goodreads review by Jose wilhelms Ventura on December 12, 2022

I quite liked the book. It's an autobiography written in a slightly different way than many others I've read. Less descriptions of locations and battles and more descriptions of their emotions before, during and after the War. The final part, where he talks about his arrest, is something very little......more

Goodreads review by Andrew on May 16, 2021

No content bc he doesn't want to bore us w details......more