Lost Honour, Betrayed Loyalty: The Memoir of a Waffen-SS Soldier on the Eastern Front

by Herbert Maeger

Overview

As an 18-year old Belgian, Herbert Maeger was blackmailed into volunteering for the Waffen-SS in 1941 in order to save his mother from being sent to a concentration camp.

After enduring harsh training with the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, considered by some to be a worse experience than serving at the fighting front, Maeger went on to be selected as a front line driver in Russia. He saw combat at Kharkov and at the legendary Battle of Kursk.

In 1944 he was transferred out for training as an SS paramedic, but after two months was sent, again against his will, for SS-officer training. Overheard making a defeatist remark, he was sent to the notorious SS penal division Dirlewanger on the Oder Front, with which he survived the horror of the Halbe pocket.

On 1 May 1945, Maeger was captured by the Russians near the Elbe. Held in a Russian prisoner of war camp, he served in its infirmary as a volunteer, which won him the admiration of the Russian female doctor. It was with her help that he gained his early release the same year.

This is an unrivaled account of one man's service in the elite Waffen-SS Leibstandarte division, principally on the Eastern Front.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781526768858
Publisher:	Pen and Sword
Publication date:	02/22/2020
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	646,511
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Herbert Maeger was born at Hergenrath/Eupen in Belgium on 10 November 1922. After release from Soviet captivity in late 1945 he settled in West Germany in the Rheydt area and began pre-clinical training. He obtained German citizenship on 21 June 1971. He was unable to return to Belgium for decades after the war, having been sentenced to life imprisonment in his absence by a military tribunal at Verviers on 19 February 1947 ‘for having borne arms against Belgium's allies in particular as a member of the Waffen-SS.

Table of Contents

List of Plates viii

Foreword Charles Messenger x

Translator's Note: SS Ranks xii

Author's Foreword xiii

Introduction: Between Two Fatherlands 1

Chapter 1 Recruit in the Leibstandarte 15

Chapter 2 My Arrival on the Russian Front 28

Chapter 3 First Half of 1942: Six Months on the Russian Front 35

Chapter 4 Second Half of 1942: France - Dieppe 64

Chapter 5 My Second Winter in Russia 85

Chapter 6 The Battles of Kursk and Belgorod 152

Chapter 7 Italian Intermezzo 166

Chapter 8 Six Months Leave from the War 187

Chapter 9 From Junker School to the 'Crossbones Division' 190

Chapter 10 By Tram to the Front 208

Chapter 11 The Death March to the West 215

Chapter 12 In Trebbin PoW Camp 225

Chapter 13 The 'Homecoming' 239

Epilogue 246

Notes 249

Index 254

Editorial Reviews

"...Maeger is so detailed and his writing is exceptional...a must-read book for anyone interested in fighting on the Eastern Front and/or life in the Waffen SS and Germany army."

Military History Online

"Herbert's story of service in the SS is a great portrayal of what it took to serve in that elite kind of unit..."

Argunners Magazine

"There's much here of value to those interested in the Eastern Front, the Waffen SS, and the Second World War in general."

WWII and Other Book Reviews