I already did that. I hope he’s better than the logo of his name with the ss-runes in “Hassel” on the cover promises…
From Porta’s kitchen (an unabashed Fan site).
The full synopsis of Reign of hell ( the Warsaw one). You’ll get the idea. Pick one up second hand in paper back for next to nothing. worth a read. Can be very funny in places. Probably not Stevey’s cup of tea as the hate Hitler, the Nazi’s and often fight SS men.
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The Camp At Sennelager
Explanation of penal battalions. Section waiting at a railway station and playing cards with French and British POWs. Porta has a collection of war souvenirs ready for trade with the Americans. Tiny tries to adopt a horse. Heide gets set up on a charge but Lt Löwe gets him out of trouble. Talk about the Commandant of Sennelager, Count von Gernstein and his commune with the Devil. Delivery of men for 999 battalion at Sennelager. Lots of dead among the men. Löwe gets into a dispute with their guard. The prisoners/volunteers are marched off to the prison. Tiny spots Gestapo Lutz from Paris and decides to deal with him personally. Inspection by Staff-Sergeant Hoffmann. Wolf interrupts. Lots of stories of life at Sennelager. Story of Lieutenant-Colonel Schramm, the camp executioner. Gregor, Sven and Tiny see Satan standing at von Gernstein’s window! Repercussions of this. Wolf and Porta extract information about a hidden stash of black market goods from an ex-general amongst the prisoners. -
Deserters
Dirlewanger and Berger. Regiment moves to marshland near Matoryta. Inspection by new divisional commander, and a stirring speech! Drunkenness in sergeant’s mess gets out of hand. Löwe to the rescue again. Talk about WUs (Wehrmacht Unwürdig - unworthy of army service). Trenches at the front. Description of Siberian snipers and Porta’s response. Russian propaganda. Offer of sanctuary for 999 battalion soldiers. Some of them plan to take up the offer and desert to the Russians. Reprisals follow. -
The Major From The Pioneer Corps
Story of Polish civilians forced to clear mines. Back to the marshes. The local wildlife has to get used to the fighting. Russians attack across the marsh… with tanks. Close anti-tank fighting. Tiny takes a Russian prisoner and makes friends with him! Lots of fighting. Sven gets a new pair of boots from a dead Russian. Encounter with British SS unit. Tiny explains his trick of acting stupid. Long march. Mission behind the Russian lines. Old Man insists on investigating in detail (while everyone else just wants to get back to safety). Porta and Tiny do some corpse looting. Another attack is planned. Description of Pioneers. Porta’s meeting with the Pioneer’s Major! The Major starts ordering people to attack the Russians in a generally suicidal manner. -
Down The Side Of The Mountain
Story of Kaminski. Preparation for another mission. This time the section has to hold a position on a mountain. They have plenty of ammunition which excites Tiny. They are led by a ‘dodery old colonel’ who hasn’t a clue how to give orders. Old Man effectively takes over command. Comment about Heide ending up as a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Russian army after the war. Attack by Mongol soldiers. Fun with the colonel and his complaints about Tiny and Heide. Tanks attack up the hill. Porta eats a couple of tins of meat and drinks a bottle of stolen sake. More anti-tank fighting and then the headlong retreat down the side of the mountain. Hiding in a Polish forest. -
The Pole
Progress through the forest. Heide cleans himself up to the amazement of everyone who doesn’t know him. Wounded private wants to surrender to the Russians. Old Man deals with him. To hide from the Russians the section buries itself under leaves and soft earth. Sven almost suffocates. Lack of food. Porta starts making up menus until the Old Man shuts him up. One of the new recruits deserts and is shot dead by the dreaded Siberians as he tries to surrender. Ladislas Mnasko, the Pole, turns up. His house is occupied by Cossacks. Section sets off to liberate it in exchange for help in crossing the river. Long wait while the Cossacks drink themselves into a stupour. Porta is anxious about their roast beef being burnt! Terrible discoveries in the house. The Pole’s wife and son have been killed by the Cossacks. Revenge is taken. -
The Way Over The River
