Aus Meiner Sicht (From My View) Excerpts from The Memoirs of Werner Mork

A Private's Life in the Wehrmacht during World War II Werner Mork, pictured above at age 17, turned 18 (military age) just two months prior to the German Invasion of Poland. Although he did not see it as such at the time, he surrendered his youth to war and to the German army. When the war broke out he rushed to enlist. He enlisted because he loved his country and felt himself to be a patriot. He enlisted because he admired and respected the country's leader, Adolf Hitler, who had settled the social unrest in his small town that had manifested itself as almost daily riots in the streets. He enlisted because he wanted to see Germany regain its rightful place as a respected power in Europe and undo the humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles. Most of all he enlisted because he wanted to help reunite the German populations who found themselves cut off from the Fatherland in Alsace-Lorraine, the Sudetenland, Danzig and East Prussia and put an end to the tales of their persecution that filled the newspapers daily. His memoirs chronicle the life of a ordinary solder in the German army, but it also reflects the gradual disillusionment of the German people and their eventual awakening to an new understanding of humanity and their place in the world.   Driving Supply Trucks in Africa - 1942 Marking time in Naples and Capri Flight out on a BV 222 Flying Boat Attached to Nachschub Abteilung 686 Driving the Chief of the Medical Staff Digging fortifications in the stony desert floor Driving the Hanomag 7.5 Ton Truck Driving Supply Trucks in Africa - 1942- Part II My Baptism of Fire British Jabos Attack Gruesome aftermath of the attack Tobruk Harbor Death in the Wadis Rear Echelon Bastards Army Brothels Air Raid hits POW camp Driving Supply Trucks in Africa - 1942- Part III Commando Raids B-17's Attack Tobruk Aftermath of the Raid I rescue a squad of Fallschirmjäger Americans Land in Morocco Retreat from El Alamein British Tanks on the Halfaya Pass Adieu Africa! Recuperation in Halberstadt - 1943 On a Hospital Train Back to the Homeland Why We Fight I Learn About Democracy The Fall of Stalingrad Ready for Duty Mork on Corsica - 1943 Camp life on Sardinia Overnight we are surrounded and outnumbered Evacuation to Corsica Under fire on the coast road Dueling FLAK 88's JU-52 flight to the mainland P-38's on the attack The Battle of Ortona - 1943 Transfer to a Front Line Machine Gun Team Artillery Barrage Feldwebels Müller's Death Oberleutnant Tschechow Finds a "Hero's Death" No Man's Land Nominated for an Iron Cross 2nd Class Matrimony Leave and the Trip Home The American Landing at Anzio / Nettuno - 1944 The "Chained Dogs" of the Feldgendarmarie Traveling through the Brenner Pass Partisans and Blackshirts Battle in Bologna Watching the Anzio Invasion from the Balcony Seats Malaria: Tormentor and Savior The Battle of Monte Cassino - 1944 - Part I The Gurkhas and the Poles Destruction of the Abbey Using Donkeys and Mules to Supply the Troops Assigned to an Old Italian SPA Truck Post-War Reunion of the Afrika Korps The Battle of Monte Cassino - 1944 - Part II Carrying Truckloads of Artillery Shells to the Front The Young Firebrands of the Elite Korps Morganthau Plan and Our Will to Fight Monte Cassino Falls; Our Disorderly Retreat Living Off the Land in Italy We Have Lunch with the Enemy The War on the Eastern Front - 1945 Movie Interrupted by the Feldgendarmerie Fit for Combat Glogau Military School Tragedy at Steinau We Face the Russians on the Oder River Fallback Toward Glogau The Russian Encirclement Jackboots and the Mud of Silesia The War on the Eastern Front - 1945 - Part II Tellermines in the Kitchen In and Out of the Glogau Stronghold Silesian German Refugees Reichsheini Himmler and Bloodhound Schörner We Mount a Counter-Attack on the Russian Line Face to Face with the Enemy Drumhead Court-Marshal Threatens Yet Another Miracle The War on the Eastern Front - 1945 - Part III Victims of the Standgericht (Drumhead Court-Marshal) Vokssturm (Civilian Home Guard) Panzer-Korps-Füsilier-Regiment 79 Oberstleutnant Otto Fondermann Lauban Recaptured! - Russian Atrocities The Death of Hauptmann Tschaikovsky Führer's Oders: Take No Prisoners Disaster at the 'Battle' of Brünn Hitler Meets a 'Hero's Death' in the Defense of Berlin The Russian Army and the Czech Partisans Close In Aftermath:     P.O.W. Cease Fire: We make a run for the American Lines Capture by a Czech Lynch Mob Tabor POW Camp On the Road to Pilzen Horazdovice POW Camp Shunned by my Comrades Starvation, Fear and Dispair Mork, the Super-Nazi? The Long Road Home The Homecoming...           It's So Great To Be a Soldier, Rosamarie! The Sound-Track of World War II For the Americans and the British the sound-track for the Second World was jazz and the Big Band sound. The same music was also popular in Germany and could be heard in night clubs and dance halls all over the country. All this in spite of the government's characterization of jazz as "degenerate music." The song "Es ist so schön Soldat zu sein, Rosemarie" (It is so great to be a soldier, Rosemarie) was extremely popular after the outbreak of the war. The song "Lili Marlen" dated to World War One and was revived as a favorite of the Afrika Korps. Its popularity spread to all of the Allied armies in spite of the official efforts to supress it. Lili Marlen     Werner Mork has also written extensively about his life growing up in the Weimar Republic and the early years of the Nazi Era. See: Growing Up in Hitler's Germany     I would love to hear your comments Contact me at: Daniel Setzer   For a view of the war in the Mediterranean theater from the American side see: Hymie's War