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Adventures in My Youth

A German Soldier on the Eastern Front 1941-45

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Adventures in My Youth

By: Armin Scheiderbauer
Narrated by: James A. Gillies
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About this listen

The author could be described as a veteran in every sense of the word, even though he was only age 21 when the war ended. Armin Scheiderbauer served as an infantry officer with the 252nd Infantry Division, German army, and saw four years of bitter combat on the Eastern Front, being wounded six times.

This is an outstanding personal memoir, written with great thoughtfulness and honesty. Scheiderbauer joined his unit during the winter of 1941-42 and, during the following years, saw fierce combat in many of the largest battles on the Eastern Front. His experiences of the 1943-45 period are particularly noteworthy, including his recollections of the massive Soviet offensives of summer 1944 and January 1945. Participating in the bitter battles in East Prussia, he was captured by the Soviets and not released until 1947.

Adventures in My Youth is a unique memoir - the author originally wrote it only for his daughter. It has never been published in any language until now.

©2003 Helion and Company (P)2017 Tantor Military Military & War World War II War Soviet Union Thought-Provoking Memoir Eastern Germans
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I was addicted..the book gave me a new perspective on WWII.
Terrifying in parts and unforgettable descriptions of battle scenes.

Extraordinary witness account

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This was a fascinating insight into the Eastern Front during the Second World War, and I'm glad that I used up 12 hours of my life listening to it.
However, the author seemed to have little awareness of Germany's culpability for the events that were unfolding throughout Europe.
He didn't seem to question what on earth Germany was doing attacking the USSR/Russia, and commented that Britain and France had 'declared war on Germany', without any thought as to why they would have done so.

Important but flawed

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Fascinating first hand stories of the eastern front.
Particularly interesting is his time spent as a pow at the hands of the Russians

Moving Account

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This book is not only fantastically written, but extremely well performed and was a pleasure to listen to.

Fantastic

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This was the second of recent verbatim reports of ordinary soldiers fighting for the German Reich I have listens to on Audible. I suppose, given the atmosphere of growing up in the Thirties and the age of Herr Scheiderbauer when he joined up, he could be forgiven in calling it “Adventures in My Youth”.

For want of any corroborating evidence to the contrary, I took his narrative as honest and an attempt to let the reader see that the Second World War was for many Germans as awful as it was for the Allies.

Also, being a young man at the time, he seems very keen to mention, throughout his narrative, the many medals available and won by him. He was clearly looking for a natural progression through the ranks and conducting himself honourably.

It was his bad luck to represent one totalitarian state against another in the East.

There was no mention of Germany’s guilt in the War but his mention of fighting Bolshevism and how cruel the Russians could be. Seeing this was written many years after it all happened, I thought that there may had been some comment on his part in the destruction of many countries, deaths of many, many innocent people. However, it is interesting, well narrated and gives a further view on this period.

Towser T

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