German Private's View of the War

Werner Mork served with the Afrika Korps in North Africa.

He was at the Battle of Ortona and also Monte Cassino.

His unit faced the Russian army on the Eastern Front.

He has written of his experiences with great honesty and in vivid detail.

Many of his recollections have been published on the web site of the German Historical Museum, but they are now available in English translation.

It is a fascinating story. You are invited to experience his journey:

Aus Meiner Sicht - The Memoirs of Werner Mork

 

Looks excellent.
Having been to Ortona, Cassino & Anzio I'll be interested in what he says.

 

Does look good. Interesting to note that the attitude of Austrian civilians was quite the same as the more 'German' sections of the Reich. Put's paid to the post war fiction that Austia was an unwilling participant, or pulled along by "fanatical elements".

Post war, the joke goes that Ausrtia's chief accomplishment after world war 2 was to convince the remainder of the globe that Adolf Hitler was German!

 

Its very exhausting for the Wehrmacht forces to fight everywhere without knowing their fate. But how lucky some had survived from this war.

 

Werner Mork's memoirs are quite extensive I have only been able to translate a small portion of them. In sections that I did not translate, he speaks quite extensively about the Anschluss and the fact that there was very little resistance in Austria to joining the 'Greater Germany.' Quite the contrary.


He also speaks quite a bit about the Fascist movements elsewhere in France, England and even the USA. All of that has been conveniently forgotten now. However, there is a 2008 French movie called Paris 36 (Faubourg 36 in France) that prominently features a local neighborhood boss who has aspirations of rising in the French Fascist party.


I have always marveled at how the German army was able maintain morale and the will to fight on for over two years when by February 1943 it was clear to anyone who could read a map that the war was lost.


Mork's account of that time has answered many of those questions for me.