Operation Bagration was one of the Red Army's most successful offensive operations during the Second World War. Germany's Army Group Center was devastated as Red Army forces created one encirclement after another and advanced as far as the gates of Warsaw from the beginning of the offensive on June 22 through late July, in many ways this advance matched Germany's initial invasion of the Soviet Union.
Claus Neuber, part of Army Group Center, was caught up in the Minsk encirclement and managed to escape. He initially made his way to the west with a group of soldiers until they were surrounded and taken prisoner. After escaping with a comrade, Neuber eventually made it to German lines and served out the rest of the war on the Western Front, where he was taken prisoner by US forces.
Those who expect a look at the military aspects of Operation Bagration from the German point of view will not find much here. The vast majority of these reminiscences discuss the author's travels behind enemy lines as he tries to find the new frontline, which continues to move forward as Soviet forces speed their way as far west as possible. In many ways this travelogue is reduced to a day-by-day account of how the author hid in the forest or, if lucky, barns, and asked for food from random farms/locals he encountered along the way. The fact that so many were able to help him impressed him but hardly made him rethink the reason he was located on the Eastern Front fighting a losing war. There is no introspection or discussion of the German war experience, the genocidal nature of the war on the Eastern Front, the abilities of the Red Army of 1944, which is making rather large strides and taking tens of thousands of prisoners, or a discussion of the German Army's complicity in the holocaust, etc. Rather, what we have here is a soldier caught in an encirclement trying to make his way to his comrades. The biggest value this volume has is showing what kind of obstacles stood in the way of those who tried to get back to their own frontlines in the wake of Operation Bagration, and how much help locals were able to offer random Wehrmacht soldiers, which raises additional questions, but that's about it.
Claus Neuber, part of Army Group Center, was caught up in the Minsk encirclement and managed to escape. He initially made his way to the west with a group of soldiers until they were surrounded and taken prisoner. After escaping with a comrade, Neuber eventually made it to German lines and served out the rest of the war on the Western Front, where he was taken prisoner by US forces.
Those who expect a look at the military aspects of Operation Bagration from the German point of view will not find much here. The vast majority of these reminiscences discuss the author's travels behind enemy lines as he tries to find the new frontline, which continues to move forward as Soviet forces speed their way as far west as possible. In many ways this travelogue is reduced to a day-by-day account of how the author hid in the forest or, if lucky, barns, and asked for food from random farms/locals he encountered along the way. The fact that so many were able to help him impressed him but hardly made him rethink the reason he was located on the Eastern Front fighting a losing war. There is no introspection or discussion of the German war experience, the genocidal nature of the war on the Eastern Front, the abilities of the Red Army of 1944, which is making rather large strides and taking tens of thousands of prisoners, or a discussion of the German Army's complicity in the holocaust, etc. Rather, what we have here is a soldier caught in an encirclement trying to make his way to his comrades. The biggest value this volume has is showing what kind of obstacles stood in the way of those who tried to get back to their own frontlines in the wake of Operation Bagration, and how much help locals were able to offer random Wehrmacht soldiers, which raises additional questions, but that's about it.