Over the years I have read much about World War II. It started with a whole series of books that my grandfather had. These books were mostly pictures and they covered all the war years in both theaters, both Atlantic and Pacific. As a pre-teen I was fascinated by the photographs of the soldiers and the war equipment. On through the years I have many books about the war, books such as the Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich and The Bunker which was about the final days of Hitler. A couple of years ago I read a book called Iron Coffins which was written by a German U-boat captain who later became an American. My most recent read was written by a Dutchman who joined the German Waffen-SS. His name is Hendrik C. Verton and the book is In The Fire Of The Eastern Front and is about his experiences as a soldier in the German army. I was all prepared to greatly dislike this individual because of his choice of uniform and after finishing the book I can say I still don't care for his views on the war, but found myself totally drawn into his story. One might wonder why a young Dutchman would want to join an Army that had attacked and occupied his country and killed many citizens in the process. He mentions in the book that some of the people in his land were hoping for a United Socalist Europe after the war and they saw themselves as fighting against the Bolsheviks (Russians) whom they believed would attack and rule Europe. Also he mentions that the Nazi occupying soldiers made quite an impression on some of the young men of his country. There were other reasons but I won't go into everything here on this post. In the winter of 1941-42 young Verton found himself on the Eastern Front fighting the Russians and the Russian winter. The descripition of his involvement in the war was very riveting and it was hard to put the book down. In the summer of 1942 he became ill with typhus and was sent back to a hospital in Poland. He would recover there and be assigned to a training unit for a couple of years. He was thrust back in to the battle in East Prussia on the river Oder in a city called Breslau where the Germans would make their final stand against the Russians. The brutality of that period, which for him was from December 1944 to May 1945, was truly unbelievable. Breslau was a city of over 600,000 people and had not been touched by bombing until the Russian invasion that winter and by the end of the war in May of 1945 the city was almost totally destroyed. Verton's description of what the russian soldiers did to the people of city as they invaded is hard to fathom. That portion of the book was the most compelling, that last stand of the German army against the Russians. What the Germans did to the Jews and what the Russians did to the Germans, Poles and anyone else they came into contact with is the real tragedy of World War II. Hendrick Verton concludes the book describing how the German people were treated after the war, he became a Russian prisoner of war for a while and even after being released stayed in Breslau for a number of months. His description of how the citizens survived after the war is vivid and makes for interesting reading. One section made me mad and that was where Verton accused General Dwight Eisenhower and the Americans of withholding food from prisoners of war in a quote "deliberate program of extermination". I certainly don't believe that and would have to see definite proof of an assertion like that. I just don't believe that it happened. In the final chapters he tells of how he regained a life after the war which wasn't easy because he had to have a false identities and could not return to his native Holland because he would be viewed there as a German collaborator, and reprisals against collaborators were taking place there. He also met his wife in the year after the war in East Prussia and he gives some pages to their developing relationship and marriage. All in all it was a fascinating book. It gives you a look into the other side and horrors that they went through duing this war. Even though I don't agree with Mr. Vertons politics and his activities in the war, he was just a soldier like any other fighting for what he believed in, missing his family, suffering through horrendous circumstances. This book was released in 2007 so it is a new account of someone's memories of the war. As far as I know Mr. Verton is still alive and at this point would be in his mid-80s. He was 18 years old when he entered the German army, 22 when he was discharged. Although I don't agree with his assessment of many of the things in this book, I certainly recommend it and you will leave it having a better understanding of what went on during that troubling period of world history.