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A Stranger to Myself: The Inhumanity of War: Russia, 1941-1944
A Stranger to The Inhumanity of War, Russia 1941-44 is the haunting memoir of a young German soldier on the Russian front during World War II. Willy Peter Reese was only twenty years old when he found himself marching through Russia with orders to take no prisoners. Three years later he was dead. Bearing witness to--and participating in--the atrocities of war, Reese recorded his reflections in his diary, leaving behind an intelligent, touching, and illuminating perspective on life on the eastern front. He documented the carnage perpetrated by both sides, the destruction which was exacerbated by the young soldiers' hunger, frostbite, exhaustion, and their daily struggle to survive. And he wrestled with his own sins, with the realization that what he and his fellow soldiers had done to civilians and enemies alike was unforgivable, with his growing awareness of the Nazi policies toward Jews, and with his deep disillusionment with himself and his fellow men.
An international sensation, A Stranger to Myself is an unforgettable account of men at war.
An international sensation, A Stranger to Myself is an unforgettable account of men at war.
208 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2004
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3973 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 77 reviews
July 11, 2009
This book was published from the manuscript and letters that the author sent home to Germany from the Eastern Front during World War II. A relative happened upon the documents in the last decade that had been shoved in a trunk during the War, and had been long since forgotten. Willy Peter Rose reluctantly entered the German army when drafted during World War II. An excellent writer, Rose poignantly decries the futility and horror and waste of war. Many of us have stereotypical views of German soldiers as mindless automaton - killers completely under Hitler's spell and ferociously committed Nazis. Rose effectively dispels those notions. I equate this book with All Quiet on the Western Front by the power of its anti-war message. It should be included in any study of "man's inhumanity to man" and of the experience of war from the perspective of a regular soldier.
August 27, 2012
There are no heroes in this war story. The author wrote this book from notes and journals he kept while serving with the German Wehrmacht on the Russian Front in World War II. The book recounts a young man's journey from a life filled with family, books, poetry, and the youthful dreams of a happy future to the bleak reality of more than three years of conscription as a soldier assigned to the hell of the Russian Front. Willy Peter Reese was never a member of the Nazi party, but he did have a pride in his nation. He describes his journey with, at first, an almost poetic touch, but the realities of war soon wipe out his his youthful exuberance. He is beaten down and forever changed by the cruelty, deprivation, pain, and suffering he witnesses. He is sickened not only by what he sees, but by what he does. The war has such a profound effect upon him that it seems to become an essential part of him. When he he is home on sick leave, he feels he no longer belongs there. His experiences in the war have become so ingrained in him that he feels lost when he is removed from it. Intellectually he is repulsed by what he has seen, done, and who he has become. During a leave from the fighting in 1944, he could find relief only in alcohol and in writing about his descent into hell. Soon after, Willy Peter Reese answered the call of his demons one last time. He returned to the fighting on the Russian Front, never to return home. War changes the conquerors as well as the conquered.
May 27, 2018
Nothing could be more antithetical to my nature than having to become a soldier, to be anonymous among strangers, a toy at the whim of commands and moods, than having to learn the use of weapons with which I would fight one day for a view of the world that was repugnant to me, in a war I never wanted, and against people who were not my enemies. Like a condemned man, I hesitated on the steps to the scaffold and felt the sword graze my neck. The judge had broken the staff over me, and in my powerlessness I accepted his sentence.
That was my abdication.
[...]
Quiet days passed. There were the aftereffects of terror. I kept seeing in front of me the wall of fire, smoke, earth, and dust that we had lived and fought through. There was no escaping these visions, and whoever got away with his life would wear the burn scars of those hours as long as he lived. I had once again experienced the war in its full horror, as an apotheosis of devastation and death.
The blood dried in the clay and disappeared underfoot. The dead were buried. But after this experience it wasn’t possible for life to go on; no one who had been through this could ever be a human and a son of God anymore. Yet things went on; they had to be borne and gotten over.
My will to live reawakened. My resources of mind and spirit stirred once more, as though replenished from some mysterious source. I wiped those days and nights from my life. Buried them deep, as though they had never been. I built a bridge across the chasm of that time and started a new life on the other side.
That was my abdication.
[...]
Quiet days passed. There were the aftereffects of terror. I kept seeing in front of me the wall of fire, smoke, earth, and dust that we had lived and fought through. There was no escaping these visions, and whoever got away with his life would wear the burn scars of those hours as long as he lived. I had once again experienced the war in its full horror, as an apotheosis of devastation and death.
The blood dried in the clay and disappeared underfoot. The dead were buried. But after this experience it wasn’t possible for life to go on; no one who had been through this could ever be a human and a son of God anymore. Yet things went on; they had to be borne and gotten over.
My will to live reawakened. My resources of mind and spirit stirred once more, as though replenished from some mysterious source. I wiped those days and nights from my life. Buried them deep, as though they had never been. I built a bridge across the chasm of that time and started a new life on the other side.
November 7, 2020
Anfangs dachte ich, es würde sich einfach um das Tagebuch eines Frontsoldaten handeln. Recht bald stellte ich jedoch fest, dass dieser junge Mann tatsächlich ein richtiger Schriftsteller war, der seine Erlebnisse an der Ostfront textuell kondensiert und so zu einer anderen Art der Erzählung verarbeitet hat. Hat man sich nach ein paar Seiten erst einmal an diesen Stil gewöhnt, möchte man das Buch kaum noch aus der Hand legen.
