Missing Since Stalingrad...true story?

[Das Rikki]

I found an interesting book, Missing Since Stalingrad, on a website and am wondering if this is a true story or a novel. Anyone have any knowledge of this? Does not tell the soldier's name.

http://www2.kumagaku.ac.jp/teacher/~jud ... nindex.htm

Thanks!

[Cott Tiger]

I read this book online.

Very interesting story indeed. Many of the descriptions seem very authentic and seem to reflect conditions portrayed by other survivors in their memoirs.

However, some things don’t “feel” right. It might just be the style it’s written in or the translation or even the editing - I’m not too sure.

One example would be the author’s injuries. We never actually know what was wrong with him. He was convalescing for nearly two years in various camps but we never get to know what his injuries actually are. He mentions getting shot in the leg in the final few days in Stalingrad but there is no mention of how it happened!! He never mentions the injury again.

He also never mentions any particular friends or comrades. He will note the particular action of a fellow prisoner but there seems to be a total lack of any bond whatsoever with the people with whom he is undergoing this most horrendous experience.

Lastly and most annoyingly it never mentions the authors rank. This I find hard to fathom. Is he an officer, non-commissioned officer or just a soldier. Judging by the medical care he received I would have thought he was an officer but then he criticizes the fact that officers were getting more food in another camp!!

I would be interested to know if anybody else here has read it and what they thought about it.

[Alex Dekker]

I don't think the author has made up his story. Sure, we don't know all the details about his wounds etc., but at my first look at the text, I do think it's ok. I've read a lot of other stories about the POW's in Russia and had the chance to speak to a Dutchman who was a POW in Russia for 10 years. His story 'sounds' in many ways the same.

(And years ago, at the age of 16 or 17, I man used to tell me stories about his time in Russian camps. I worked in a supermarket, he used to go there. My grandfather knew him and the stories too, but I never heard how he became a POW).

Alex

[Cott Tiger]

I don’t necessarily think it isn’t true, I just think it is rather odd and unemotional. One further example is the fact that he doesn’t mention the fact that he has a fiancé waiting for him at home or that his younger brother was killed on the eastern front until the very final paragraphs.

The failure to mention his brother is particularly odd, because right at the end he gives this as a major motivating force behind his will to survive all the hardships – so why didn’t he tell us this sooner.

As I said before I think part of it is down to translation and his style of writing, but I just didn’t get a connection with the person telling what is essentially a very moving and important account of life as a German POW in the Soviet Union.

PS: Calling it a “novel” doesn’t help and is rather confusing.

[Fallschirmjager !]

I have read this memoir it does appear to be genuine. But it also does appear to have been slightly dramatised in certain sections. I am not sure if this is a result of inaccurate translation or an over enthusiastic translator, nevertheless a good read.

[Soldat7128]

I don’t necessarily think it isn’t true, I just think it is rather odd and unemotional. One further example is the fact that he doesn’t mention the fact that he has a fiancé waiting for him at home or that his younger brother was killed on the eastern front until the very final paragraphs.

The failure to mention his brother is particularly odd, because right at the end he gives this as a major motivating force behind his will to survive all the hardships – so why didn’t he tell us this sooner.

As I said before I think part of it is down to translation and his style of writing, but I just didn’t get a connection with the person telling what is essentially a very moving and important account of life as a German POW in the Soviet Union.

PS: Calling it a “novel” doesn’t help and is rather confusing.

I read the whole thing and it seemed credible to me. The things you point out are valid, but it didn't feel like something written by a professional author. It has the tone more of something someone wanted to get down before he forgot it all (to me), so I wouldn't use some relatively minor oversights to discredit it.

Having said that memories can tend to get exaggerated, and calling it a novel *is* misleading.