A Tale of Two Fronts: A German Soldier's Journey through World War I

 

Off to War
Hans Schiller (x) and His Artillery Unit

By Hans Schiller, 

University Press of Kansas, 2024

Reviewed by David F. Beer

How often nowadays do we discover an original handwritten memoir from the First World War? And if we did, would it be worthy of publication? Such an unlikely event occurred in 2013, when a manuscript written in 1925 was found in a family’s attic describing a young soldier’s experience on both the eastern and western fronts. Recently published in English, A Tale of Two Fronts deserves a place next to the well-known novels and memoirs of WWI since it undoubtedly “offers a new and accessible window into the life of the German soldier of the First World War” (vii).

Hans Schiller was a seventeen-year-old student when he heard war had broken out. He was elated:

Everything was about patriotism, and it felt good voicing one’s nationalist feelings. At every public function one would hear the patriotic songs of ‘Wacht am Rhein’ or ‘Deutschland Uber Alles.’ Everyone was playing these songs, including the local organ grinder. Now all were united, poised for war and excited at the prospect, as I had always imagined it might be (pp. 18-19).

Like many young men his age, his biggest fear was that the war would be brief, and he wouldn’t get to fight. He did, of course, and from his home in Prussia he was to see service in what is now Poland as well as in Latvia and Lithuania. He was one of over two million German soldiers to serve on the Eastern Front—an area considered by many Germans to be uncivilized and inhabited by primitive people. Hope was high as German forces made their moves:

All of Germany was watching the East, and here the decisive battles would take place. We realized that we had the prospect of participating in these expected victories. Soon we would march into Moscow, and then the war would end. The misfortunes of Napoleon would not befall us. That’s how we thought, and that’s how we spoke, and all the time we never knew how ridiculous we actually were (p. 28).

After what seems like countless train rides and miles of marching for the Germans, they finally begin to clash with the Russian army and reality sets in. Schiller describes these battles without hesitation—his youthful idealism has rapidly evaporated. The reader may be unfamiliar with the frequent placenames where battles take place (some have since changed borders) but the fighting near Duenaburg and Grangtal seems to be typical:

For ten days, without any pause, the enemy attacked us and then they stopped because their fallen comrades formed into a wall in front of us that was much too high to walk over. In six-deep stacked rows, the dead lay in front of us and in the dark looked like a giant wall (p. 67).

 

Hans Schiller After 3 Years of War

Time passes with more bloody battles and much marching. This was a war of movement, unlike that of the Western trenches. But eventually, with the revolution in Russia, fighting comes to an end and Schiller is allowed to return home to spend Christmas with his family. But he knows that soon he and his comrades will be transferred to the Western Front to take part in the spring offensive. In the brief interlude they “drank a lot of watered-down war beer and thought about our futures, which seemed dark, foreboding, and as yet unknown. Then we received our orders” (p. 90).

The transit across Germany by train is interesting and ends with their arrival at a training camp near the Western Front. Schiller is amazed to find so many very young German soldiers there. He asks them if they had been drafted or had volunteered and their answers, along with their appearance, depress him:

“We were called to duty and were inducted as soldiers even though some of us have disabilities. Now they are taking everything, sir, because these days there isn’t a person in Germany who would volunteer.” They made an undernourished and childish impression. Their uniforms were far too big for their small bodies and hung loosely on their thin frames. The heavy and wide army boots fit their feet like washtubs (pp. 121-122).

The final battles on the Western Front are as brutal as those of the Eastern Front, and Schiller continues with a style that movingly combines matter-of-fact description and emotion. We might expect the end of the war to be the end of Schiller’s story, but after the Armistice he re-enlists in the Freikorps and fights in murderous battles against the Bolsheviks. “What else was I supposed to do, anyway? I hadn’t learned anything, and the art of war was really the only thing that I had a lot of experience in. Therefore, I was very happy with my decision!” (p.157).

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On May 31, 1920, his regiment is demobilized and Schiller finally goes home, mentioning that he now travels with “resentment against the dictates of Versailles” in his heart. He will write these memoirs down in 1928, based on wartime diaries he or his family had lost. He will go on to take part in WWII, but it is up to the family and the book’s introduction to reveal how he spent those years and tragically ended them.

Adding to the value of this book are both an informative foreword and a substantial introduction, giving us considerable insight into the nature and background of the memoir and its author. Helpful footnotes are provided in the text and a collection of black and white photographs donated by the author’s family (pp. 91-119) illuminate Hans Schiller’s military life. Karin Wagner’s very readable translation of the memoir from the original German augments the high quality of this publication. A Tale of Two Fronts is definitely a book that deserves an honorable place within the canon of World War One literature and history.

David F. Beer