In 1939, the German Army was probably the best trained and best-equipped army in the world, with high morale, excellent discipline and an entirely new way of tactical thinking enshrined in Blitzkrieg - Lightning War - which quickly had the armies of Poland, The Netherlands, Belgium, France and England reeling.

The backbone of the army was the infantry, still virtually unmechanized, having to march into battle with its supply trains and supporting artillery drawn by horses. By the time of the long Russian winter of 1941/2, the cream of the German infantry, veterans of the successes in the West, had perished just as Napoleon's army had done before them, hearalding the inexorable slide to ultimate defeat - a slide that would take three years, massive casualties and all the horrors of total war.

German Infantryman at War 1939 - 1945 tells this story using many unpublished photographs taken by Gerhard Sandmann, a typical infantryman. Born at Vlotho on the River Weser on 25 June, 1918, he joined the German Army at Northeim in September 1939 and served and so did his photopraphic record of the places he went.

Backing up the photopraphs are reminiscences and battle accounts from individual soldiers and official wartime reports. These examine every aspect of the daily life of a soldier - the bad times and the more fleeting good ones - the moments of sheer terror and those of comradeship. This book is not a trivute to war, but an honest attempt to explain what it was like to be a German infantry soldier during World War II.

About the Author:

Lt. Col George Forty OBE, 30 is a well-known military author specialising in armoured warfare. He has written numerous books. He served 30 years as a regular army officer and for 15 curator of the RAC Tank Museum at Bovington, has written over 50 military titles including The Battle for Crete, The Channel Islands at War, US Army Handbook, Patton's Third Army at War, Tank Aces, and The Armies of Rommel, and Fortress Europe.

"The German Infantryman was the backbone of the Wehrmacht. For 6 long years he stood up to an avalance of overwhelming Allied numbers of men and machines. Yet he fought on against all odds under all conditions until denied victory Germany surrendered." - Michael Kelly, PzG President