April 10, 2012
This is an autobiography of sorts. More journal than anything else. The author writes mainly in prose. So much so that it is like being inside someones head with thoughts darting all about on beauty, hope, no hope, war, danger, sunlight, moonlight, not being fitted for war, wanting to go home, not caring if death catches up with you, or the horror of seeing a comrade killed by your side. A bit chaotic.
Perhaps the most poignant part was when he was wounded and recovering in a hospital ward and had some time to talk to the night nurse for a bit alone. She told him what it was like to be a nurse. To see men at their worst and weakest. To help them, and then slowly as the men got better to watch as their care was returned with innuendo, groping, and sexual advances. The nurses wanted to fall in love and settle down one day, but they burned out one by one. Even if one man seemed different than the rest eventually they sounded just like the others.
If you want to read about this front from a ordinary soldier's perspective I recommend The Winter Soldier over this brief book.
Perhaps the most poignant part was when he was wounded and recovering in a hospital ward and had some time to talk to the night nurse for a bit alone. She told him what it was like to be a nurse. To see men at their worst and weakest. To help them, and then slowly as the men got better to watch as their care was returned with innuendo, groping, and sexual advances. The nurses wanted to fall in love and settle down one day, but they burned out one by one. Even if one man seemed different than the rest eventually they sounded just like the others.
If you want to read about this front from a ordinary soldier's perspective I recommend The Winter Soldier over this brief book.
March 7, 2017
Beautifully written and devastating
I read "Mein Kampf" for the first time earlier this year and Reese's book had been on my "To Read" list for some time, so the choice seemed natural. The consequences of Hitler's obsession with living space for the German people, I suppose. Consequences of so many things. In America, Reese might have been a conscientious objector. In Germany, he went when he was called. I read this over the course of three days. Reese is engaging as hell. A clever, introspective young man pulled into an idiotic endeavor and killed by it. That sentence is written over and over and over in history.
I read "Mein Kampf" for the first time earlier this year and Reese's book had been on my "To Read" list for some time, so the choice seemed natural. The consequences of Hitler's obsession with living space for the German people, I suppose. Consequences of so many things. In America, Reese might have been a conscientious objector. In Germany, he went when he was called. I read this over the course of three days. Reese is engaging as hell. A clever, introspective young man pulled into an idiotic endeavor and killed by it. That sentence is written over and over and over in history.
November 15, 2015
etwa ein drittel davon gelesen. die ekelhaft schwuelstige unterentwickelte hybris ekelte mich nach einem drittel des buches. aber ein sehr realistisches portrait eines monstroesen krieges zweifellos
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i made it only through a third of this book. the disgustingly flatulent underdeveloped hybris disgusted me after about a third of the book. but a very realistic image of a monstrous war, no doubt
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i made it only through a third of this book. the disgustingly flatulent underdeveloped hybris disgusted me after about a third of the book. but a very realistic image of a monstrous war, no doubt
September 27, 2023
Willy Peter Reese was a young German soldier on the Russian front during WWII. He died in 1944 at the age of 23. But he left behind a diary/memoir of his infantry experiences captured in "A Stranger to Myself."
What makes the narrative so haunting is the poetic and eloquent writing of a young man wrestling with the devastation and destruction of war. His daily struggle to survive the enemy and the elements leave him somewhat less than human, even unrecognizable to himself at times. It is hard to comprehend how mankind sometimes glorifies war when juxtaposed with the author's authentic and reflective moments in the trenches.
I found "A Stranger to Myself" powerful and deeply troubling. I highly recommend.
What makes the narrative so haunting is the poetic and eloquent writing of a young man wrestling with the devastation and destruction of war. His daily struggle to survive the enemy and the elements leave him somewhat less than human, even unrecognizable to himself at times. It is hard to comprehend how mankind sometimes glorifies war when juxtaposed with the author's authentic and reflective moments in the trenches.
I found "A Stranger to Myself" powerful and deeply troubling. I highly recommend.
September 4, 2021
This came across my desk and I checked it out. One of the only personal narratives of WWII on the Eastern Front. Reese was missing, presumed dead in June 1944, so the manuscript doesn't have a proper end. He gets a furlough after a period of fighting over the winter of 1943-4, returns to the front and, that's the end of the narrative. Reese does a good job for much of the book relating the hopelessness and futility of the war, including the privations the typical soldier suffered.
July 1, 2025
An incredible deep dive into the psyche of a soldier on the Eastern Front. I have never read a more brutal and honest account of the loss of one's own humanity. The best non-fiction I have read in a long time.
March 22, 2018
“An unwelcoming country took me in, where I could not live, only die, or, like Ahasuerus, wander forever, a drifter, evicted, a ghostly shadow, an exile, wafted about by the choirs of the dead and the night wind off the hills,”
If the preceding quote evokes a positive response from you. Then this book might be for you. It will offer you a never ending serving of such passages.
This book contains only to a minor degree literal descriptions of his experiences. Most events are descibed at a remove couched in florid and obtuse wording. Maybe a way for the author to cope with the hell he has been through, but in my view doesn’t make for intetestlng reading.
If the preceding quote evokes a positive response from you. Then this book might be for you. It will offer you a never ending serving of such passages.
This book contains only to a minor degree literal descriptions of his experiences. Most events are descibed at a remove couched in florid and obtuse wording. Maybe a way for the author to cope with the hell he has been through, but in my view doesn’t make for intetestlng reading.
September 26, 2015
Three years of impressions of a German soldier on the Eastern Front. He was killed in 1944. Reflects his youth and immaturity -- didn't like much. Mostly "feelings." Very brief. Lots of much better memoirs and diaries by Germans. Try "The Forgotten Soldier," by Guy Sajer, for one.
