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Death March Into Russia: The Memoir of Lothar Herrmann
In this rare World War II memoir, Lothar Herrmann, a soldier from the Wehrmacht, details his unimaginable experience as a German Prisoner-of-War in the Soviet Union.
Hermann grew up in Bavaria, going through the RAD (Nazi Labor Service) before being conscripted into a Wehrmacht Mountain Division (the Gebirgsdivision) in 1940. He participated in Germany's advance through southern Ukraine in 1941 and, in 1944, was arrested in Romania while retreating to Germany. The Romanians passed him onto the Soviets, who placed him in a forced labor camp, where he watched two-thirds of prisoners around him die. In 1949, Herrmann was finally released to Germany and returned to Bavaria.
Three million German troops were taken prisoner by the Red Army and around two-thirds of them survived to return to Germany in 1949, but their stories are little known. Klaus Willmann draws on interviews he conducted with Herrmann, to recount these astonishing recollections in the first-person. Depicting the challenges of growing up in Nazi Bavaria to becoming a Soviet prisoner-of-war, this is a gripping and enlightening account from a necessary but rarely explored perspective.
Hermann grew up in Bavaria, going through the RAD (Nazi Labor Service) before being conscripted into a Wehrmacht Mountain Division (the Gebirgsdivision) in 1940. He participated in Germany's advance through southern Ukraine in 1941 and, in 1944, was arrested in Romania while retreating to Germany. The Romanians passed him onto the Soviets, who placed him in a forced labor camp, where he watched two-thirds of prisoners around him die. In 1949, Herrmann was finally released to Germany and returned to Bavaria.
Three million German troops were taken prisoner by the Red Army and around two-thirds of them survived to return to Germany in 1949, but their stories are little known. Klaus Willmann draws on interviews he conducted with Herrmann, to recount these astonishing recollections in the first-person. Depicting the challenges of growing up in Nazi Bavaria to becoming a Soviet prisoner-of-war, this is a gripping and enlightening account from a necessary but rarely explored perspective.
- GenresHistory
256 pages, Hardcover
Published February 19, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 9, 2025
3.5/5
Very few accounts from the perspective of the ordinary German soldiers who were Russian POWs in WWII seem to be available to read in English. As such, this book is a valuable historical resource in many respects and a source of details not widely known.
However, it fell somewhat flat in terms of readability and holding my interest. This is probably due in part to it being originally compiled, written and edited by Klaus Willmann from interviews given by Lothar Herrmann, a WWII veteran, and published originally in German. Which was then translated into English. So it was run through two sets of interpretations, and I think a lot of nuance was probably lost in the process.
Something that annoyed me about the authorship was Willmann wrote the book in the first person, as if this was his story, but did not credit the actual source of the materials and memories, Lothar Herrmann, on the cover. Willmann acknowledges the FOREWORD author by name on the front cover, but doesn't even mention the person this all actually happened to? This seems very dodgy ethically, and is certainly misleading.
Very few accounts from the perspective of the ordinary German soldiers who were Russian POWs in WWII seem to be available to read in English. As such, this book is a valuable historical resource in many respects and a source of details not widely known.
However, it fell somewhat flat in terms of readability and holding my interest. This is probably due in part to it being originally compiled, written and edited by Klaus Willmann from interviews given by Lothar Herrmann, a WWII veteran, and published originally in German. Which was then translated into English. So it was run through two sets of interpretations, and I think a lot of nuance was probably lost in the process.
Something that annoyed me about the authorship was Willmann wrote the book in the first person, as if this was his story, but did not credit the actual source of the materials and memories, Lothar Herrmann, on the cover. Willmann acknowledges the FOREWORD author by name on the front cover, but doesn't even mention the person this all actually happened to? This seems very dodgy ethically, and is certainly misleading.
October 30, 2025
Excellent "as told to" memoir of a German soldier captured in 1944 and held in captivity in the Soviet Union until 1950, often under harsh conditions. One thing I found interesting was that from the conversations recounted in the book, there is no doubt that the soldiers knew of the atrocities and war crimes the Germans had committed in the Soviet Union, even if they had not personally participated in them themselves.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews