Soldat by Siegfried KnappeAs my readers know I read and review a lot of books on WWII and this book is a rare treat in that it is told from German point of view. Siegfried Knappe really saw a lot....from the Arbeitsdienst (Labor Service) after graduating with his Abitur (diploma) from a Gymnasium (A German high school tracked to prepare students for university) to joining the army as an enlisted man in 1936, to Kriegsschule Potsdam (officer training academy in Potsdam) where Erwin Rommel was his group leader, to being involved in several campaigns during WWII such as the Sudetenland, invasion and occupation of France, invasion of Russia, defending Italy and finally he was right there at the end during the Battle of Berlin. Knappe was lucky to have been wounded several times...I say lucky because it allowed him to recuperate far away from the terrible situations in Russia, but none of the wounds were debilitating, so his wounds probably saved his life. Knappe was a first rate leader and soldier with a strong intellect. He graduated near the top of his class at Kriegsschule and later went through general staff training (the 2nd to last class ever to do so in Nazi Germany).
I always begin a new book with a bit of reluctance...I get used to a book, I savor a good book...the characters or the author become a fellow traveler in my life for awhile if not like a friend. So, when I finish a book, I start a new one with a bit of trepidation, not sure about my new friend and if I want to go on the journey they want me to go on or if I want them to be part of my life. I also read slowly, a few pages generally each night before I go to bed to clear my head of the day's stress and to give myself something to think about as I try to fall asleep rather than my own worries. So, this relationship...my book companion so to speak....is an important relationship to me. As I first started this book, I wasn't sure about Knappe...but literally on the first page he mentioned the German town of Eilenburg. Really? Eilenburg? It is a little out of the way place in the former East Germany...but I have spent time there...I know people there...we have an exchange with the town's high school (for 11 years now). Unbelievable...I felt right at home then with my new friend right away and I am still sorry that I finished this book. When he met the love of this life during the war and married her, it was in his hometown of Leipzig at the Thomas Church...I have been in that church!! I have sat in the pews and prayed for my son's Teddy's health as I do in every church I visit. Of course, he mentions other places where I have been as well, but more logical places such as Berlin or Nürnberg.
It was my view that Knappe was a first rate officer and leader and surely would have been a general had the war taken another turn. The book starts at the end of the war near the Führer Bunker. Knappe is often coordinating final details of the battle with Hitler's staff as the Russians are closing in. He sees Hitler and is shocked by his lethargic and pitiful appearance. Not at all the same Hitler he'd met years before and not the same Hitler that Knappe now had the "urge to kill" in order to "stop all of the suffering". He could have fled on his own and tried to make his way to the Americans, but he followed orders and did his duty to the end and paid the price by spending 4 years in a Soviet prison camp. His logic was sound though...he thought it would show a distinct lack of leadership to abandon the men under him as long as they were still fighting.
I used to be skeptical of Germans who claimed they didn't know about Auschwitz and other atrocities in the Nazi's committed...now I am not so sure. Knappe reminds us repeatedly that Nazi Germany did not have a free press and that he only had a vague notion of what might have been going on...it is not like they were advertising or telling the world what they were doing to the Jews and others....not the outright killing of them anyway...they hid it so well in fact that many Jews themselves were skeptical that there were death camps and Elie Wiesel's Night comes to mind when the man who escaped the death camp tries to tell the people in his village what is going on, but is dismissed as crazy more or less. Also, I held this view before our war on terrorism. I find that I can't answer for my own country's deeds in places like Guantanamo or our secret CIA prisons...I can hope we are not committing atrocities...but I don't really know and there is no way I can know that all of the people in them are guilty and that they aren't being tortured...I only know what has been allowed to be released to the press or leaked out. So, my previous harsh judgments of how the German population should have known and did something about it has been tempered a bit and I am not nearly as arrogant about it as I once was. Knappe admits that they knew that some jews were rounded up and sent to camps just for being jewish and that probably some were killed there, but the 6 million dead figure was hard for him to accept at first, but he nevertheless said he "sadly" and slowly accepted that the Nazis indeed had committed crimes against humanity . He says that he could now only feel shame for what had started as a "noble venture to right the injustices of the Versailles Treaty and regain what we thought of as rightfully ours had led to the inhuman horrors of extermination camps."
By the time the war ended he was a family man with two sons and very much wanted to survive to see them again. Luckily he was reunited with his family after being released by the Soviets after they determined he was not a war criminal.
I could obviously write a whole book about the book...but I will stop now and just recommend that you read the book yourself...you won't be dissapointed.
