An enjoyable read. This quote summarised a lot of what this book meant to me: "Lying propaganda – and in general it always is – stirs people to hatred and is the basis for much cruelty in war".

Every government practices propaganda, and often it is politicians that misrepresent a situation to get the population conscripted into a war. This book represents what an ordinary German experienced fighting on the front lines. He is not making any excuses for Nazi atrocities at all, but what we do see is that the Russians were pretty cruel, and supposedly the US stood aside allowing some things to happen. The treatment of the ordinary German soldiers after the war does not exactly paint a rosy picture of the conquerors.

All wars have their heroes, just as they also have their villains. Populations only get told what they "need to hear" by their governments. I've read many fictional stories about WWII, and of course we hear about the lives of great generals and Prime Ministers, but this was a fascinating insight into an ordinary soldier's war. There was nothing boring about it at all.