Audiobook
$0.00
with membership trial

Hardcover
$22.14

Paperback
$16.11

Learn more

Read for Free

OR

Digital List Price:	$17.99
Kindle Price:	$11.99 Save $6.00 (33%)
Sold by:	Amazon.com Services LLC

Promotions apply when you purchase

Add an

audiobook with Audible narration for $7.49

Audiobook Price: $21.83

Save: $14.34 (66%)

Read with our free app

You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.

Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

There was an error. We were unable to process your subscription due to an error. Please refresh and try again.

Follow the author

William Lubbeck

+ Follow

More books from this author

At Leningrad's Gates: The Combat Memoirs of a Soldier with Army Group North Kindle Edition

by William Lubbeck (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.5 845 ratings

See all formats and editions

“A first-rate memoir” from a German soldier who rose from conscript private to captain of a heavy weapons company on the Eastern Front of World War II (City Book Review).

William Lubbeck, age nineteen, was drafted into the Wehrmacht in August 1939. As a member of the 58th Infantry Division, he received his baptism of fire during the 1940 invasion of France. The following spring, his division served on the left flank of Army Group North in Operation Barbarossa. After grueling marches amid countless Russian bodies, burnt-out vehicles, and a great number of cheering Baltic civilians, Lubbeck’s unit entered the outskirts of Leningrad, making the deepest penetration of any German formation.

In September 1943, Lubbeck earned the Iron Cross First Class and was assigned to officers’ training school in Dresden. By the time he returned to Russia, Army Group North was in full-scale retreat. In the last chaotic scramble from East Prussia, Lubbeck was able to evacuate on a newly minted German destroyer. He recounts how the ship arrived in the British zone off Denmark with all guns blazing against pursuing Russians. The following morning, May 8, 1945, he learned that the war was over.

After his release from British captivity, Lubbeck married his sweetheart, Anneliese, and in 1949, immigrated to the United States where he raised a successful family. With the assistance of David B. Hurt, he has drawn on his wartime notes and letters, Soldatbuch, regimental history, and personal memories to recount his four years of frontline experience. Containing rare firsthand accounts of both triumph and disaster, At Leningrad’s Gates provides a fascinating glimpse into the reality of combat on the Eastern Front.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"In August 1939, at the age of 19, William Lubbeck was drafted into the German Wehrmacht. As a forward observer of a heavy weapons company in the 58th Infantry Division, he witnessed combat up close in France, Russia and Germany. His memoirs are compiled with attention to details. The reader will feel as though he is alongside Lubbeck as he calls fire missions on the enemy during his three years of service."
Military Trader

“… a first-rate memoir… The reader will find the narrative flowing. Two appendices, one on German Infantry Regiments in WW II of 1940, and another consisting of references of all places named, are added to assist the reader.”
City Book Review

"an interesting story of a part of World War II not well known in the US. I suspect the author would be an interesting person with whom to spend a few hours in a beer hall going a bit deeper into his experiences."
Books Online

"… compiled with attention to details. The reader will feel as though he is alongside Lubbeck as he calls fire missions on the enemy during his three years of service."
Military Trader

"...a well-wrought ground level view of daily life in hell."
World War II No 3, 06/2007

About the Author

William Lubbeck rose to the rank of Captain in the German Army, fighting primarily in Russia. He went on to earn a degree in electrical engineering and arrived in the U.S. in 1956. Now retired, he lives in Asheville, NC. He has three children, seven grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

David B. Hurt received a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Florida and a M.A. in International Affairs from Florida State University. He worked with William Lubbeck as the co-author of At Leningrad's Gates: The Story of a Soldier with Army Group North (Casemate, 2006). He currently serves as an academic advisor at a college in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B002FQJP76
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Casemate; Illustrated edition (November 30, 2006)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 30, 2006
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 6184 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 367 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #111,803 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #61 in Biographies of World War II
- #94 in United States Military Veterans History
- #166 in Russian History (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.5 845 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

