QuietlyKat’s Reviews > Blood Red Snow > Status Update

“…Gustav Koller didn’t survive. Just months later I would learn of his fate… Sergeant Koller was part of every suicide squad, and on 10 November 1944 he was killed with his men while storming an enemy position.”

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💔

“I wonder why the negative attitude that I had only a few months ago has changed so quickly into a positive one? The continuous drip-drip of propaganda, with its slogans like ‘duty to the Fatherland’ and an ‘honourable contribution’ for a ‘Greater German Reich’, has had its effect on me. I’m quite convinced that I’m fighting for a good cause.”

Propaganda, it’s a hell of a drug.

“As soldiers, you know that war also can mean death. But to talk about it without experiencing it is like talking about a house on fire without being in it. We have been in the fire for days and experienced the searing heat, and we have lost many of our comrades.”

2/2

“God, in the bunker area near Businovka we were all so full of eagerness and the desire to win! And how impatiently we waited for the opportunity to fight at the front! Now, after exactly three weeks in combat, no one talks of heroism or enthusiasm any more. On the contrary, the only wish is to get out of this death trap alive. This is not war as we imagined it would be, and of which we talked.”

1/2