Five Years, Four Fronts: A German Officer's World War II Combat Memoir

After Hitler’s invasions of Poland and France came the Russian Front–and that’s when the real war started.

An infantryman who rose from the enlisted ranks to regimental command in combat, Georg Grossjohann fought on four different fronts during World War II, but saw most of his fighting–from 1941 to 1944–against Russians in the Soviet Union and Romania. He provides shattering glimpses of the horror and chaos of the war, as well as profound insights into everyday life in the Wehrmacht.

Five Years, Four Fronts chronicles the combat experiences of Grossjohann and his men as they triumphantly roll across Poland, France, and the sunny steppes of the Ukraine, only to ultimately sustain grinding defeats in the endless, freezing plains of the Soviet Union and the grim, dark Vosges Mountains of France. Grossjohann was a soldier’s soldier, respected by his men, undaunted by his superiors, and, as can be observed in this raw, brutally honest account, not afraid to call the shots as he saw them.

The late GEORG GROSSJOHANN enlisted in the Reichswehr from his hometown in East Prussia in 1928 as a soldier bound for twelve years service to the Weimar Republic. His World War II service began as an NCO in the Polish campaign and ended as a regimental commander. In between he earned the Iron Cross and other awards for bravery on the battlefield.