William Lubbeck

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5

845 global ratings

How customer reviews and ratings work

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

B. Eibisch

All is well that ends well but maybe pretty hard to go through

Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2010

Verified Purchase

At Lenningrad's Gates by William Lubbeck and David Hurt is a 2006 addition to the large number of books available on World War II . Copyright some 60 years after the events William has had time to reflect on what was important along the way. The book is an account of this man's life other than just about the exploits of a German soldier on the Eastern Front. It really is a love story against the tumultuous backdrop of living in Germany from the 1920s on; the depression , political turmoil, war, defeat and the aftermath. William spends quite a bit of time, about the first 20% of the book, telling of his upbringing on a farm in Germany. As a somewhat idealistic bullet proof young lad he actually volunteers for service in the Army but on reflection in writing the book much later says, "If we had been older and wiser, our fears about the future would have been far greater".

His time in the Army sees him in the invasion of France and then off to Army Group North in the 58th Infantry Division making its way to Lenningrad, ending up in a siege that doesn't quite work out due to political interference. He has several very narrow escapes and states that God obviously had other plans for him other than ending up dead in Russia. The account of his time on the Russian Front is very interesting and very well written. He ends up as a commissioned officer (Leutnant) in the same unit he was in as a Corporal (Unteroffizier). The whole reading is dramatic and the account of the collapse in 1944 is quite thrilling.

The book spends probably some 15% on the aftermath, internment, the difficulties of living in Germany after the war, his eventual move to Canada and then to the USA. Interesting to me because my father born in 1930 on a farm in Germany, some ten years after William, did not end up in the Army, being too young but as a young man living through the devastation in Germany after the war, took a boat to Australia in 1952, probably for very similar reasons that William went to America.

William gives an account of his family's integration into the United States of America and his acceptance by the people there. In later years his wife becomes seriously ill and although he had attended a Lutheran church on a regular basis throughout his life, having been bought up that way, he actually finds God at this time. So all those narrow escapes in his earlier life as a young man do seem to be God's providence for him and, it would seem, for a more glorious future than William the young German soldier/officer could have ever dreamed.

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Walter E. Kurtz

Good, but lacks emotion

Reviewed in the United States on March 10, 2014

Verified Purchase

Well, as the title says, this is the memoir of a German soldier who fought in and around Leningrad during World War II. The author starts the book with his life prior to the war. He was born in 1920 to a family of farmers and spent his childhood and early teenage years living and working on a farm. This section is surprisingly long, around 20% of the book; we get a long exposition not only about the author’s life, but German peasant life in general. Overall, I liked this part of the book, but I think that the author makes too many generalizations about German society. He talks how the German people were conservative, traditional, hard working, religious (but not too much), respectful of authority and strongly oriented towards what we today would call “family values.”

Yes and no. While it is true that back then society was (by our standards) way more conservative, the author is generalizing. He was a farmer, and farmers live lives of isolation, backbreaking labor from dawn to dusk and little education. (I am speaking from personal experience; I lived on a farm once.) Consequently, they tend to be much more conservative than the rest of society. I am sure that the Germans living in other parts of the country, especially large cities, were not as family values oriented as the author says. Also, keep in mind that the author was back then a child and then a young teenager. He remembers those days through the naïve eyes of a young person. He was yet to be fully immersed in the adult life.

In late 1930s, the author started to pursue studies in electrical engineering, for which he had talent and passion. He wanted to be an engineer, but he was drafted into the army in August 1939 when the war was about to start. He was still doing his military training as a common infantryman when Hitler invaded Poland one month later. He never fought in that war, but he was sent to fight in France in 1940. Due to his technical expertise, he was assigned to communications platoon. His duties consisted mainly of stringing telephone wires between units, repairing damaged telephone wires and, when telephone was down, running with messages back and forth.

After the May-June campaign, he did some guard duty in Belgium and more training, before being sent eastwards in 1941 to take part in the invasion of the Soviet Union. He and his fellow soldiers were attacking northern Russia on their march towards Leningrad—Russia’s second largest city and a very important transportation nexus on the Baltic Sea. It was during this time that he become a forward observer for a heavy weapons company. He would call down artillery strikes for the company’s mortars, howitzers and other artillery pieces.