November 26, 2015
Is it possible that war written in such beautiful language can become a bore after awhile? Oh, what i would have given for dialogue. A quirky character or two. But given the resources from which this book was born, I can understand why it is such an introspective watercolor of words.
May 13, 2017
As I read Willy Reese's A Stranger to Myself, I thought often that no one would ever want to make a war movie out of it despite the fact that Mr. Reese lived and what he writes about really happened. While there is war action, it's real war action, not the romanticized kind found in movies. For example, I was particularly struck by Reese's descriptions of how filthy dirty their clothes became and how long they lived in them that way. Or how they lived with their bodies infested with lice, or how sick they got but still had to march or fight or stand sentry duty. While he talks about the "freedom" of being a soldier, and being an "adventurer" in war, his descriptions have the claustrophobia of prison. And while both the foreword and the preface place the book in historical context, i.e. very few first hand accounts have come out of the Russian front of World War II on either side, I thought this book an extremely effective anti-war narrative.
Mr. Reese had talent for writing, and was clearly intelligent, maybe even an intellectual. He describes himself as more interested in books and music than in much of anything else. He was drafted in 1941 from his job in a bank, and although he's not wild about becoming a soldier, he reconciles himself to it as an experience, an adventure that he could write about. He's not at all a gung-ho soldier. He writes often how much he wants to be home, to be away from the fighting, and about the terror of facing "the enemy" which he comments are men like himself who are not his personal enemies. He describes his first winter in Russia, the near starvation, the cruelty and atrocities he and his comrades perpetrated on Russian civilians in order to survive, to get food to eat. He was 2o years old. Later in the book, he describes running from the fighting, running for cover, and he's not the only one. As I read this book, his almost matter-of-fact prose in which he uses the pronoun "we" all the time, reporting about all of them rather than about only himself, I had the distinct impression Reese chose that way of writing in order to give himself distance from what he saw, smelled and heard, from the experiences, because he was writing about them so close in time.
So, my one quibble about this narrative is that distance. It is based on Reese's diaries and notes -- he wrote the book using them as his resources -- and you can get a sense of those diaries in the end notes. This is one book that I highly recommend reading the end notes. They provide details about the German army's movements, the battles, and the geography that Reese doesn't provide, and they include a couple long diary entries as well as some notes that Reese wrote. They are in the first person and very close, immediate in emotion and reaction. I really would have like to read his diaries as companion to this narrative.
When I lived in Vienna, I heard stories about the looting, atrocities, and cruelties of the Red Army when it occupied that city after World War II. At the Russian Front, both the Germans and the Russians had orders to take no prisoners. Reese describes the resulting atrocities of those orders in this book. He describes the "sickness" he felt at carrying out those orders, and his sickness at seeing the madness all around him. He writes that war is madness. The ultimate madness is that this young man did not survive the war.
I highly recommend this book to readers of history, especially World War II, or German history. We are so used to reading about World War II from the perspective of the Allies, and this book is from the German perspective, although Reese was no Nazi.
Mr. Reese had talent for writing, and was clearly intelligent, maybe even an intellectual. He describes himself as more interested in books and music than in much of anything else. He was drafted in 1941 from his job in a bank, and although he's not wild about becoming a soldier, he reconciles himself to it as an experience, an adventure that he could write about. He's not at all a gung-ho soldier. He writes often how much he wants to be home, to be away from the fighting, and about the terror of facing "the enemy" which he comments are men like himself who are not his personal enemies. He describes his first winter in Russia, the near starvation, the cruelty and atrocities he and his comrades perpetrated on Russian civilians in order to survive, to get food to eat. He was 2o years old. Later in the book, he describes running from the fighting, running for cover, and he's not the only one. As I read this book, his almost matter-of-fact prose in which he uses the pronoun "we" all the time, reporting about all of them rather than about only himself, I had the distinct impression Reese chose that way of writing in order to give himself distance from what he saw, smelled and heard, from the experiences, because he was writing about them so close in time.
So, my one quibble about this narrative is that distance. It is based on Reese's diaries and notes -- he wrote the book using them as his resources -- and you can get a sense of those diaries in the end notes. This is one book that I highly recommend reading the end notes. They provide details about the German army's movements, the battles, and the geography that Reese doesn't provide, and they include a couple long diary entries as well as some notes that Reese wrote. They are in the first person and very close, immediate in emotion and reaction. I really would have like to read his diaries as companion to this narrative.
When I lived in Vienna, I heard stories about the looting, atrocities, and cruelties of the Red Army when it occupied that city after World War II. At the Russian Front, both the Germans and the Russians had orders to take no prisoners. Reese describes the resulting atrocities of those orders in this book. He describes the "sickness" he felt at carrying out those orders, and his sickness at seeing the madness all around him. He writes that war is madness. The ultimate madness is that this young man did not survive the war.
I highly recommend this book to readers of history, especially World War II, or German history. We are so used to reading about World War II from the perspective of the Allies, and this book is from the German perspective, although Reese was no Nazi.
January 10, 2023
2.5 stars, because the young author (who had literary ambitions pre-war) waxed extremely florally poetic especially in the first quarter, which made it a real slog until he hit the front and trauma and disillusionment made his writing simpler and more to the point.
