Franz Kurowski - Infantry Aces: The German Soldier in Combat in WWII

Copyright 1994 by J. J. Fedorowicz Publishing, Inc.

Published in 2005 by

STACKPOLE BOOKS

5067 Ritter Road

Mechanicsburg, PA 17055

www.stackpolebooks.com

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed to J. J. Fedorowicz Publishing, Inc., 104 Browning Boulevard, Winnipeg, MB, R3K 0L7, Canada.

www.jjfpub.mb.ca

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kurowski, Franz.

[Infanterie aces]

Infantry aces : the German soldier in combat in World War II / Franz Kurowski ; translated by David Johnston.1st ed.

p. cm.(Stackpole Military history series)

Translated from German.

Originally published: Winnipeg, Man., Canada : J.J. Fedorowicz Pub., 1994 under title: Infanterie aces.

Includes index.

ISBN 0-8117-3202-9

1. World War, 1939-1945Biography. 2. Germany. HeerBiography. 3. Germany. HeerInfantryHistory20th century. 4. SoldiersGermanyBiography. I. Title. II. Series.

D736.K867 2005

940.54'1343'0922dc22

2004019959

ISBN 978-0-8117-3202-4

e-ISBN 978-0-8117-4319-8

This work is a collection of soldiers from the ranks who made a name for themselves in the Second World War. They performed deedseither alone or with a number of comradeswhich decided the outcome of a battle or performed other acts of bravery or leadership that lived up to the best of German military tradition. Although the term aces is usually reserved for fighter pilots, it seemed appropriate in this context to refer to these extraordinary soldiers as aces of their trade as well.

The stories of these few men, chosen from among thousands of others, are representative of their fellow soldiers and provide a fitting memorial to them. These men stand for all those who returned wounded and broken, ashamed and beaten, bringing the horror of their war experiences home with them. But these chapters are also a memorial to others: Those who came to grief in the vast steppes of Russia, in the ice storms of the Murmansk Front, in southeastern Russia, in Africa or in the final struggle for the Reich.

This is an authentic account of infantry aces, common soldiers who were tossed into the maelstrom of death that was combat and who rose to the occasion and frequently offered up their lives for their comrades. A kind fate allowed most of the soldiers in this book to return home. They survived a long odyssey of death and destruction that claimed so many friends and comrades. After a walk through hell and purgatory, there and back, there was for them a new day in Germany, something denied millions of other German soldiers.

They took on enemy units alone, battled the steel giants that were enemy tanks and carried wounded comrades hundreds of meters under fire to safety. They fought alone behind enemy lines. They took out bunkers and carried out patrols. They served as machine gunners in a thousand dangerous actions. They tackled an enemy vastly superior in numbers with antitank rifles, Panzerfuste (the German poor-man's equivalent of the bazooka), hand grenades, machine guns and submachine guns. They closed gaps in the front, defended their own lines, held river crossings open for their own troops to retreat over and drove out enemy forces that had broken into their own main line of resistance.

Through their actions they saved the lives of many thousands of their comrades. They guarded the front and stood fast in hopeless situations against an enemy one hundred times as strong as they. In this way they felt the inhuman grimace of war on their own bodies and survived, bleeding from many wounds. Here is their story: A perpetual road of horror and desperation, a road filled with blood and tears, at whose end, if they were lucky, stood a return home. Their experience taught them that war leaves behind neither victors nor vanquished, only victims.

Infantry Aces is a cross-section from the world of the common soldier in wartime, in which cruelty and toughness, but also comradeship and willingness to help, became perpetual assets. They were cast into the world of combat and death, playthings of world events, and only rarely did they emerge unscathed. Often reviled and scorned, humiliated and derided, they gave years of their lives in the service of their country, without knowing that they were nothing more than playthings in the hands of the powerful. But this in no way diminishes their accomplishments. They fought, were victorious and, in the end, were defeated.

Rudi Brasche as an Unteroffizier with the Knight's Cross.