Leningrad was never captured. The Germans besieged it for more than two years. (An epic story in itself.) The author fought around Leningrad itself and the surroundings regions. Over the years he slowly climbed through the ranks until in late 1943 he was offered to become an officer. He accepted and they sent him back to Germany for officer training. He came back to his old unit in mid 1944 only to find the situation at the front very bad. Despite its valiant defense and successful small-scale counterattacks, German army was being steadily pushed back. The retreat was controlled at first, but by the beginning of 1945 the situation started to become increasingly desperate. Eventually the German army was reduced to shambles and it was no longer retreating but running for its life.

After a series of adventures, misadventures and lots of fighting, the author managed to make his way to the Baltic Sea and boarded a German ship. It was when the ship was at sea that the crew received the news of Germany’s capitulation.

The war occupies some seventy percent of the book. Paradoxically, in my opinion the “peace parts” are more interesting. The narrative is emotionally lacking. This book was written sixty years after the events, so the author had more than enough time to grow emotionally distant. This is why when it comes to diaries and memoirs, I like the most the ones that are written during or shortly after the events. The writing in such books is often bad from literally point of view, but they are so emotionally charged and involving that you don’t care.

Moreover, At Leningrad’s Gates is (to me at least) rather uneventful. I would not go as far as to say that it is boring, because it is not, but it is lacking in some way. It is really hard for me to put my finger on it, but I felt disappointed. The author does not go deep enough into descriptions of combat and daily army life. Maybe because he did not do a lot of direct fighting himself. Being an artillery observer, he witnessed a lot of combat, but he almost never participated in it directly. Even when he did, his descriptions lack emotion. Most of the time his writing goes something like this:

“And then my company was shipped there, where we stayed for two months. Russians didn’t attack us much. And then my company was sent over there, where we fought Russians every day. And then, after four months, we were sent somewhere else, where we could relax, but not too much because Russians attacked us once in a while. And it was there that this and that happened to me.”

The author simply skips over too many details. Even his stories and anecdotes are not that interesting. There are exceptions, of course. The moment when he finds himself all alone fighting against a Russian bunker is captivating. The episode when he gets infested with pubic lice and has to shave his crotch is hilarious. But most of these stories are recounted in a voice that, although not boring, is somewhat empty.

Ironically, what I liked about the war diaries was not the part about soldiering, but about the author’s visits back home and the relationship with his fiancé. Their love endured for years and withstood the trials and tribulations of war. Stories like that make my heart warm up and prove how strong the human spirit is.

Going back to the main narrative, following the end of the war, the author was returned at first to his family’s farm, but it was located in what eventually became Eastern Germany. Afraid that the Russians will arrest him and deport to Siberia (which they did to many German soldiers, even though the war was over), he moves to West Germany, finally marries his fiancé and tries to make a living. But the difficult economic situation forces him to emigrate. First he goes to Canada, and then the United States. He gets a series of jobs as an engineer and embraces his new American identity. Like most immigrants, he wants to integrate and start over so badly that he becomes more American than most Americans.

Aside for recounting his life, the author talks a lot about how Nazis were being perceived by the German society. Like most Germans, he feels the need to explain why his people had participated in one of history’s greatest crimes. His argument is that the German people as a whole did not know about Nazi crimes. Nor did most Germans support Nazis. They were perceived as crude, violent, corrupt extremists, but still a better alternative to Communists. (Communism was back then the big boogeyman.) Once Nazis assumed power, their totalitarian rule and interference in daily lives of Germans angered many, but they also boosted the economy, thus giving people much needed job after the Great Depression, and restored Germany’s pride by cancelling the Treaty of Versailles. The atrocities were being done by specialists (the SS) and kept strictly secret. The German soldiers who fought in the war fought for Germany and not for Hitler. In other words, Germany was innocent and it was Hitler and his gang of psychopaths who did all the killing. Or at least that is what the author is trying to say.