Start of the Warsaw Uprising and Himmler’s response. Ladislas the Pole takes everyone to a ‘crossing place’… which turns out to be a fallen tree trunk across an abyss. The Pole and his sister cross and Tiny follows and nearly doesn’t make it. Slowly, everyone crosses in all sorts of different ways and various amounts of drama. Return to German lines and encounter with children in SS uniforms, who manage to shoot Barcelona by mistake (he’s only wounded). Section sets off for Warsaw taking in some anti-tank fighting along the way. Story of Tania the Russian doctor. Sven is hit in the neck by a bullet and is convinced he will be paralysed. He tries to get treatment but is accused of attempted desertion. Encounter with friendly MP (now there’s a first). -
At The Sign Of The Welcoming Goat
Himmler, Berger and Dirlewanger. Warsaw. Gregor and Porta discuss the war and the English. Streetfighting. Visit to The Sign Of The Welcoming Goat (where Porta has some sort of business deal with Piotr the Ukranian patron). They eat boiled crow and cutlet of dog. Encounter between army padre and badly disfigured captain. Various skirmishes. The padre is killed. Porta, Sven and Tiny set off to find food. Porta describes his Bouillabaisse. -
The Brothel
More about the Warsaw Uprising. Visit to The Kaiser’s Night Cap (the most elegant brothel between the Volga and the Rhine). Confrontation with the Madame. Heide has a fight with a parrot. Uule Heikkinen and half a dozen of his Finnish guerilla fighters arrive and start demanding whores. Various adventures before they succeed in their quest. Sven ends up with a girl he reckons is a spy. The brothel is bombed and everyone flees. Porta hands Madame a bundle of suspiciously new looking Roubles. -
The Cemetery Of Wola
Story of the Polish divisions trying to relieve Warsaw. Street fighting. Description of the fighting at Wola. Civilians thrown out of their houses by Dirlewanger and Kiminski Brigade SS men. Dirlewanger and Kiminski meet and start trying to outdo each other. Civilians are killed and various acts of torture and violence described. Tiny goes and captures a Dirlewanger Unterscharführer and wants to take revenge on him. The Old Man takes control as usual. More back and forth fighting with the Poles. Mention of camouflage smoke/gas. Section is issued with ‘P64’ tanks. Sven’s tank is hit and the crew abandon (except for Sven who has to destroy the remains). Retreat into the sewers. When they get out again the section is forced to crew an SS Tiger. Once again it is disabled and Sven has to destroy it but the mechanism fails. He eventually manages to blow up the tank in entertaining style. Tiny and Porta go scavenging and get back with half a pig in tow. They have seen Dorn from Torgau and he has seen them. Old Man warns them of the danger. Porta and Tiny disappear with the pig… and Dorn turns up with Löwe and three MPs looking for it. Löwe basically ignores Dorn. -
The End Of The Race
End of the Uprising. Tiny gets hold of a pair of racing cats (“Food!” says Porta) and persuades the section to arrange a competition (with lots of betting money involved of course). Racing commences. Discussion of animals/pets in general! Further fighting and corpse clearing duties. Porta has a confrontation with a medical corps Colonel… who then gets himself shot. End of the Uprising.
I now see how boring my life has been until now not knowing this outpourings.
I checked I still have 10 on my book shelf.
LOL, I have to agree.
Hi,
my name is Cesare and im from Poland. I’m very interested in WWII, especially in Polish Armed Forces in the West, Warsaw Uprising, and Western Front. I’m alsa a member of reenactment historic group “Zgrupowanie Radosław”, one of the most famous groups of Armia Krajowa during Warsaw Uprising. Our basic element of uniform is a SS camo smock. And, in my private collection, i had Battledress uniform and equipment of corporal of Polish 3rd Carpathian Rifle Division which was fighting at Monte Cassino (most replicas ;)).
hallo my name is erwin bartmann and i live in scotland.i am intresting in world war 2 then i was from 1941 till the end of war in russia.i was in the batle of kursk and was woudet.
after the war i could not go back to germany and steht hire in scotland .i am 84 yahrs old.
all the best erwin
Hello Erwin,
since there’s quite some trolling business going on here lately you may forgive me a bit of scepticism regarding your presentation. The fact that your name sounds quite similar to the name of the most successful fighter pilot ever certainly does its share. So if what you wrote about yourself is authentic -and I really hope it is- you might be a valuable gain to the forum!
