Bridgehead Kurland by Franz Kurowski

[Commissar D, the Evil]

Ah Jukka, and to think that I've always thought you were an optimist!
Fortunately, I suppose, I'm not wealthy and only have formal translations done of matters of which I'm already aware. However, I am never one to spurn good advice, given in the spirit of friendship.

Best Regards,
~D

[Wiking5th]

From Jukka - Unfortunately these translation were crude and needed good editor. Sometimes this didn´t happen and it resulted in such books "Army Group Centre" (Haupt) etc.

Oh great. I bought the the three volumes of that "Army Group" series by Haupt. Have not read them yet. I waited and debated about it for awhile, but caught them at a discounted price. Thought I got a deal. Sounds like there is a distinct possibility I may regret that "deal".

Oh well, like David says "some times you have to break a few eggs to get an omelette."

Thanks for the insight,
Wiking5th

[Commissar D, the Evil]

Hi Wiking5th, well, different people have different reactons to Haupt. I'm not particularly a Haupt fan, but I have a good friend who likes "Army Group South". Also, I think that if a book has only a small part that inspires me to look further into a subject, then it may well have earned its keep.
Kurowski's "Bridgehead Kurland " would have been a better book for me if I hadn't already known about Sepp Brandner's exploits with Sturmgeschutze Brigade 912 or the little section on 4th Panzer Division, a favorite unit of mine, had been a little longer and more detailed. I stand by my brief comments on the book, but the bottom line is:
You never can tell what will strike a person's imagination.
Best Regards, David

[Yomayo]

Hi guys, I see that some of yours have Kurland bridgehead book. In your comments I see that this book is poorly written. So, I want to save some $, and I need some help. Did someone have scanned maps from that book and could share with me? These maps are very essential for me. If you don't want give for free, I can pay for that maps. If you have offer please PM. Thanks.


Yomayo

[Jan-Hendrik]

Get yourself Hans Meier-Welcker's Abwehrkämpfe am Nordflügel der Ostfront 1944/45, it is not "only" focussed on Kurland but contains tons of good information, a thousend times more than this cheap Kurowski-Crap

Jan-Hendrik

[Uncle Joe]

And in which language is that book written? It may have tons of information but being in German is as useful to me as being in Mongolian to you! Time to translate that one too into a human language (Finnish or English, these are the only human languages in the world).

[Jan-Hendrik]

Finnish is closer to mongolian than german



Jan-Hendrik

[Richard Hargreaves]

Uncle Joe, if you can do Latin, German is a doddle. Well, I say doddle... It's a very logical language (a lot easier than English)... and a lot more useful than Latin (unless you have any Romans strolling around Helsinki...)

Anyway... Bridgehead Kurland is a terribly organised book (and fairly typical for Kurowski, sadly). I haven't seen Meier-Welcker's book (no copies on Abebooks ) but his other works are of a very high standard.

[Uncle Joe]

No, I can´t do Latin. And German is not logical, the only logical language in the world is Finnish. We have straight and logical word order, we don´t have idiotic genders for nouns, we have straightforward pronounciation etc.

[Reb]

An Indian friend of mine tells me Sanskrit is the most logical language in the world and while supposerly obsolete is being taught in indian schools and considered as a basis for a computer language.

Words can only mean one thing in Sanskirt. I can only wonder just how many words there are!

i doubt we'll be seeing too many ww2 history books in Sanskrit however.

cheers
Reb

[Michael Dorosh]

Sorry to bump this after so long, but I'm in the midst of a google search and genuinely interested - trying to find sources in English on 12th Panzer Division in the period June 1944 to VE-Day. Not a fan of Kurowski having been ripped off by his treatise on German forces in Italy.

Can anyone recommend an alternate source for either the Kurland battles, or even better, 12 P.D. in the last year of the war, preferably in English, though I would settle for a good German account if it had really good maps.