The Cursed Generation preserves thirteen oral-history interviews with German Wehrmacht veterans of World War II. Their memories span Stalingrad, North Africa, Normandy, the Eastern Front and captivity, while also addressing childhood under National Socialism, combat, comradeship, trauma and knowledge of Nazi crimes. Historian Christian Hardinghaus critically contextualizes these testimonies and adds a personal German perspective to the wider history of the war without minimizing the crimes of the regime.
The last voices of a generation that went to war for Nazi Germany
What did ordinary German soldiers experience at Stalingrad, in Normandy, in North Africa, on the Eastern Front, and in captivity — and how did they remember the war more than seventy years later?
The Cursed Generation preserves thirteen extensive oral-history interviews with former Wehrmacht soldiers. Their accounts document combat, fear, propaganda, captivity, homecoming, moral conflict, and the difficult question of what soldiers knew about Nazi crimes and the Holocaust.
More than 100 eyewitness interviews:
Historian Christian Hardinghaus spent years recording the memories of the last generation to experience the Second World War firsthand. Thirteen Wehrmacht veterans were selected for this volume and placed within a critical historical framework.
The witnesses describe very different paths through the war: Stalingrad and the Eastern Front, D-Day and Normandy, North Africa and Italy, prisoner-of-war camps in the United States, and the return to a destroyed country.
Their memories are neither treated as unquestionable truth nor reduced to stereotypes. The book confronts contradictions between personal recollection and historical evidence and asks uncomfortable questions about ideology, obedience, responsibility, violence, and memory.
- 13 in-depth interviews with former Wehrmacht soldiers
- Stalingrad, Normandy, North Africa, Italy, and the Eastern Front
- combat, captivity, defeat, and homecoming
- childhood and political socialization under National Socialism
- knowledge of Nazi crimes and the Holocaust
- memory, guilt, responsibility, and the silence of the postwar years
This book does not glorify the Wehrmacht or Nazi Germany. It documents individual testimony while acknowledging Nazi crimes, Germany’s responsibility for the war, and the Wehrmacht’s involvement in criminal warfare.
Available as
Paperback, Kindle eBook, and audiobook.
Paperback Hardinghaus Books | Kindle eBook Digital edition | Audiobook Audible edition |
