Sniper on the Eastern Front: The Memoirs of Sepp Allerberger, Knights Cross

I have of recent times taken to reading memoirs or stories of snipers and their roles within the battlefield strategy. It is facinating how a well placed individual (or team),with the appropriate skills, can influence an engagement, a battle or political will with, primarily, a single shot weapon.Also of recent times I have taken a much more active interest in the history surrounding the Russian or Eastern Front of WWII having been brought up on a diet of the 'sexy' Western Front. D Day, Dieppe, El Alamein, Cassino, 'Market Garden', Battle of the Bulge and the crossing of the Rhine. But having read Beevors "Stalingrad' and 'Berlin' along with Max Hastings 'Armageddon' is was truly eye opening to see the vast expanse of battle, the inhumanity and the utter human waste and devestation wrought on both German and Russian alike. So it was on to this book, a book promising to not only cover both of these topics but also grant a rare insight to the ways and whys of a sniper in a theatre that epitomized 'total war'.So how did I find it? Certainly readable although the author Wacker isn't my sort of writer. I found his constant references to how tired the soldiers were and the constant referral to the term 'Landsers' a bit tiresome. I got it after the first ten references and the reader can pick this up through the story line! This also goes for the recounting of the 'bullets impact' on the human flesh. I can see he was trying to express the horror a bullet, especially the explosive bullets which were being used by both sides, imparts on the human body but by repeating the process over and over it begins to lose its impact (no pun intended). Once or twice conjurs up an image and allows you to experience something first hand, at the tenth time my eyes blur and my mind switches off. It's a shame because this describes real war, not something off movies or Playstation!The constant references and vivid detail given to the Russian atrocities, whilst anything done by the Germans, was referred to rather generically and somewhat sanitized. It comes off sounding a little one-sided.I guess I can understand it as Sepp wouldn't be the first person to impart his story and 'diminish his or his comrades responsibility'as I am sure he has enough ghosts to live with without exposing things done by him or fellow soldiers in the heat of battle.Lastly I said I had an interest in how a sniper deploys in such an environment and I came up questioning the assertion that one man (normally Sepp), with only a rifle, could hold down an attacking force (especially Russians)in a sector for a period of time. It is well documented that Russian tactics were aimed solely on the offensive with no consideration given to the casualties incurred. They believed in a maxim of throwing men and material at their objective until they were either annihilalated or overcame their foe with superior numbers. Therefore I express doubt that one marksman (sniper), shooting at one man at a time, would hold up a formation for a period of 6 odd hours. On the other side of the coin I have to ask myself then why would the author write this if it isn't based on fact? It is a defined sniper tactic today to play a part in defensive operations but with the tactics employed by Russian troops at the time I would suggest a sniper would move on quickly or be run over! Surely it wouldn't be to build up Sepp into some 'super sniper' or suggest Germans were better than Russians. I don't believe either need building up. With what was endured throughout 1941 -45 on that front by both sides, all who fought and who survived deserve hero status in my opinion.The reader can form his/her own opinion on this.Having said all this I enjoyed reading Sepps story. Who he was or why he masked his name doesn't interest me. Fiction or non-fiction, it exposes the hardships and privations inflicted on an unfortunate generation of German and Russian youth. It shows how primal war is and how measured we now must be before we commit the youth of today to the experiences only armed conflict can bring. A brave story by a brave man. For the historian or student of WWII you may have a 'but' in mind when you read it but it does allow an insight into the life and times on the Russian Front during 1943 -45, albeit from one side only, but combine this with other reading and you will truly appreciate the massive travesty that was the Eastern Front. Very readable.

