Good book I recently finnished

[jumpy]

Sniper on the Eastern Front
The memoirs of Sepp Allerberger - Knights Cross.
by Albrecht Wacker.
Publisher Pen and Sword Books Ltd (UK)
Year 2005
ISBN 1844153177
Format Hardback - 196 Pages

Very good book. Insightfull as to the role of the sniper on the battlefield and often harrowing first hand accounts of the front line fighting on the eastern front. A graphic memoir, providing a vivid insight into the atrocious conditions and brutal cruelty of this campaign. There was, we learn, no place for chivalry and few prisoners survived long after capture. Allerberger relates the cunning, disciplin and fieldcraft that not only saw him survive during the near constant action but made him such a relentless assassin.

Chapter 2
A Sniper Emerges

Using the 8x magnification telescope with which the company commander had issued me, I surveyed the terrain extending from our trenches through the small gap between the parapet logs, but could make out nothing suspicious. Cautiously I raised a rolled-up field tent, topped by a peaked field cap, above the logs while I observed the Russian positions. Their sniper was probably inexperienced in the art, for he fired as soon as the field cap appeared. I saw the flash of fire from his carbine and the merest trace of smoke, and also detected the slight shimmer on the lense of his telescopic sight. Now I knew his position. In this first engagement I had already shown my intuative feel for the snipers role. I made a mental note of the first rule of sniper combat: never fire at anything not positively identified. When allowed to fire at will, loose off only one shot from the lair, then either change location or at least desist temporarily from further activity and conceal yourself.
My opponent remained where he was, awaiting a fresh opportunity- a fatal error for which he was to pay with his life. I placed the rolled tent on the parapet ledge as a rest for the forestock and cautiously poked the muzzle of my carbine through the observation gap between the logs. I could not use the telescopic sight because the crack was too narrow. The Russian was about 90 metres away, within effective range for the weapon's fixed sights.
I felt very nervous. The Jager were expecting a super-precise shot, and I was now confronted with the task, for the first time in my life, of deliberately aiming to kill a man 'in cold-blood'. Was this scrupulous? My throat was dry, my heart raced and while aiming the weapon I noticed how it trembled in my hands. I could not fire the shot in this condition and held back, taking aeveral deep breaths to compose myself. Colleagues surrounded me, watching with expectation. What could be worse? I settled the weapon into my shoulder once more, aimed carefully and hesitated. "What are you waiting for? Let him have it," somebody said from several yards away. This evaporated my tension. In a dream and with machine-like precision I began to curl my trigger finger. Taking up the pressure I breathed in, held my breath and squeezed. The rifle cracked, a thick wisp of smoke drifted accross the field of fire, obscuring my vision. A Jager watching through another slit in the parapet logs shouted, "You got him, man, right between the eyes. He's dead." The news of the death of the Russian sniper spread like forest fire through the trenches. Suddenly MGs began to bark, carbines cracked and somebody yelled, "Attack!" The Russians, completely supprised by our activity and the sudden assult of German troops, fled their advanced trenches for their main front line. We reached the abandoned positions without encountering resistance.
In curiosity, a group of us made a short detour for the hide from where the Russian sniper had been operating, a scattered pile of logs beneath which he had dug a hollow - now a shallow open grave - for his body. Beside his feet was a trail of blood. Two Jager draged the body free by the ankles. The Russian was a boy of about sixteen with crew-cut hair. The bullet had entered through his right eye. A bloody mash of brain and bone splinters covered his upper torso at the back, the fist sized exit wound in his head revealed that his skull had been cleaned of cerebral matter by the pressure wave of the rifle bullet. "You hit him cleanly with a single shot, dear boy, and over open sights at almost a hindred metres. You're good Sepp," a Jager commented. I stared at my victim with a mixture of pride, revulsion and bad conscience. All at once my stomach revolted and I vomited up my most recent meal of black bread, sardines in oil and malt coffe. My colleagues reacted with sympathy and understanding for my lack of control. A blue-eyed NCO, ten years my senior in years, head and shoulders above me in height and wearing a large reddish beard, comforted me with a striking north German accent: "No need to be ashamed, old man, it has happened to the best of us. You just have to get over it. Better to sick it up than **** your pants. As it happens, Pappa has a remedy..." and at that he withdrew a silvery shnapps flask from a breast pocket and offered me a slug. I took a mouthful and handed it back, thinking as I did so, " He looks like a Viking, the only things missing are the horns on his helmet." The idea of a Viking serving with mountain troops amused me and made me smile.
By now the Soviets had gathered their wits and had begun a counter attack. An hour later we were all back in the positions we had occupied earlier. I had passed the sniper's practical and was now accepted in the role by all and sundry. The admiration this engendered enabled me to shrug off the feelings of revulsion I still felt for my deed. I made a mental note of the second rule of sniper-fieldcraft: War is a merciless system of Killing and Being Killed. In action, sympathy for the enemy is ultimately suicide, for every opponent whom you do not kill can turn the tables and kill you. Your chances of survival are measured by the yardstick of how you compare in skill and objectivity as against your opponent.
This was a principal to which I remained true throughout. If I had an enemy in the crosswires of my telescopic sight and a finger on the trigger, his fate was sealed.

Leaving asside the politics of WW2 and the objective morality of right and wrong as we see it now in relation to the war and germany's belief in itself and certain ideals back then, I cannot recommend this book enough. As an eyewitness account, it leaves no doubt as to the visceral nature of the figting on the eastern front and the un-ending malestrom that sucked up all of europe into its rending, grinding maw.