In Deadly Combat

“What distinguishes Bidermann’s book are his soldier’s insights on the German army and the Eastern Front. Rather than glorifying the war as Germany’s eastern crusade, Bidermann looks at the lives and the feelings of the soldiers as they relate to their adversaries and the battles they fought.”–Parameters

“In Deadly Combat is Bidermann’s unforgettable account of life and death under almost impossible circumstances. Released for the first time in English, it offers battle descriptions of unprecedented detail. Yet, this memoir goes deeper into a typical German infantryman’s wartime experience, lending insight into the mind of a soldier fighting far from home, describing the lives of Russian peasants trapped between two brutal antagonists, and recalling the humiliation of defeat and surrender, and the brutality of the Soviet gulags.”–History Book Club Review

“Since 1945, the front-line realities of Germany’s Russian war have been submerged under so much myth that a book like this represents a welcome reality check. The 132nd’s story, and Bidermann’s, are part of the ‘master narrative’ of a ‘demodernizing’ Wehrmacht, whose men held against unbelievable odds and in the end were sacrificed to one of history’s most purely evil causes. It is a story worth making available to American readers.”–Dennis Showalter, author of Tannenberg: Clash of Empires

“Stands head and shoulders above the many other books in this genre. Bidermann’s style is crisp, succinct, and lucid and Zumbro has done a great job of translating.”–David Glantz, coauthor of The Battle of Kursk and When Titans Clashed