The Cursed Generation

Talking to Wehrmacht Soldiers for the Last Time

By: Christian Hardinghaus

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

The Cursed Generation: Untold Stories of Wehrmacht Soldiers

For decades, the Holocaust has rightly occupied a central place in our understanding of history. Yet there is a less explored facet of World War II—the personal experiences of the soldiers who fought on the German side. The Cursed Generation fills this gap, offering a nuanced perspective that challenges sweeping generalizations.
Germany's culture of remembrance struggles to separate Nazis from Wehrmacht soldiers, silencing many conversations about the latter's experiences. This fear of misjudgment has long affected the entire culture of remembrance in the country.

In German schools, military history or the everyday lives of people during the war are rarely discussed. As a result, few Germans today can imagine what it was like to be shot down in a fighter plane and drift alone in the Mediterranean. They do not know how their fathers and grandfathers endured the torturous heat of Africa or the unbearable cold and hunger in the cauldron of Stalingrad. Can we continue to make sweeping condemnations when we learn of the suffering inflicted on German soldiers by Bloody Sunday in Bromberg, the Rhine meadow camps, or the carnage of D-Day and the Battle of All Souls?
This book aims to correct the one-dimensional portrayal of German soldiers as emotionless villains. Through exclusive interviews with 13 eyewitnesses who served on various fronts, the soldiers recount their struggles, brutal battles, and moments of camaraderie and hope. They speak candidly about their childhoods in the Third Reich, what they knew and didn't know about the Holocaust, and their encounters with Allied soldiers. Many never told their stories out of fear and shame, but now, at the end of their lives, they want to set the record straight.

The Cursed Generation is a valuable addition to the historical record, providing a better understanding of the experiences of German soldiers in World War II without minimizing the crimes of the Nazi regime.

For more than five years, German historian Christian Hardinghaus professionally interviewed more than 100 contemporary witnesses to World War II with the utmost historical accuracy, without embellishment or moralizing.
The book was first published in 2020 and is one of the bestselling contemporary witness books on the German market. With this English edition, the stories will reach the whole world. This was the wish of the eyewitnesses, almost all of whom have since passed away. In this new edition, we invite you to listen to their voices.

Includes 38 original photos and drawings from the everyday life of soldiers at the time.

"Only a few of us were carried away to commit atrocities. But those few were enough to cause great harm. I don't blame myself, though. I'm a man of my time; I did what I thought was right."
Wigand, artillery man in Stalingrad)

Apologia for the Wehrmacht

Author comes close to perpetuating the clean Wehrmacht myth: there were a few bad people “like in all the armies” but all the rest were just young conscripts who were victims of circumstances.

He asks the men softball questions like “when did you first find out about the crimes of the Nazi party” - to which of course they respond that they were shocked, shocked to find out after the war. A common theme of the men’s stories is that they were passive victims caught up in events. Apparently they had no introspection about why they were being used to invade others. The bad stuff didn’t happen in their part. One did admit that partisans were hung but it was always other soldiers that did it.

The reality is that atrocities were widespread in the German military. Some participated. Most knew. It was not the same as the British and American military.

I know nothing!

If you’ve ever watched Hogans Heroes then you can already pencil in what they’re going to say every single time they’re asked about the holocaust, which is “I know nothing!” It’s amazing. None of them saw anything about this knew anything about this? None of them even seen any Jews mistreated they were just as shocked as everybody else. It’s just complete and total nonsense. A number of the stories were from people that still were children when they entered the army and were forced to fight and for them obviously I don’t expect them to know everything that’s going on, but they also have other soldiers that were more mature and for them to simply claim, “I know nothing!“. is ridiculous.

With that said the book is quite interesting and for the most part, I think it’s fairly credible, although not always and I would actually like to hear more stories from German soldiers about their experience in the war. I just find it to be very interesting. The reader did a good job.

Accounts from the other side

Really enjoyed this book, which is a series of over a dozen personal histories developed from interviews with common German soldiers many years after WWII. Most of these guys were in their teens during the war and are interviewed in their 80s Their reminiscences show the perspective from a different POV than is commonly portrayed.

Virtual Voice was better than expected, but some distracting errors. “Polish” was pronounced like if you would say “polish the silver” instead of something from Poland. Other mispronunciations as well. Also read figure numbers and captions from the original book verbatim from where they fell on the page. These should have been skipped or introduced outside of the narrative.

Also, Ch 1 is all intro, and while interesting to me, was too long and may be skipped without worry.

Computerized narration

You are warned in the beginning that it is narrated by a computer generated voice but it still makes listening to the book painful. Pronunciation is all over the place as if an editor never took the time to see if the computer narration was accurate barely made it an hour into the book.