One soldier's story in pictures

[Eddie]

Fantastic piece of history, and artfully curated to boot!
Thank you for sharing your family with us HP!
Best,
Eddie

[Franz1944]

Very good thread HPL, I enjoyed your telling a lot.

[Woolgar]

I cant believe I missed this thread either! I am glad it has been revived !

Very enjoyable

Nick

[Glenn66]

A wonderful visit through history, glad your Grandfather survived the war. It seems he was wounded halfway through the operation Bagration offensive so in many ways, losing his leg was probably lucky for him as we all know what casualties the Soviet summer offensive of 1944 caused and what the chances of survivial were for those facing them.

Thanks for sharing!

[greimers]

To an extent this upsets me when I see great men, literally 80% of my German family were killed in action. I don't know if this indicates they were bad soldiers, unlucky or the odds they faced were indefencible. Regardless , thank you for showing the human aspect of a very brave German.

[HPL2008]

Did he survive long after the war? William

Could you please go into detail as to what he did after the war?

He led a normal life, working in a low-level administrative job with the Police until his retirement. He died of cancer in the early nineties.

Do you have anything that he was issued during his service?

I have photographs and other paper items. You might also like this: https://www.warrelics.eu/forum/art-d...venance-59099/

Fascinating story and a tough man-how many could take a hit from a Russian Tank and still go home?

You know, out of the many war stories he told me when I was a boy, I still remember his account of that incident best.

He recalled running, then, all of a sudden, finding himself face down in the dirt. So, he tried to get back on his feet and tried again, but for same reason, this just wouldn't work. The reason being, of course, that he had just lost a leg.
Because of the sheer lightning-quick suddenness of the event and the instant massive shock, he simply had not realized what had actually happened to him; it was only when he heard somebody shouting "Den Feldwebel hat's erwischt!" [Roughly "The Sarge is down!"] and calls for a medic that he began to grasp it.

After that, his perception quickly deteriorated into flashes of impressions while drifting in and out of consciousness, like a torniquet being applied or a bumpy ride on a medical vehicle, before he fully came to again in a field hospital.

[AmericanKraut]

Wow great thread, and well put together thanks for sharing Andreas, im glad I found this your grandfather was a true soldier

[geelong]

how very lucky you are to know your grandpars story. and to have met him in the later years. what a journey he went threw in the 30s and 40s. and he still served his country after the war too.

[Scout]

Very interesting and quite a departure from pics surfacing with no story attached.
They are still interesting but lack the 'human' angle.
Thank you for taking the time to post and for sharing this bit of personal family story.

[sandgroper]

This is a really fascinating thread, thanks for sharing your family history with us all, that's what keeps history alive.