Reese rarely gets into specifics about what he and his unit do, and I don't think he ever once mentions any of his comrades by name, though he does mention place-names. Perhaps as a self-defensive measure, he seems to keep himself at a distance from what is happening. He doesn't talk politics, either, this being more of an account of the daily slog of a regular soldier on the ground in the Eastern Front (from other reading, politics seems to have been a topic carefully avoided among German soldiers at the time--understandable, when you couldn't be sure if the guy next to you is given to frothy-mouthed stabbiness and denouncing your family at the wrong word) so we can't tell from this account what his sympathies were. We do get a few glimpses into horrors seen in battle or on retreat, and the nerdy youth's gradual desensitization between his draft notice and the end, as well as his internal struggles with despair, becoming alienated and worrying he will never be able to go back to normal life:
"The blood dried in the clay and disappeared underfoot. The dead were buried. But after this experience it wasn't possible for life to go on; no one who had been through this could ever be a human and a son of God anymore. Yet things went on; they had to be borne and gotten over."
Reese swings between bouts of despair or numbness to euphoric moments of finding joy in the tiniest details of being alive, and despite the hell he goes through still seems eager to return to the front after rest-periods at home where he feels alienated from civilian life. One interesting part came up when he was in hospital and had a conversation with a nurse about how disillusioning the war was for the nurses too, who did everything they could tending to and mothering the wounded when they were at their lowest only to suffer groping and harassment once these same men started feeling better, mentioning the high rates of medical staff burnout. Reese himself is not innocent of villainous behaviour by the end, as evidenced in a late passage where he mentions a time when his group made a prisoner dance naked.
Despite the over-poetic passages, this is a valuable glimpse into a regular conscript's-eye-view of the Second World War (the lesser-examined Eastern Front in particular) and the psychological effects of war on combatants.
Reese rarely gets into specifics about what he and his unit do, and I don't think he ever once mentions any of his comrades by name, though he does mention place-names. Perhaps as a self-defensive measure, he seems to keep himself at a distance from what is happening. He doesn't talk politics, either, this being more of an account of the daily slog of a regular soldier on the ground in the Eastern Front (from other reading, politics seems to have been a topic carefully avoided among German soldiers at the time--understandable, when you couldn't be sure if the guy next to you is given to frothy-mouthed stabbiness and denouncing your family at the wrong word) so we can't tell from this account what his sympathies were. We do get a few glimpses into horrors seen in battle or on retreat, and the nerdy youth's gradual desensitization between his draft notice and the end, as well as his internal struggles with despair, becoming alienated and worrying he will never be able to go back to normal life:
"The blood dried in the clay and disappeared underfoot. The dead were buried. But after this experience it wasn't possible for life to go on; no one who had been through this could ever be a human and a son of God anymore. Yet things went on; they had to be borne and gotten over."
Reese swings between bouts of despair or numbness to euphoric moments of finding joy in the tiniest details of being alive, and despite the hell he goes through still seems eager to return to the front after rest-periods at home where he feels alienated from civilian life. One interesting part came up when he was in hospital and had a conversation with a nurse about how disillusioning the war was for the nurses too, who did everything they could tending to and mothering the wounded when they were at their lowest only to suffer groping and harassment once these same men started feeling better, mentioning the high rates of medical staff burnout. Reese himself is not innocent of villainous behaviour by the end, as evidenced in a late passage where he mentions a time when his group made a prisoner dance naked.
Despite the over-poetic passages, this is a valuable glimpse into a regular conscript's-eye-view of the Second World War (the lesser-examined Eastern Front in particular) and the psychological effects of war on combatants.
November 23, 2018
Willy Reese saw some of the most difficult fighting of the war. By his own admission, he did things that he was ashamed of, would be charged as a war criminal if known, and if he believed in a literal hell, he would be sent there after this life passed. He acknowledged the fighting was brutal and no quarter was given or received. This alone should have made it a great story. It appears he was saved by the skin of his teeth time after time by other soldiers or just by his own personal luck. Unfortunately, unless those pages were lost or remained unpublished after he wrote them, he never goes very deep into what he experienced and how it changed him. The Russians he fights he says he does not hate. I doubt the average Russian soldier would offer him the same regard. Reese is in the invading army but almost approaches his fighting the Russians as a lark, or acts as though he's about to shout at them "why are you fighting back?" Reese spends far too much time waxing poetically about where he is and what he thinks he's experiencing. It does not give any real flavor to the battles, skirmishes, and close calls he participated in. Not even a real glimpse of what he did on convalescence or on short leaves back to Germany. There are very few "dirt under the fingernails" scenes, just a man seemingly lost for three years in the vast plains of Russia with little regard as to why he was there, other than a sense that he was "just doing his duty or just following orders." If that was the case, he should have said so, even through one of his poetic moments. He notices the trees that offer shelter, he appreciates plants and pine needles to use for a bed. but what did he do with the gun he marched there with? I had hoped this would be a great sequel to Guy Sajer's "The Forgotten Soldier" account of the Eastern Front. Sajer, who served with the elite Gross Deutschland Division, has a more introspective, more pronounced, and an up-close-and-personal look at the war. He shares his terrors, his bravery, and his pride throughout The Forgotten Soldier. Willy Reese looks at the same fighting without giving much feedback or telling us what he really lived through. His writing style is flowery for such a violent time in his life. He did not survive it, being killed most likely near the end of June 1944, so maybe these notes are the only ones his family wanted to be released. I gave it three stars, but it could have reached five with different editing or the gaps filled in with the battles he fought.
October 11, 2022
The language of the book is strained and over-wrought. Penned by a neophyte and self-conscious 'writer' striving to pack in as many odd words and constructions as possible. The translation does not appear to help. The book's overall construction was completed posthumously from a variety of notes and work performed by the author. Almost everything described is offered as a type of extended metaphor that obfuscates the event behind a cloud of words and a focus on minor details. Combined, these various construction methods make the book drudgery to read through.
