Blood Red Snow Quotes

“If we didn’t know that the devastating shellfire was coming from the Soviets, we could be forgiven for thinking that here, on 13 December, the end of the world had begun.”
― Gunther K. Koschorrek, Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front

“If we didn’t know that the
devastating shellfire was coming from the Soviets, we could be forgiven for thinking that
here, on 13 December, the end of the world had begun.”
― Günter K. Koschorrek, Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front

“Once, in front of an assembled group, he asked a tank grenadier, who had only been with us three days, if he had been able to ‘integrate’ himself yet. The young soldier, who came from Upper Silesia, and spoke German in a rather humorous and twisted form, looked at the Old Man in a rather quizzical manner, but then, seemingly having understood, answered, ‘I don’t know yet, Herr Oberleitnand!’ We could see that the Old Man had not expected this answer. He therefore asked: ‘Why not? You’ve been here with us for three days!’ ‘Jawoll, Herr Oberleitnand!’ answered the man. ‘But I only got my first black crap tablet two hours ago!’ The entire group just howled with laughter! The soldier thought the Old Man had asked him if the charcoal tablets had helped his diarrhoea. The Old Man laughed with us of course, but he didn’t realise that we were laughing over the delightfully down-to-earth answer to the posh way the question was put to him. The Old Man had of course only wanted to know if the soldier had found himself at ease in our group.”
― Gunther K. Koschorrek, Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front

“We are now standing on top of a small hill and can see something of the city. More black smoke and smouldering fires—a terrible sight, and we can feel Stalingrad’s hot breath. This must be how Rome looked after Nero put it to the torch The only difference is that here the inferno is made worse by the screaming shells and lethal explosions, increasing the madness and giving the onlooker the impression that he’s witnessing the end of the world. The further we penetrate into the city, the closer the shells fall around us. ‘The usual evening blessing from Ivan,’ remarks the medic.”
― Gunther K. Koschorrek, Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front

“Rumours are often the only source of information for the common soldier. Even if they don’t exactly fit the facts, there is normally a certain amount of truth in them.”
― Gunther K. Koschorrek, Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front

“What they meant was that we, the young squirts, will shit in our pants the first time we get fired upon. Nonsense!”
― Gunther K. Koschorrek, Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front

“their home was the front-line trench or the foxhole—there, on the main battle line, where day after day they worried about their survival and killed their enemies in order to avoid being killed; where each man fought as a unit but in the end had to rely upon himself; where the earth around them often turned into a burning hell; where they sensed the ice-cold touch of death when a glowing hot splinter or a fizzing bullet searched out their living bodies; where the shredded corpses of their enemy were heaped in front of them; and where the piercing screams of the wounded would mix with the barely audible calls of the dying, touching them as they cowered deep within the ground and pursuing them in their nightmares. There”
― Gunther K. Koschorrek, Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front

“The sky is glowing over Stalingrad. Greyish-white smoke billows from the ground; flames shoot high into the sky in between. The long probing fingers of the searchlights tear at the half-darkness of the breaking day. There must be a lot of aircraft up. Bombs are ceaselessly raining down on a city that has been condemned to death. The explosions merge into one another, creating a devastating inferno.”
― Gunther K. Koschorrek, Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front

“Therefore it will probably be a day like those before, with little hope and the unasked questions. Who will it be this time? Who will lie cold and stiff on the brutal and terrible Russian soil? Whose death will be witnessed and mourned by close friends?”
― Gunther K. Koschorrek, Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front

“Driving across the bumpy steppe, we are thrown up to the canvas roof over the truck and hold on to the framework of the flatbed for all we are worth. We”
― Gunther K. Koschorrek, Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front

“We walk quietly beside the vehicles, in order to keep warm. I have to rub my eyes continually—the constant staring into the fog and the cutting cold is affecting my sight. Whenever we watch we imagine figures in front of us and clutch our weapons that much more tightly.”
― Gunther K. Koschorrek, Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front

