Grenadiers: The Story of Waffen SS General Kurt "Panzer" Meyer (Stackpole Military History Series)
Kurt Meyer
Language: English
Pages: 432
ISBN: 0811731979
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
German General Kurt "Panzer" Meyer's autobiography is a fascinating insight into the mind of one of Germany's most highly decorated and successful soldiers of World War II. If you love small-unit actions, this is the book for you. Follow Meyer with the 1st SS-Panzer Division "Leibstandarte" and the 12th SS-Panzer Division "Hitlerjugend," from the first day of the war in Poland, through service in France, Russia, and Greece, up until his capture in Normandy in 1944 and his postwar trials and tribulations.
the hill in the light mist and took cover before the final assault. It would start in a few minutes. Wünsche and I smoked a last cigarette. A handshake—and the dance began! According to standard practice, the tanks advanced forward to the formerly tree-covered hill, firing their high-explosive rounds into the chaos. The enemv artillery tried to smash the assault with intense fire, but it failed and the hill fell into our hands once more. We soon reached the summit and cut off the withdrawal of
from a military point of view, the actions of the partisans did not have any influence on the German conduct of the war. The population that was not involved suffered the most harm as a result of the retaliations of German troops. It was not the advocates of partisan warfare, a violation of international law, who suffered. The hatred between the nations was stirred according to a plan. It was deepened for a long time through the criminal activities of the partisans. Nor can one deny that the
underpinned the work of his superiors with his clever questioning. The latter supposedly came from Vienna and, perhaps precisely because of that, was one of MacDonald’s most eager assistants. I knew from Meitzel that Major Stonborough had already condemned me to death and made his view public in the Canadian POW camps. My death had thus been decided before the first day of trial. When no doubts remained that I would be tried, I asked for permission to talk to Oberst von der Heydte and my old
the huge cornfields. The corn was as tall as a man and offered superb concealment and an outstanding means of approach. Company after company disappeared into the waving corn to spread out for the intended attack on Sasselje. I watched this development calmly because only a narrow patch of corn reached as far as the village. Apart from that, we had an open field of fire for at least 400 meters. Across such a distance any attack had to choke in its own blood. On the horizon enemy batteries were
expecting the attack from the direction of Nikolajew. They had prepared their defenses on that side. It was there that the Leibstandarte stood ready for the attack. (One more reason for considering the reconnaissance completed and for breaking into Cherson by the “back door”.) We followed a country lane alongside the Dnepr up to the city and overran a Russian company building a roadblock in the outskirts. Out of sheer fright the Soviets forgot to exchange their shovels for weapons. Modern