Topically, the book offers four main avenues of thought, each repeated many times. 1) I suffered alone among other sufferers, in body, mind, and soul - indeed, we Germans all suffered; 2) I am not guilty of bad things though I did bad things; 3) 'fate' is the causative agent of war - there is no individual or collective guilt; 4) the Poles and the Russians incidentally suffered physically.
In particular, the author's focus on his own moral suffering amidst the mass murder of the Nazi's victims - in which he often participates in a minor way - is as unconvincing as it is offensive. Too, the author's frequent appeals to God ring hollow amidst his constant denials of culpability because 'fate' has caused all of the described atrocities to be unavoidable.
Chronologically, the book tales the author's 'war story'. Growing up in Nazified Germany, the author claims nearly complete ignorance of politics and fascism. The author is conscripted at about age 20 and serves on the Eastern front where he witnesses, and occasionally participates in, various small-scale atrocities such as the burnings of villages, slaughter of livestock, theft and destruction of food stores, and on one occasion mass murder of prisoners of war (presented as a sort of "gift giving" of grenades). The author enjoys two periods of convalescence in German areas - once due Trench fever and a badly infected leg, and once due to being shot in the leg during an enemy attack (an act which is presented as voluntary and intentional). During one of these periods he talks with a nurse and then imagines that he completely understands her perspective on life - as if he is somehow the single 'special' soldier in her wartime experience. Unsurprisingly, the author is returned to service after convalescence. The book ends with the author's death.
The map included with the text is surprisingly good.
Topically, the book offers four main avenues of thought, each repeated many times. 1) I suffered alone among other sufferers, in body, mind, and soul - indeed, we Germans all suffered; 2) I am not guilty of bad things though I did bad things; 3) 'fate' is the causative agent of war - there is no individual or collective guilt; 4) the Poles and the Russians incidentally suffered physically.
In particular, the author's focus on his own moral suffering amidst the mass murder of the Nazi's victims - in which he often participates in a minor way - is as unconvincing as it is offensive. Too, the author's frequent appeals to God ring hollow amidst his constant denials of culpability because 'fate' has caused all of the described atrocities to be unavoidable.
Chronologically, the book tales the author's 'war story'. Growing up in Nazified Germany, the author claims nearly complete ignorance of politics and fascism. The author is conscripted at about age 20 and serves on the Eastern front where he witnesses, and occasionally participates in, various small-scale atrocities such as the burnings of villages, slaughter of livestock, theft and destruction of food stores, and on one occasion mass murder of prisoners of war (presented as a sort of "gift giving" of grenades). The author enjoys two periods of convalescence in German areas - once due Trench fever and a badly infected leg, and once due to being shot in the leg during an enemy attack (an act which is presented as voluntary and intentional). During one of these periods he talks with a nurse and then imagines that he completely understands her perspective on life - as if he is somehow the single 'special' soldier in her wartime experience. Unsurprisingly, the author is returned to service after convalescence. The book ends with the author's death.
The map included with the text is surprisingly good.
April 15, 2025
Le pondría un 4.5 sin dudar.
Me ha encantado este libro, aunque como he leído parece que a veces se vuelva un poco reiterativo el hecho de no ser una novela, sino la realidad que vivió un ser humano, el soldado Willy Peter Reese, y la gran cultura que tenía lo hace único e irrepetible.
Es maravilloso leer el detalle que usa para poder expresar cada uno de los sentimientos que le abordan, desde la contemplación de la naturaleza, hasta los más crueles momentos de la guerra. No ahorra en adjetivos que enriquecen el relato y además se cuestiona a si mismo continuamente, haciéndonos partícipes de esa contradicción que no podríamos vivir a no ser que él nos la expresara.
Es un libro tremendamente cercano y la literatura de Reese es muy buena. Un magnífico libro para comprender como fue la guerra en el frente oriental y cómo la vivió una persona que desde el primer minuto dudó de la misma. Que no se reconocía en los objetivos nazis y cuestionaba la realidad que le había tocado vivir.
Me parece también asombroso como en pocos años la guerra hace evolucionar el pensamiento de Reese, llevándolo primero desde la oposición pero con la distancia del que quiere ser un simple espectador del momento histórico (1941 cuando es llamado a filas), pasando por el asombro, el cuestionamiento de sus actos, la duda de su ser y la desesperación (1942 ), hasta llegar a la paz
Lo dicho, un libro magnífico.
Me ha encantado este libro, aunque como he leído parece que a veces se vuelva un poco reiterativo el hecho de no ser una novela, sino la realidad que vivió un ser humano, el soldado Willy Peter Reese, y la gran cultura que tenía lo hace único e irrepetible.
Es maravilloso leer el detalle que usa para poder expresar cada uno de los sentimientos que le abordan, desde la contemplación de la naturaleza, hasta los más crueles momentos de la guerra. No ahorra en adjetivos que enriquecen el relato y además se cuestiona a si mismo continuamente, haciéndonos partícipes de esa contradicción que no podríamos vivir a no ser que él nos la expresara.
Es un libro tremendamente cercano y la literatura de Reese es muy buena. Un magnífico libro para comprender como fue la guerra en el frente oriental y cómo la vivió una persona que desde el primer minuto dudó de la misma. Que no se reconocía en los objetivos nazis y cuestionaba la realidad que le había tocado vivir.
Me parece también asombroso como en pocos años la guerra hace evolucionar el pensamiento de Reese, llevándolo primero desde la oposición pero con la distancia del que quiere ser un simple espectador del momento histórico (1941 cuando es llamado a filas), pasando por el asombro, el cuestionamiento de sus actos, la duda de su ser y la desesperación (1942 ), hasta llegar a la paz
Lo dicho, un libro magnífico.
