Sniper on the Eastern Front, Albrecht Wacker
Sniper on the Eastern Front, Albrecht Wacker
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Sniper on the Eastern Front
The Memoirs of Sepp Allerberger, Knight’s Cross

Author: Albrecht Wacker

Narrator: Nigel Gair

Unabridged: 8 hr 9 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 02/01/2022


Synopsis

Josef “Sepp” Allerberger was the second most successful sniper of the German Wehrmacht and one of the few private soldiers to be honored with the award of the Knight’s Cross.
An Austrian conscript, after qualifying as a machine gunner he was drafted to the southern sector of the Russian Front in July 1942. Wounded at Voroshilovsk, he experimented with a Russian sniper-rifle while convalescing and so impressed his superiors with his proficiency that he was returned to the front on his regiment’s only sniper specialist.
In this sometimes harrowing memoir, Allerberger provides an excellent introduction to the commitment in field craft, discipline and routine required of the sniper, a man apart. There was no place for chivalry on the Russian Front. Away from the film cameras, no prisoner survived long after surrendering. Russian snipers had used the illegal explosive bullet since 1941, and Hitler eventually authorized its issue in 1944. The result was a battlefield of horror.
Allerberger was a cold-blooded killer, but few will find a place in their hearts for the soldiers of the Red Army against whom he fought.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Mike_p548 on April 21, 2010

Really enjoyed this book. Puts a human aspect to a Wehrmacht soldier rather than just the demon side we are all used to. What these young soldiers (axis and allies) contended with is unimaginable.......more

Goodreads review by Brett on November 30, 2024

"This was a principle [of Killing or Being Killed] to which I remained true throughout. If I had an enemy in the crosswires of my telescopic sight and a finger on the trigger, his fate was sealed. In youthful pride at my success I used a pocket-knife to make notches in the stock of my rifle, a trial......more

Goodreads review by Jerry on February 17, 2013

Being the memoirs of a German sniper on the Eastern Front, I was expecting a general history of the war with personal accounts interjected. I got so much more. This book is chilling in Wacker's account of his work as a sniper. He killed hundreds of Russians, mostly through a careful methodology he d......more

Goodreads review by Andrew on June 18, 2016

Some compelling battle narratives, but this book is seriously lacking on substance. It's also not a memoir, it's a story related to the author by the anonymous subject (Sepp Allerberger is a pseudonym). Not totally worthless, but I just could not shake a feeling questioning this book's authenticity.......more

Goodreads review by Gary on December 02, 2012

Memoir? History? The author opens up on his gruesome experiences with the speed of a fast food burger. My only feeling is that the war on the Eastern front was so ghastly, so vile that the death and torture experienced by all it consumed becomes more 'unbelievably fantastic' and mythological the fur......more