Andreas Leandoer wrote:Epamimondas,
Carius was asked by Himmler to join the Waffen SS instead of the army, not to join the party. I assume that he was a member as he doesn´t say that he wasn´t in the book!!
Guilty until proven otherwise, huh? So you "assume" he was a party member... He turned 23 right after the war ended, thus being eligible for Party membership for a couple of years. How many joined NSDAP in the last two years of the war?
Carius' book was first and foremost intended for the veterans of the s.Pz.Abt. 502, and thus not an overview of the war in the East. That soldiers in the frontline live in a microcosm, literally not knowing what goes on on the other side of the hill, isn't unknown among readers of memoirs. One of the few who've put his experiences in a greater context is Gottlob Biedermann in his "In Deadly Combat". Franklin Gurley wrote in "Into the Mountains Dark" that until he reached the frontline, he knew most of what was going on in the war, but once at the front, his horizon didn't stretch much further than the next foxhole.
If there's anything Carius can be accused of, it's a certain amount of arrogance. His attitude towards the Americans was influenced by his years on the Eastern Front; he regarded the Soviets to be more brave, "real" soldiers than the Yanks. As for the subject of self-criticism, I have yet to read a memoir by
any veteran that takes an objective look at himself. When memoirs, especially those by Germans (and Austrians), are put in a post-WW2 context, it is obvious that the authors feel a need to justify themselves. As combat veterans, they feel that they have nothing to be ashamed of personally, and that all the bad stuff can be blamed on the "golden pheasants", rear-area security units, the SS, etc. Ultimately, it is probably a matter of not wanting to regard the sacrifice by them and their comrades as being a waste of life, and that is a feeling that I can understand. Read the memoirs for what they are, and be damn happy you didn't have to endure what they experienced.