May 23, 2025
Spent a lot of time trying to digest Reese’s storytelling.
The translation is pretty amazing; not sure if it’s by virtue of translating from a more complicated language like German to a simpler one like English that brings in so many words I’ve yet to come across, but it’s really amazing how expansive Reese’s vocabulary is. It gives way to some pretty purposeful and beautiful descriptions. There’s something powerful about the juxtaposition between him being a soldier and his clear skill as an artist, yet, what makes Reese’s text so profound (in addition to the obvious fact that his recount is one of the only from the side of the Wehrmacht during WWII) is 1. his ability to tune into duty and ‘soldierliness’, and 2. the fact that his position in society was forced.
He explains he is meant to serve as a vessel to showcase the crudeness and evilness of war — not sure who, in times of war, would lean into it when all fibers of their being oppose it and all that it constitutes, but his path gave way to enlightenment for future generations (I’m a testament to that!)
The part of my manhood driving me to go to war, despite also opposing all aspects of it myself, was quickly dissolved by his honest recount and unfortunate reality.
He didn’t want to be there, but he embraced that he couldn’t alter his fate anyway. There are only really three decisions: 1. desert the war and die or become exiled by your own military, 2. embrace it superficially through the glorification of war in the name of patriotism, or 3. embrace it truthfully.
All that said, I’m not sure what my decision would be. Reese does acknowledge that his decision to embrace the war was his decision. Surely another trolly problem was borne from his misfortune.
The translation is pretty amazing; not sure if it’s by virtue of translating from a more complicated language like German to a simpler one like English that brings in so many words I’ve yet to come across, but it’s really amazing how expansive Reese’s vocabulary is. It gives way to some pretty purposeful and beautiful descriptions. There’s something powerful about the juxtaposition between him being a soldier and his clear skill as an artist, yet, what makes Reese’s text so profound (in addition to the obvious fact that his recount is one of the only from the side of the Wehrmacht during WWII) is 1. his ability to tune into duty and ‘soldierliness’, and 2. the fact that his position in society was forced.
He explains he is meant to serve as a vessel to showcase the crudeness and evilness of war — not sure who, in times of war, would lean into it when all fibers of their being oppose it and all that it constitutes, but his path gave way to enlightenment for future generations (I’m a testament to that!)
The part of my manhood driving me to go to war, despite also opposing all aspects of it myself, was quickly dissolved by his honest recount and unfortunate reality.
He didn’t want to be there, but he embraced that he couldn’t alter his fate anyway. There are only really three decisions: 1. desert the war and die or become exiled by your own military, 2. embrace it superficially through the glorification of war in the name of patriotism, or 3. embrace it truthfully.
All that said, I’m not sure what my decision would be. Reese does acknowledge that his decision to embrace the war was his decision. Surely another trolly problem was borne from his misfortune.
December 30, 2025
Rediscovered in 2002 this is the memoirs of Willy Peter Reese who disappeared on the Eastern Front in 1944.
Reese’s writing is different from most war accounts, I think the word apt to use is “limn” in the way he is transforming his experience into a poetic and colourful tragedy, showing his gradual change into an indifferent soldier stealing from the civilians to keep his hunger at bay, joking about hanged prisoners, eternally cold in winter, parched in summer, fatigued by forced marches, and witnessing his fellow soldiers executed for sleeping on guard duty or deserting from battle
… and writing all of this in a tender and sensitive way, told with a hazy distance. There are no dialogues here, only descriptions melded with feelings.
As he almost never names the other soldiers, I perceive him as a loner, and it seems that the officers are absent to on their eternal retreat from the Russians. He is honest about his thievery, drunkenness and taking no prisoners (omitting the female prisoner they force to dance naked for them before greasing her tits with boot polish and getting her drunk). The strong point of his recollections is that it comes from a common infantryman who doesn’t support the Nazi regime and that he hasn’t been able to edit his account in hindsight as he perished in the war, a war he became so addicted to, that he volunteered to go back into the fray, I think to go look for himself which he lost early in the war.
If it hadn’t been for the modern weaponry, this could have been a carnivalesque tragedy about a Landser from the Thirty years War, going from battlefield to battlefield, wading knee deep in atrocities and with burning villages on the horison, thanks to the evocative and painterly language.
Reese’s writing is different from most war accounts, I think the word apt to use is “limn” in the way he is transforming his experience into a poetic and colourful tragedy, showing his gradual change into an indifferent soldier stealing from the civilians to keep his hunger at bay, joking about hanged prisoners, eternally cold in winter, parched in summer, fatigued by forced marches, and witnessing his fellow soldiers executed for sleeping on guard duty or deserting from battle
… and writing all of this in a tender and sensitive way, told with a hazy distance. There are no dialogues here, only descriptions melded with feelings.
As he almost never names the other soldiers, I perceive him as a loner, and it seems that the officers are absent to on their eternal retreat from the Russians. He is honest about his thievery, drunkenness and taking no prisoners (omitting the female prisoner they force to dance naked for them before greasing her tits with boot polish and getting her drunk). The strong point of his recollections is that it comes from a common infantryman who doesn’t support the Nazi regime and that he hasn’t been able to edit his account in hindsight as he perished in the war, a war he became so addicted to, that he volunteered to go back into the fray, I think to go look for himself which he lost early in the war.
If it hadn’t been for the modern weaponry, this could have been a carnivalesque tragedy about a Landser from the Thirty years War, going from battlefield to battlefield, wading knee deep in atrocities and with burning villages on the horison, thanks to the evocative and painterly language.
