Crack of Doom

by Willi Heinrich

It's late 1944 and Hitler's Germany is in it's death throes. The German forces on the Eastern Front are being attacked on all sides by both the Soviet Army and partisans. In the middle of this bloodbath a German infantry battalion is sent on a suicide mission.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, War, World War II

313 pages, mass market paperback

First published January 1, 1956

About the author

Willi Heinrich was born in Heidelberg, and during the Second World War he experienced heavy fighting on the Eastern Front with the 1st Battalion 228th Jäger Regiment of the 101st Jäger Division. The same infantry unit featured in Das Geduldige Fleisch (The Willing Flesh; Cross of Iron).
During the war the 101st Jäger Division sustained a seven hundred per cent casualty rate; Heinrich himself was wounded five times.

After the war, Heinrich became a writer. His first novel, In Einem Schloss zu Wohnen, was written over a two year period (1950–1952). It was unpublished until 1976, after Heinrich was an established novelist. His first commercial novel, Das Geduldige Fleisch (The Willing Flesh), was published in 1955, and almost immediately was translated into English and published as The Willing Flesh (1956), by Weidenfield & Nicolson in the United Kingdom, and as Cross of Iron (1957), by Bobbs-Merrill in the U.S. To date, the novel remains in print, and is his most well known outside of Germany.

Though he began his writing career writing about the German experience in World War II, Heinrich later concentrated on writing melodramatic romances in the 1970s and 1980s. Willi Heinrich passed-away in 2005.

Reviews

[Eric Kinney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dark, dismal, and disturbing, Willi Heinrich's Crack of Doom is a brutal anti-war novel that harks back to the vividness of Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front" in it's gruesome portrayal of the Second World War. In the winter of 1945 as the Germans are forced into a bloody and agonizing retreat towards their own soil, almost no one is left untouched by the horrors of the Eastern Front. Commanders are told to claim victory in the face of impossibly overwhelming odds and the once proud armies of the Wehrmacht are nothing more than mangled battalions of mere hundreds. Despite their increasing losses, more blood must be gambled in a suicide mission to rescue a General abducted by Czech Partisans. Of the men assigned for this task include the reluctant Sergeant Kolodzi, a war-weary Captain Schmitt, and the likes of stubborn superiors such as Giesenger idiotically seeking promotion.

Heinrich gives his readers various viewpoints of the raging battles between the Germans, Partisans, and Russians, but unlike the more humanizing elements of Remarque's novel, Crack of Doom leaves little room for sympathy or heroism. Erratic Generals trying to save their own skin from court marshal are willing to waste countless lives in futile counter-attacks and local bands of Guerrillas who claim to be fighting for their country are just as willing to hang their own. It's almost impossible to genuinely care for any of the characters in this book who are out to save their own skin in a web of blame and betrayal, but Heinrich is a master at capturing the imagery and atmosphere of utter defeat. Though our general response to his protagonists is one of indifference, forlornness, or detest, the author reminds us that this is a story of characters struggling to survive in a world teetering on the edge of collapse. This is a world where those who try to remain true to a sense of duty and moral conviction will only be taken advantage of and where the phrase "honorable death" is just a synonym for suicide. Crack of Doom is a haunting reminder of pure total war where the common lines that separated humanity from barbarity, good from evil, are no longer relevant above the desire to survive.

[Murray · Rating 4 out of 5]

💀💀 War is hell - unglamorous, grim, brutal, bloody and demonic.

WW2 veteran Willi Heinrich etches this sordid reality into our hearts and truly makes the blood run cold.

He is a good writer. An honest writer. One of Germany’s best.

The retreat of the German army from Russia 1944-45 is a hard-edged story to tell. It is a strong story, definitely an important story.

💀💀Yet not for everyone.

[Alan (on December semi-hiatus) Teder]

In English language,translated from German,fiction,novel,military fiction,historical fiction,WWII,war fiction

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

The cover made this look like the most dreadful pulp imaginable, but it's thoughtful and intelligent, covering a little-seen area of the war: German forces against partisans in Czechoslovakia. The author, a former soldier, creates a very human, personal tragedy in which nobody is wholly innocent or guilty.

[carl theaker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great read by Heinrich. This one takes place in
Czechoslovakia as the Russians are pushing the Germans
out. Our man Sgt Kolodzi is mixed in the action with
the local partisans who have captured a General, his
own disenchantment with the war, and the new General,
who wants to make a name for himself.

Kolodzi is much like the Steiner prototype from the
'Cross of Iron', a resourceful, brave, NCO who has
a certain dislike of authority.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd classify this as a military novel. It's told from the German point of view in World War II, and Heinrich fought in Russia in the war so he knows what he's talking about. It's superbly authentic and beautifully done. Slightly better than "Cross of Iron" in my opinion. Both are great books.

[William Sariego · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting story but not as good as his The Cross of Iron. The narrative in Crack of Doom is all over the place, switching perspective of new characters with each chapter. Lacking a clear protagonist, it doesn't lend to empathy towards any of them.

[Donnacha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Raw and a real sense of WW2. A very good novel.

[M · Rating 3 out of 5]

Genau wie das echte Leben (in gewisser Weise).
Aber ich mag die "offenen" Themen nicht, am Ende lässt einen mit viel Rätselraten.

[Avis Gill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Story line shows the conflicts of WWII German and Partisans and how they exist/fight and the tactical ways they use. The everyday experiences makes the story believeable.

[JerryDeanHalleck · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not bad, and its good to read about the war from a German Point of view. But it seems too diffuse and wasn't as engaging as Cross of Iron. Maybe its a translation problem.