Five Years, Four Fronts: The War Years of Georg Grossjohann, Major, Germany Army (Retired)

Five Years, Four Fronts: The War Years of Georg Grossjohann, Major, German Army (Retired). By Georg Grossjohann. Trans. by Ulrich Abele. Bedford, Pa.: Aegis Consulting Group, 1999. ISBN 0-9666389-2-1 (hb); 0-- 9666389-3-X (pb). Epilogue. Maps. Illustrations. Appendixes. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. v, 204. $29.95 (hb); $19.95 (pb).

"Georg will be a soldier" (p. 176). These words, spoken by his father, determined Georg Grossjohann's immediate future. Just two months past his seventeenth birthday and a proud East Prussian to boot, he enlisted in the German Army as a private soldier on 1 June 1928. His initial term of service was twelve years, the minimum enlistment period authorized under the terms of the Versailles Treaty (p. xvi).

Seventeen years later, in May 1945, Georg Grossjohann, holder of the Iron Cross First Class, the German Cross in Gold, several wound badges, and the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, was released from a U.S. Army prison camp. During those years he had gone from private soldier to major, from a soldier in the ranks to infantry regiment commander. He had proved himself time and again as a combat leader...