Auch wenn du bereits seit über 60 Jahren in Schottland lebst, dürftest du der deutschen Sprache noch mächtig sein. Also, bitte antworte doch einfach auf deutsch, um meine Zweifel auszuräumen. Danke und Gruß.
I’m with flamethrowerguy in being suspicious.
If you were at Kursk and in Russia till the end of the war, then how did you end up in Scotland?
I thought all German POWs held in Britain were repatriated to Germany by 1947-48, so how did you come to stay in Scotland?
I thought that the Soviets had driven all German troops out of their territory well before the end of the war. How did you come to be still in Russia to the end of the war? Where? Doing what?
What unit(s) did you serve with, and where and when were you captured by the British, while still in Russia at the end of the war?
When did jahr become yahr?
Hi,
My name is Robin and I’m 19 years old. I live in the far north of Sweden. My main interests are, in no particular order: history (at the moment specifically WW2 tanks), debating in a wide array of subjects, playing PC games and driving snowmobile.
The Germans were not completely driven out of Russia until late 1944. And he did not say in his post outright that he only saw service in the east. However, it is always good to be skeptical, as long as remaining objective.
/SS-Kommando
Robin, welcome to the forum.
The sceptical response to Erwin isn’t what we normally greet new members with, but, as flamethrowerguy mentioned, lately there have been some problems with new members pretending to be German and offering improbable personal histories. Erwin seems to fall into that category.
Erwin said:
… in world war 2 then i was from 1941 till the end of war in russia
I take that to mean that he was in Russia from 1941 until the end of the war, which was well after the end of 1944, without serving anywhere else.
This creates something of a problem for him in falling into British hands and being taken to Scotland, not to mention other inconsistencies in his post. Even if he served somewhere else before the end of the war, he can’t be in Russia at the end of the war and also a POW in Scotland.
Unless, perhaps, the Soviets started shipping German POWs to Scotland instead of Siberia etc after the war, which was unlikely as Stalin’s terms with the other Allies was that the USSR would take its reparations in part in labour by German POWs. They were kept in virtual slavery until the last (known) of them were repatriated to Germany in the mid-1950s.
Anyway, welcome again. We’re normally a less disbelieving and more welcoming lot.
hi wayne, i fought out of Dearborn boxing gym in michigan and Livona gym, i fought out of Rosenwald boxing club in kentucky, it doesnt exist sady anymore
yes,remember herman, those ropes and barriers are there for a reason. have a good vacation
new to this myself DerMann, I have varried interests in WW2 especially points of view from the average German soldier, do you have any recs
why are all these people pretending to be german soldiers
Just to say hello folks.
Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer
Greetings to all! I am a new member and am glad to be here. My interests are Bunkers and fortifications as well as vehicles and weapons. I also have a modest collection of militaria. I am currently in the process of acquiring a replica BMW R71 sidecar rig and am looking for photos of markings representing the 116th Panzer. I have many reference materials and hope I may be of assistance to others.
Eric
Hi Eric, I am surprised by the interest in the Windhund division. I read a lot about them too since they were envolved in the battles in my hometown and the division was from the Rhineland originally. Got to search for the kind of photo you requested. As a beginning a photo of the 116th PD memorial I visited last month once again.
You might be interested in the book From Normandy to the Ruhr: With the 116th Panzer Division in WWII by Heinz Guderian then.
An interest in bunkers and fortifications is very interesting.
Nice photo flamethrowerguy. I spent 2 years stationed at Ayers Kaserne in Kirch Gons, FRG. I was a tanker in the Third Armored Div.
Eric