“The soldiers look like dirty brown lumps of clay glued on to the white camouflaged tanks as, for the first time, I see our enemies in front of me. A faint shudder goes through my body. If they get me, everything is over, because we have often heard in gruesome detail what they do to German soldiers. There is a mixture of excitement, fright and rebelliousness about what could be happening to us. My mouth is dry and I grip my carbine more tightly.”
― Gunther K. Koschorrek, Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front

“Some clever individual takes wine bottles half full of petrol and sticks a cartridge case with two holes in the side up through the cork. The gas which escapes up through the cartridge case is ignited and burns evenly, lighting up the bunker better than the usual Hindenburg candles, which are in short supply anyway.”
― Gunther K. Koschorrek, Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front

“For heaven’s sake, they are forever going on about the ‘proud, successful German advances’ in the Army news bulletins, but here in Stalingrad I haven’t seen anything of that. The only thing I understand is that we are holed up in these ruins like cowering rats, fighting for our lives. But what else can we do, given the Russian superiority?”
― Gunther K. Koschorrek, Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front

“The intermittent explosions and general racket from the Stalingrad front are barely audible here. At night the sky is always red, and the para-lights of the Rollbahn UvD† can often be seen out searching for likely targets. This”
― Gunther K. Koschorrek, Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front

“With a gesture of his hand towards the water, the Feldwebel now demands: ‘Drink, Ruski!’ The old fellow looks at him with a crafty expression, smiles and refuses several times while repeatedly saying something like: ‘Pan karosch, pan karosch.’ The Feldwebel now becomes impatient. He grabs the old fellow by the neck and shoves his face in the bucket; the old boy chokes and swallows. He looks a bit surprised, but not too concerned. In other words, the water’s safe.”
― Gunther K. Koschorrek, Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front

“The train company does not have that much to carry, but the rest of us are loaded down like pack animals—we carry the full kit with blanket and ground sheet, steel helmet and heavy winter coat thrown over it. We have a full ammunition pouch on the belt, on our backs the kitbag with the field canteen, and on the other side the folded entrenching tool. A gas mask is slung around our necks, resting on the chest, and the heavy rifle swings back and forth from its strap round the neck. Lastly, a ditty bag is carried in one hand, filled with clean socks, underwear and similar items. The whole lot weighs about 40lb.”
― Gunther K. Koschorrek, Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front

“In the distance I can see a group of figures marching in a long row. As they come closer I can see that they are mostly women, loaded down with bundles. Some men are walking along carrying nothing. Hans Weichert gets annoyed with the men for allowing the women to carry the heavy loads while they just walk along beside them. Our wagon chief, the Obergefreiter, explains: ‘In this part of Russia that’s normal. The pajenkas, the girls, and the mattkas, the mothers or women, are from childhood taught to do what the pan, or man, tells them to do. The men are real layabouts: they decide what’s to be done. Whenever you see them they are always walking alongside the women. Indoors they are usually to be found lying on the clay ovens asleep. Nowadays you mostly see only old men—all the youngsters have gone off to the war.”
― Gunther K. Koschorrek, Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front

“The survivors of the last war were tasked to become the admonishing emissaries of those who had perished on the battlefields, sentenced to eternal silence. This”
― Gunther K. Koschorrek, Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front

“the days and weeks in which we distraught Germans tried to escape the Stalingrad encirclement, finally fleeing headlong across the frozen Don under the shattering live fire from the approaching one hundred Russian tanks. This incident ended a never-to-be-forgotten experience as, almost deafened from the roar of the exploding shells and the incessant clatter of tracks, and blinded by the flashing close behind us, we made our way over mountains of emaciated corpses and wounded comrades whose blood stained the snow red, to the safety of the other bank of the Don, which, the day before, had seemed so peaceful covered in a mantle of fresh snow.”
― Gunther K. Koschorrek, Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front

“convalescence.”
― Günter K. Koschorrek, Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front

“Iron Gustav”, a Soviet combat fighter, which Ivan also uses at the front lines. It”
― Gunther K. Koschorrek, Blood Red Snow: The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front