I admit that I had relatively low expectations for Albrecht Wacker's SNIPER ON THE EASTERN FRONT. The rather lame title led me to believe that this was a modern-day "Landser-hilfe", that is to say, a badly written, clichéd, guts-without-glory war tale of the type that proliferated on post-WWII German bookshelves. Nothing could be further from the truth. SNIPER is probably the most engrossing book I've ever read about life and death on the Eastern Front, and one of the harshest looks at war ever printed.SNIPER is the story of "Sepp Allenberger", who served three years as a German Army sniper in Russia. The name is a nom de plume, since if Allenberger's identity were commonly known in Germany he would, given the antimilitaristic spirit of the modern-day Germans, suffer according social ostracism. (The unofficial compact w/WWII vets is, "You don't talk about your heroics, and we won't pillory you for fighting in Hitler's army.") Allenberger's military career began in wholly ordinary fashion; he was a drafted soldier from a small town who served in the infantry during the invasion of Russia. Not too long after he arrived there, however, Allenberger got his hands on a sniper rifle and demonstrated that he had a special talent for placing bullets precisely where he wanted them to go.Young Sepp (he really was just a kid) was a self-taught hunter of human beings, the Germans being laggard in their understanding of sniping as a tool of modern warfare. By the time he was finally sent to sniper school, he was already an expert at killing from a distance. The book is unclear just how many Russians fell victim to his weapon, but in one day alone he accounted for twenty-one Red Army soldiers, so a figure of two or three hundred is probably conservative. As a sniper, he was marked for a very horrible kind of death should he ever be captured, and only after discovering the fates of several of his comrades did he learn that self-effacement would make him live longer. Much of Wacker's prose (which is often stiff, as he's a technical writer by trade) is spent describing the life, philosophy and methodology of snipers, but overall, the book is simply one soldier's tale of combat in the East. And a terrifying one at that.There is probably no horror that can be committed by human beings that Allenberger didn't witness firsthand - the torture and mutilation of prisoners, the casual execution of innocent people out of sheer bloody-mindedness, the slow death of comrades from festering wounds, and in two of the books' most appalling sequences, organized cannibalism and a gang-rape/murder which was almost impossible to finish reading. Many people "get" that the Russo-German War (1941 - 1945) was an appalling massacre from start to finish, resulting in more than 32 million dead, but it is one thing to see the figures and another to be dragged through the bloody muck of the holocaust by one who was there. The suffering of the ordinary front-line soldier, who was underfed, poorly clothed, covered with lice, and perpetually exhausted even during "quiet" spells on the front, is hard to concieve, but Wacker, whose pen gets sharper as he warms to his subject, made me concieve it.SNIPER is a terse and engrossing soldier's story which I would highly recommend to anyone looking for an honest understanding of the Eastern Front. But it is not for the faint of heart.

O autor escreve de maneira superficial, detalha os combates mas sempre perde o ritmo pois sua narrativa é quase um relatório do que observou e vivenciou. Falta emoção! E suas opiniões sobre os combates são espelho da propaganda nazista, os inimigos sempre são brutais torturadores e estupradores, se esquecendo das atitudes mais do que documentadas dos soldados nazistas. Aparentemente ele crê piamente na teoria da raça dominante lutando contra os "untermenschen". A descrição da brutalidade de um combate corpo a corpo é bem real, mas carece da emoção que um bom escritor daria ao livro.

One of the books I have been wanting to read all my life. A must read for any ww2 fan or sniper fan. English wording is sometimes poorly translated but that does not distract from the shocking and raw first hand account of the German sniper. Almost impossible to find this book domestically in Japan.

証言者はアルプス山岳部隊(GJR144)所属の伍長で、機関銃兵だったが余りの死傷率に嫌気がさし、鹵獲したロシア軍狙撃銃を手にして自分で練習し、狙撃兵を志願すると、めきめき戦果をあげる。普通は200m以下の射程、400m以下でも当てたら芸術のところ、ある時など600mでヒットさせる神業！！18名の敵を次々葬るような活躍の一方、東部戦線の極限下の悲惨な状況が生々しく語られる。辛うじてロシア軍の包囲を逃れてからはルーマニア、ハンガリーの敵中脱出、その中で目にしたロシア軍の想像を絶する残虐行為（ロシアは今も昔も自国民に対しても野蛮で無慈悲だ）と苦難と悲劇の連続！！彼の必殺の銃弾は迫るロシア部隊を怯えさせ足止めさせた。戦友のために自分の腕前（十字勲章1級）を使ったのであって、戦果を誇るためではなかった。戦後50年経って口を開いたが、名前も仮名で、戦いの日々の想いが圧倒的な迫力で伝わってくる。判断よろしく戦場を離脱しチェコからオーストリアを経て故郷の村に帰還した。記録はWacker氏により読みやすい英語でまとめられている。

This is definitely one of the better books about the German effort in the east. Written in the first person, it gives a gritty, no-holds-barred account of the difficulties and horrors faced on that front. It sounds like the man must have scored many more hits than his official tally, but no matter how good he was, he was one of a very few against overwhelming odds. There are a few accounts of the bestiality of his opponents, which can only have increased the resolve of the Germans to defend their homeland. If nothing else, it gives a good account of the development of sniping as a recognised skill in the German army, an area in which they were lagging behind the enemy.

A good book, very honest