Originally written while the author was a prisoner of the US Army in 1945–46, Black Edelweiss
is a boon to serious historians and WWII buffs alike. In a day in which
most memoirs are written at half a century's distance, the former will
be gratified by the author's precise recall facilitated by the
chronologically short-range (a matter of one to seven years) at which
the events were captured in writing. Both will appreciate and enjoy the
abundantly detailed, exceptionally accurate combat episodes.
Even
more than the strictly military narrative, however, the author has
crafted a searingly candid view into his own mind and soul. As such, Black Edelweiss is much more than a "ripping yarn" or a low-level military history. Black Edelweiss
joins not only the growing body of German military memoirs, but the
more select, more narrowly-focused group of personal memoirs by other Waffen-SS
enlisted men. Beyond the microcosmic view of combat these books
relate—to the extent that they are honest and candid—such books are
important for what they can reveal about their authors' motivations and
reflections on those impulses and their consequences. To date, these
works differ significantly.
As it joins the ranks of the books in this genre, Black Edelweiss
makes a unique and very important contribution. It is a true, personal
account of the author's war years, first at school and then with the Waffen-SS,
which he joined early in 1943 at the age of seventeen. For a year and a
half, the author fought as a machine gunner in SS-Mountain Infantry
Regiment 11 "Reinhard Heydrich," mainly in the arctic and sub-arctic
reaches of Soviet Karelia and Finland, and later at the Western
frontier of the Third Reich. The characters in the story are real, and
the conversations and actions are recounted to the best of his ability
from the short distance at which he wrote the manuscript in 1945–46.
Apart
from the piercing insights into the question of why the German soldier
fought as he did, what makes this book truly unique is the author's
anguished, yet resolute examination of the dialectic between the
honorable and valorous comportment of his comrades and the
fundamentally reprehensible conduct of about 35,000 men behind the
front lines who nevertheless wore the same uniform.
During his
captivity, the author was assigned for a time as a clerk to a US Army
Judge Advocate General's Corps officer, and in the performance of his
administrative duties, the author had access to the mounting reams of
documentation of the Holocaust. His growing recognition of the
involvement of Waffen-SS personnel in the monstrous crimes of
that process caused him to dig deeply into his soul, to examine his
most intimate and private motivations and thoughts, and to reevaluate
the most basic assumptions of his life to that point. The author
captured this process and the result in the notes which became this
book.
Honestly, forthrightly, and courageously told, Black Edelweiss
is a precious gift to historians and other students of World War II. It
not only provides a glimpse into the attributes that made the German
armed forces a formidable and tenacious foe, but squarely confronts the
most painful issue facing German World War II veterans in general, and Waffen-SS veterans in particular.
Supported by 22 photos, 8 maps, and notes.
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