D Day Through German Eyes 2

The first book of ‘D DAY – Through German Eyes’ fascinated readers around the world with its insight into the German experience of June 6th 1944. Now, Book Two contains a completely different set of astonishing German testimonies from the same archive.

These newly translated eyewitness statements by German veterans show the defenders to be determined but psychologically insecure, often deluded in their thinking and all too human in their shock at the onslaught which they faced.

These unique interviews with German soldiers are a historical treasure trove of new insights, heart-stopping combat stories and glimpses of wartime psychology which will absorb anyone with an interest in WW2.

“I am astonished by the immediacy of these new translations from the archive, and I believe that readers will find these accounts, if anything, even more compelling than the first book.

These statements reveal the ambiguous relationships which the German soldiers had with French civilians, especially women, and the way these relationships were destroyed on D Day itself. There are accounts from a Luftwaffe pilot who was one of the first to witness the Allied armada from the air, and stories from foot soldiers, military police and panzer crews who fought desperately to hold back the beach landings and airborne assaults.

The disturbing motivations of the German troops – political, personal and even religious – are presented with an honesty which sheds a radical new light on why the Germans fought so bitterly, so viciously, to keep control of what they perceived to be 'their' precious France.”

– Holger Eckhertz, archive holder.

**

From the Author

'D Day Through German Eyes' presents the transcripts of interviews which my grandfather carried out with German veterans in 1954, on the tenth anniversary of D Day. These were German soldiers, engineers and Luftwaffe men who had experienced the opening hours of the Normandy beach landings, and were able to recall those cataclysmic events in detail.

My grandfather had been a German propaganda journalistin 1944, and had visited the Atlantic Wall under construction. He was also a veteran of the German Army in World War One, and so his background enabled him to build a strong rapport with the interviewees, many of whom had not spoken of their experiences even with their own families.

The result is a series of interviews which reveal not only the desperate reactions of German soldiers to the Allied onslaught, but also the surprising mix of motivations which drove them.