A Private's Life in the Wehrmacht during World War II

A Private's Life in the Wehrmacht during World War II

Werner Mork, pictured above at age 17, turned 18 (military age) just two months prior to the German Invasion of Poland. Although he did not see it as such at the time, he surrendered his youth to war and to the German army.

When the war broke out he rushed to enlist. He enlisted because he loved his country and felt himself to be a patriot. He enlisted because he admired and respected the country's leader, Adolf Hitler, who had settled the social unrest in his small town that had manifested itself as almost daily riots in the streets.
He enlisted because he wanted to see Germany regain its rightful place as a respected power in Europe and undo the humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles.
Most of all he enlisted because he wanted to help reunite the German populations who found themselves cut off from the Fatherland in Alsace-Lorraine, the Sudetenland, Danzig and East Prussia and put an end to the tales of their persecution that filled the newspapers daily.
His memoirs chronicle the life of a ordinary solder in the German army, but it also reflects the gradual disillusionment of the German people and their eventual awakening to an new understanding of humanity and their place in the world.

Driving Supply Trucks in Africa - 1942

Marking time in Naples and Capri
Flight out on a BV 222 Flying Boat
Attached to Nachschub Abteilung 686
Driving the Chief of the Medical Staff
Digging fortifications in the stony desert floor
Driving the Hanomag 7.5 Ton Truck

Driving Supply Trucks in Africa - 1942- Part II

My Baptism of Fire
British Jabos Attack
Gruesome aftermath of the attack
Tobruk Harbor
Death in the Wadis
Rear Echelon Bastards
Army Brothels
Air Raid hits POW camp

Driving Supply Trucks in Africa - 1942- Part III

Commando Raids
B-17's Attack Tobruk
Aftermath of the Raid
I rescue a squad of Fallschirmjäger
Americans Land in Morocco
Retreat from El Alamein
British Tanks on the Halfaya Pass
Adieu Africa!

Recuperation in Halberstadt - 1943

On a Hospital Train Back to the Homeland
Why We Fight
I Learn About Democracy
The Fall of Stalingrad
Ready for Duty

Mork on Corsica - 1943

Camp life on Sardinia
Overnight we are surrounded and outnumbered
Evacuation to Corsica
Under fire on the coast road
Dueling FLAK 88's
JU-52 flight to the mainland
P-38's on the attack

The Battle of Ortona - 1943

Transfer to a Front Line Machine Gun Team
Artillery Barrage
Feldwebels Müller's Death
Oberleutnant Tschechow Finds a "Hero's Death"
No Man's Land
Nominated for an Iron Cross 2nd Class
Matrimony Leave and the Trip Home

The American Landing at Anzio / Nettuno - 1944

The "Chained Dogs" of the Feldgendarmarie
Traveling through the Brenner Pass
Partisans and Blackshirts Battle in Bologna
Watching the Anzio Invasion from the Balcony Seats
Malaria: Tormentor and Savior

The Battle of Monte Cassino - 1944 - Part I

The Gurkhas and the Poles
Destruction of the Abbey
Using Donkeys and Mules to Supply the Troops
Assigned to an Old Italian SPA Truck
Post-War Reunion of the Afrika Korps

The Battle of Monte Cassino - 1944 - Part II

Carrying Truckloads of Artillery Shells to the Front
The Young Firebrands of the Elite Korps
Morganthau Plan and Our Will to Fight
Monte Cassino Falls; Our Disorderly Retreat
Living Off the Land in Italy
We Have Lunch with the Enemy

The War on the Eastern Front - 1945

Movie Interrupted by the Feldgendarmerie
Fit for Combat
Glogau Military School Tragedy at Steinau
We Face the Russians on the Oder River
Fallback Toward Glogau
The Russian Encirclement
Jackboots and the Mud of Silesia

The War on the Eastern Front - 1945 - Part II

Tellermines in the Kitchen
In and Out of the Glogau Stronghold
Silesian German Refugees
Reichsheini Himmler and Bloodhound Schörner
We Mount a Counter-Attack on the Russian Line
Face to Face with the Enemy
Drumhead Court-Marshal Threatens
Yet Another Miracle

The War on the Eastern Front - 1945 - Part III

Victims of the Standgericht (Drumhead Court-Marshal)
Vokssturm (Civilian Home Guard)
Panzer-Korps-Füsilier-Regiment 79
Oberstleutnant Otto Fondermann
Lauban Recaptured! - Russian Atrocities
The Death of Hauptmann Tschaikovsky
Führer's Oders: Take No Prisoners
Disaster at the 'Battle' of Brünn
Hitler Meets a 'Hero's Death' in the Defense of Berlin
The Russian Army and the Czech Partisans Close In

Aftermath:     P.O.W.

Cease Fire: We make a run for the American Lines
Capture by a Czech Lynch Mob
Tabor POW Camp
On the Road to Pilzen
Horazdovice POW Camp
Shunned by my Comrades
Starvation, Fear and Dispair
Mork, the Super-Nazi?
The Long Road Home
The Homecoming...

Werner Mork has also written extensively about his life growing up
in the Weimar Republic and the early years of the Nazi Era.

See: Growing Up in Hitler's Germany

For a view of the war in the Mediterranean theater from the American side

see: Hymie's War