John Stieber - Against the Odds: Survival on the Russian Front

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I want to thank my late wife,Hertha, for proof-reading all drafts and offering many constructive comments.My daughter, Christine Cann has given me much help in dealing with the typicalquirks of modern word-processors and printing the first sets of the completedmanuscript.

I am very grateful toJonathan Williams, my agent, for all his help and advice and for doing over andabove what I could have expected of him.

To all ESB colleagues manythanks for the encouragement they have given me and especially to Alf Kelly forthe helpful and copious notes he compiled on the first completed draft.

Finally, I wish to express myappreciation to all friends both here and in Germany, who read the manuscriptand made many valuable suggestions.

AUTHORS NOTE

It is many years since I decidedthat someday I would write a book about my experiences and adventures on theRussian Front in the last year of the Second World War. I think it was as muchas forty years ago when I started to keep a little note-book, recording namesof people and places, which I still remembered. My jottings included referencesto incidents, the nature of the countryside and memories of my thoughts andsensations of sound and smell. Retirement brought me time and peace of mind tosettle down to my task.

My biggest problem wasgetting background military information on the role of the DivisionHermann-Gring, in which I served, since most of its military records were lostduring the retreat. Painstaking research in Germany military archives andlibraries rewarded me with some information on my division's activities. Asoldier on the Front rarely knows exactly where he is, or even the date - so itis against the background of situations comparable to those I remember that Ihave set my narrative as well as I could.

Writing my story brought manymemories flooding back to me, far more than would have been practical toinclude in my book. Strangely enough, I found it more scary writing about someof the particularly dicey situations I survived on the Front, than when I actuallyexperienced them.

The past came back to me evenmore vividly in the summer of 1990. The Wall was down and I could againvisit my old boarding-school, Haubinda, in East Germany. I had expected neverto see it again and I gazed at it as if I could not believe my eyes. As I walkedslowly up the avenue, pausing every now and then, every step brought back newmemories to me. Sadly, I noted the absence of many lovely old trees and I wasshaken by the sight of a stark memorial to the dead of the Second World War.Suddenly I felt myself jerked back to the harsh reality of tragic events thathad taken the lives of many of my school-friends.

As I drew nearer to the mainschool buildings, the shabbiness of the once impeccably maintained exteriorbecame evident. The school bell no longer hung in its prominent position on thefront wall; only a rusty bracket remained to show where it had been. Once againI experienced the feeling of security that my school had given me in the earlyyears of the war. Shielded from all, but the most peripheral effects of theNational-Socialist doctrine, school life had continued with remarkablenormality. What a contrast were the years that followed, when gunfire became myconstant companion.

John Stieber

Blackrock, Dublin

April 1995