June 25, 2020
I have read the reviews, but I am none the wiser. I found it hard to get inside the book, because the numerous and lengthy descriptions of the Russian countryside, counterbalanced by short, sharp accounts of the action, did not resonate with me. It is a journal of the author's experiences in a war that we cannot conceive or imagine. An account of an infantry soldier operating in a hostile environment, unable to understand anything except his minuscule part on the Eastern Front that stretched thousands of kilometres; a battle for survival which he lost. Officers and battle plans are rarely mentioned, comrades came and went, and the majority of the author's time was spent marching in atrocious conditions over the endless Russian steppes. I believe the only way a reader can begin to understand what the author is trying to tell us, is to spend a dark night wading through ice-cold water up to our waists carrying thirty kilograms of military equipment. Preferably we'll arrange a thunderstorm, with forked lightning sizzling through the either, to take the place of gunfire. Then, we may know how a soldier feels when he knows his chances of survival are marginal at best. Read the book, and concentrate on what Willie is trying to tell himself, about himself. Fortunately, others picked up on the man's genius and shared his wisdom. Meanwhile, let us thank our lucky stars, we were not part of Hitler's dream.
September 9, 2020
I'll do my best to state my thoughts immediately after reading the first chapter, and reading the book as a whole.
The first thing which hit me was the prose. Perhaps Michael Hofmann is responsible for the eloquent prose, but I would attribute it more to Willy himself. The novel stands as a tragedy from just the fact that such a bright, poetic mind never lived past 23. To imagine the work he would've put out later in life, we can only imagine.
Reading through the novel, the mere reversal of a viewpoint from the "right" side of the war to the eyes of a German soldier steeped in propaganda, war, and the horrors attributed to both is shocking in the best of ways. Such a reversal pulls you out of your comfort zone and forces you to keep reading, unsure of what will happen, what he will see, what he will do.
The beauty of the world around him versus the brief stretches of combat and gore he touches upon cements how you can see Willy's mind slipping, turning him into a cornered animal, clinging to life with all he has. The constant battle between his numbness to the world in his darkest moment, compared to his celebratory attitude in even the briefest of respite, makes you cheer for him...even if you feel like you shouldn't.
This work has the most haunting final words of any book or manuscript I have ever read. I cannot recommend this enough, either as something academically stimulating, or as a work for those wishing for something to challenge them and their views.
The first thing which hit me was the prose. Perhaps Michael Hofmann is responsible for the eloquent prose, but I would attribute it more to Willy himself. The novel stands as a tragedy from just the fact that such a bright, poetic mind never lived past 23. To imagine the work he would've put out later in life, we can only imagine.
Reading through the novel, the mere reversal of a viewpoint from the "right" side of the war to the eyes of a German soldier steeped in propaganda, war, and the horrors attributed to both is shocking in the best of ways. Such a reversal pulls you out of your comfort zone and forces you to keep reading, unsure of what will happen, what he will see, what he will do.
The beauty of the world around him versus the brief stretches of combat and gore he touches upon cements how you can see Willy's mind slipping, turning him into a cornered animal, clinging to life with all he has. The constant battle between his numbness to the world in his darkest moment, compared to his celebratory attitude in even the briefest of respite, makes you cheer for him...even if you feel like you shouldn't.
This work has the most haunting final words of any book or manuscript I have ever read. I cannot recommend this enough, either as something academically stimulating, or as a work for those wishing for something to challenge them and their views.
March 6, 2025
Quiet days passed. There were the aftereffects of terror. I kept seeing in front of me the wall of fire, smoke, earth, and dust that we had lived and fought through. There was no escaping these visions, and whoever got away with his life would wear the burn scars of those hours as long as he lived. I had once again experienced the war in its full horror, as an apotheosis of devastation and death.
The blood dried in the clay and disappeared underfoot. The dead were buried. But after this experience it wasn't possible for life to go on; no one who had been through this could ever be a human and a son of God anymore. Yet things went on; they had to be borne and gotten over.
My will to live reawakened. My resources of mind and spirit stirred once more, as through replenished from some mysterious source. I wiped those days and nights from my life. Buried them deep, as though they had never been. I built a bridge across the chasm of that time and started a new life on the other side.
This book, similar in anti-war messaging to All Quiet on the Western Front, was moving and gorgeous through the entire text. I read it in one sitting, and will probably read again at some point. The edition I read included copies of the original manuscript as well as photos/documents from the author, which I though were touching - I'm glad this manuscript was able to be compiled and history preserved.
August 16, 2024
“Nothing could be more antithetical to my nature than having to become a soldier... than having to learn the use of weapons with which I would fight one day for a view of the world that was repugnant to me, in a war I never wanted, and against people who were not my enemies.”
“I saw no enemies. Only conquered peoples”
The author is young, intellectual, immature, reflective, emotional, unique, introspective. It’s very sad that his young life ended so soon.
He doesn’t appear to be a great soldier. He’s utterly against the war but re-enlists anyway which made no sense. I’d wager he partially joined just so he could write a letter saying he’s leaving to the girlfriend with whom his relationship ended recently. Now it’s your fault if I die. There’s no proof of this, but it would be in keeping with his erratic and emotional thinking
The writing on what the female nurse said to him was another reminder of how men and women are treated differently and are forced to see and navigate the world differently.
The sleigh ride in Russia at the end is beautiful
I’m truly sorry Willy Peter Reese died young
“I saw no enemies. Only conquered peoples”
The author is young, intellectual, immature, reflective, emotional, unique, introspective. It’s very sad that his young life ended so soon.