Entire books have been written about how much the average German knew about the Nazi crimes and how much he supported Hitler. I will not start a discussion about that, but I do believe that the author is delusional in claiming that he had no reason to suspect that Nazis were bad people, or that Germans did not support them. He himself talks about how his family was being harassed because of their anti-Nazi views, or how every German (he himself included) had to be careful what he said in public. And he had no idea that there was something wrong with this? Although the medias were strictly controlled by the government, rumors about the regime’s crimes were spreading. And while most Germans did not want war, when Hitler crushed Poland and France, the crowds were jubilant. The Germans were in no way as innocent as the author wants us (and himself) to believe.

In conclusion, this book, although not boring per se, lacks the ability to involve the reader. This is a serious flaw, because the subject matter is interesting. If you are a history buff, then I would wholly recommend this book.

I would normally give the book three stars if it was only about the war, but the author also talks a lot about his pre and post war life, which I find interesting. Also, he discusses Nazism and its relationship with the wider German society. I disagree with his conclusions, but I find it interesting nevertheless. This is why in the end I decided to give this book four stars.

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Steve

if you are interested in the human experience aspect of war, this is a good read.

Reviewed in the United States on May 31, 2017

Verified Purchase

I enjoyed this book for a different reason than I expected to when ordering it. I am very fascinated by the human experiences of people who live through enduring things, and I also love military history, I have either read or listened to a number of books that focus on these topics.

I didn't take away much from the military portions of he story. Much of it was not particularly new or interesting for me personally, and if that was all the book had in it, I would have been disappointed, but this book has much more than that in it.

This book has sections that discuss Lubbeck's life growing up in a German village, his time at officer school, what he did when on leave from the front, his life in a soviet prison camp, and his thoughts on being a German soldier who moved to Canada and then the US later in life. All of these sections are far more fascination and I found them to lend incredible background information to other works that I have read. I particularly found the parts surrounding the soviet prison camp particularly interesting.

In short, this book is not really focused on combat that much. If you are looking for that maybe consider something else, but if you are interested in the human experience aspect, this is a good read.

16 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English

Amazon Customer

Great book

Reviewed in Canada on June 13, 2020

Verified Purchase

Great book

wolf

As Portas de Leningrad

Reviewed in Brazil on March 26, 2018

Verified Purchase

Exccelent book, am biograph wich detail thing were I never read before, about the fighter and personal life. Very good.

Translate review to English

john

A riveting read.

Reviewed in Australia on August 6, 2019

Verified Purchase

A solid and insightful account of one soldier and his family's war story and struggle to overcome post war hardships.

2 people found this helpful

puva2004

Desinfected and pasteurized narrative

Reviewed in Brazil on January 11, 2019

Verified Purchase

What was the performance of german nazis in Russia after the 1940 invasion is only too well known. The author doesn't drop a single line about that. The siege of Leningrad killed by starvation many hundred thousand civilians. The author doesn't mention it at all. He sustains he was a german "defending" Germany, not the nazi regime. Oh, yes. The author also points out in many occasions he and his relatives were opposing the nazis. Only too easy to say it, now. I found the book fails in depicting a harsh reality where germans were the agressors, not the russians. It is enought to compare the number of casualties. The russians had something around 20 and some say up to 30 million death. And the guy say they were the barbarians and they didn't give any "civilized" truce. In fact, the russians wanted to kill, by any available means, all the german monsters they could put their hands on.

john

not nearly enough about ww2 maybe 1/3rd of book, ...

Reviewed in Canada on May 22, 2018

Verified Purchase

not nearly enough about ww2 maybe 1/3rd of book, some interesting stuff about artillery and the 1941 battles near Leningrad and how his division felt it could have taken it from south or southwest area, after all they had pushed Russians back much further in extremely heavy combat after chasing tanks the vast majority of way past lake pepius, interesting stuff about 1930's german culture suicide rape and pregnancy and the clear result of mass rape of woman by russian and german armiesin eastern europe

OR

Buy for others

Buying and sending eBooks to others

Follow the author

Image Unavailable

At Leningrad's Gates: The Combat Memoirs of a Soldier with Army Group North Kindle Edition

Customers who bought this item also bought

Editorial Reviews

Review

About the Author

Product details

Videos

About the author

William Lubbeck

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries