back cover of the bloody road to death

Back Cover of "The Bloody Road to Death"

sven hassel

"A rising and falling rumble sounds continuously, broken now and then by the chatter of machine guns. The earth beneath us seems to shiver like a dying animal…

As soon as we get the order to fall out, we drag ourselves into the huts and drop down half-dead. The company was supposed to have held Deadman's Heights for another three days, but the company has gone out of existence. The greater part of us lie in mass graves. The lucky ones are in the field hospital. Deadman's Heights are just what the name implies. A hell on earth for the living…"

"Because of the magnitude of our losses at Stalingrad and the catastrophic shortage of reserve troops, our Führer has decreed that the period of pregnancy shall with immediate effect be reduced from nine to six months."

Obergefreiter Joseph Porta speaking to Obergefreiter Wolfgang
Creutzfeldt, Salonica, spring 1943.