There are many biographies of former soldiers of the Wehrmacht, many of whom had fascinating and exciting stories to tell, and several of whom were highly decorated.
However, few can match Hans Sturm in his astonishing rise from a mere private in an infantry regiment, thrown into the bloody maelstrom of the Eastern Front, to a highly decorated war hero. A young man who had displayed fearless heroism in combat, earning him some of Germany’s highest military awards, Sturm hated bullies and injustice, and reacted in his normal pugnacious and outspoken manner when confronted with wrongdoing.
From striking a member of the feared Sicherheitsdienst for his treatment of a Jewish woman, to refusing to wear a decoration he felt was tainted because of the treatment of enemy partisans, Sturm repeatedly stuck to his moral values no matter what the risk.
Even with the war finally over, Sturm’s travails would not end for another eight years as he languished in a number of Soviet labour camps until he was finally released in 1953.
| BOOK ISBN |
9781781553930 |
| FORMAT |
234 x 156 mm |
| BINDING |
Hardback |
| PAGES |
320 pages |
| PUBLICATION DATE |
15 March 2015 |
| TERRITORY |
World |
| ILLUSTRATIONS |
60 black-and-white photographs |
Gordon Williamson is a retired civil servant born in 1951. Williamson is the author of more than fifty successful works dealing with various aspects of militaria and military history. A former member of the Royal Military Police (TA) whose father served as an MP in North Africa, Italy and Normandy during the Second World War, he has a special interest in military police forces of that conflict and has spent several decades studying and collecting photographs and ephemera relating to the German Feldgendarmerie and other police type formations of the Wehrmacht making contact with several former members of these units. An acclaimed military author, Kettenhund! The German Military Police in the Second World War is his first book for Fonthill Media.