He doesn’t appear to be a great soldier. He’s utterly against the war but re-enlists anyway which made no sense. I’d wager he partially joined just so he could write a letter saying he’s leaving to the girlfriend with whom his relationship ended recently. Now it’s your fault if I die. There’s no proof of this, but it would be in keeping with his erratic and emotional thinking
The writing on what the female nurse said to him was another reminder of how men and women are treated differently and are forced to see and navigate the world differently.
The sleigh ride in Russia at the end is beautiful
I’m truly sorry Willy Peter Reese died young
August 15, 2025
I picked up this book and simply could not put it down — not because of sensational battle scenes, but because I was surprised by the clarity with which this young soldier looked at his own actions. Many of his thoughts felt strangely familiar to me — not “strangely foreign” as the title suggests, but strangely close. His fears, his worries, and the clear, almost detached way in which he understood the larger picture of what was unfolding were striking.
When he read of the Allied invasion of Normandy, he instantly understood: the future of Europe was being decided there. He already knew the war in the East was lost. The question now was whether the Western Allies could still shape at least part of Europe — or whether it would fall entirely under Soviet control. This, from the perspective of a young soldier on the Eastern Front, after years of brutal fighting and emotional numbing, is remarkable.
The book contains many such moments — details that gripped me, that fascinated me, and that kept me turning the pages. The author most likely died during the destruction of Army Group Centre in July 1944. For nothing. For less than nothing.
When he read of the Allied invasion of Normandy, he instantly understood: the future of Europe was being decided there. He already knew the war in the East was lost. The question now was whether the Western Allies could still shape at least part of Europe — or whether it would fall entirely under Soviet control. This, from the perspective of a young soldier on the Eastern Front, after years of brutal fighting and emotional numbing, is remarkable.
The book contains many such moments — details that gripped me, that fascinated me, and that kept me turning the pages. The author most likely died during the destruction of Army Group Centre in July 1944. For nothing. For less than nothing.
March 5, 2018
This is an exceptionally well written book in terms of style, voice, etc., but is not the greatest source of historical reading. The book is much more focused on the author’s individual experiences during the war, but even then he does not totally dive into his thoughts and feelings during combat. A lot of the book is narrating the Russian countryside.
It is very well written though, so I still have it four stars. The most valuable aspect of this book in terms of history is his commentary on the execution of partisans, the burning of villages during retreat, and the ramp up and cool down of moving into and off of the front line.
I would definitely recommend this book to people who are wanting to get another perspective at the eastern front as this book shows not everything was like the Battle of Stalingrad. At the end of the war, a lot of Germany’s war included retreat, outrunning the Russians, and burning villages so that the Russians could not use anything in them.
I cannot emphasize enough how well written this book is, but it could offer more in terms of historical value.
It is very well written though, so I still have it four stars. The most valuable aspect of this book in terms of history is his commentary on the execution of partisans, the burning of villages during retreat, and the ramp up and cool down of moving into and off of the front line.
I would definitely recommend this book to people who are wanting to get another perspective at the eastern front as this book shows not everything was like the Battle of Stalingrad. At the end of the war, a lot of Germany’s war included retreat, outrunning the Russians, and burning villages so that the Russians could not use anything in them.
I cannot emphasize enough how well written this book is, but it could offer more in terms of historical value.
June 10, 2025
While names, dates, and locations may change, this book about war is like all other ones I’ve read: loss of humanity is inevitable. Boys are forced into fighting with no real anticipation of the horrors to come. They commit their acts of barbarism for the betterment of their country. This is what they must believe to justify their moral descent. Here’s a quote that struck me,
We dressed ourselves in comedy and irony, toyed with ridiculous turns of phrase, and came to depend on our silly hysterics. Under this mask, though, a tragedy went over; an inner calamity took its implacable course. I drifted into a spiritual vacuum. The last of my values collapsed; goodness, nobility, beauty perished; my high spirits left me. The armor of apathy with which I had covered myself against terror, horror, fear, and madness, which had saved me from suffering and screaming, crushed any tender stirrings within me, snapped off the green shoots of hope, faith, and love of my fellow men, and turned my heart to stone. I was in decline . . .
December 15, 2019
Willy Peter Reese nos muestra de una manera delicada cómo una persona con intereses artísticos se va "deshumanizando". Esperaba mucho más del libro. Es muy reiterativo, bastante predecible. Muestra poco de lo que fue el frente soviético. Sin embargo es interesante, ver cómo una persona deja sus ideales nobles por sobrevivir. Libro de fácil lectura, interesante para aquellos que quieran conocer el frente soviético a través de los ojos de un hombre con intereses culturales y cómo se comienza a descomponer por la dureza de la guerra.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 4, 2022
I think that the writing style is eloquent and very well detailed. It is important to read from multiple perspectives, especially when we are used to hearing one side of the story.
It is definitely something that you need to mature in order to understand. It can be easy to just say that this is a work of Nazi propaganda but instead to share his personal experience. It should be read alongside other memoirs from other perspectives though.
It is definitely something that you need to mature in order to understand. It can be easy to just say that this is a work of Nazi propaganda but instead to share his personal experience. It should be read alongside other memoirs from other perspectives though.
April 23, 2018
Hier moet ik nog eens even goed over nadenken. Het is niet echt my cup of tea, maar het is wel heel bijzonder. Je moet er van houden, denk ik? En ik moet eerlijk zijn: halverwege ben ik overgestapt op diagonaal lezen, ik heb het boek dus niet tot in de laatste hoekjes en gaatjes gespeld. Drie sterren, helaas. Maar ik denk dat dat meer aan mij ligt dan aan het boek.
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