
Twilight of the Gods
A Swedish Waffen-SS Volunteer's Experiences with the 11th SS-Panzergrenadier Division Nordland, Eastern Front 1944-45
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Narrated by:
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Bruce Mann
About this listen
Twilight of the Gods was originally written in Swedish, and published in Buenos Aires shortly after the end of WWII. Erik Wallin, a Swedish soldier who volunteered for service with the Waffen-SS, participated in the climactic battles on the Eastern Front during late 1944 and 1945, later telling his story to this book's editor, Thorolf Hillblad.
Wallin served with the Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion, 11th SS-Panzergrenadier Division Nordland, a unit composed mainly of non-German volunteers, including Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes. The division enjoyed a high reputation for its combat capability, and was always at the focal points of the fighting on the Eastern Front in the last year of the war. During this period it saw combat in the Baltic, in Pomerania, on the Oder, and finally in defense of Berlin, where it was destroyed.
Erik Wallin served with his unit in all of these locations, and provides the listener with a fascinating glimpse into these final battles. The book is written with a "no holds barred" approach which will captivate, excite, and maybe even shock the listener - his recollections do not evade the brutality of fighting against the advancing Red Army. Twilight of the Gods is destined to become a classic memoir of the Second World War.
©2002 Thorolf Hillblad (P)2019 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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- Narrated by: Tim H. Dixon
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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The rulers’ mistakes are paid for with the blood of the people. This is shown in history both recent and ancient, time and time again. It was no different for an Austrian mountain farmer’s son who was thrown into the carnage of the Eastern Front. He was in the prime of his youth, and the German Reich was already close to losing the war. In ripe-old age, he remembers those dark hours that have haunted him throughout his life.
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Short & Insightful
- By Salvatore on 05-07-21
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Radio Operator on the Eastern Front
- An Illustrated Memoir, 1940-1949
- By: Erhard Steiniger, Anthony Tucker-Jones - foreword
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Erhard Steiniger joined his Wehrmacht unit on October 12, 1940, as a radio operator, a role which required his constant presence with troops at the Front, right in the midst of combat. On June 22, 1941, he accompanied his division to Lithuania where he experienced the catastrophic first day of Operation Barbarossa. He later witnessed intense clashes during the conquest of the Baltic islands and the battles leading up to Leningrad on the Volkhov and Lake Ladoga.
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Breathtaking
- By James B on 08-21-21
By: Erhard Steiniger, and others
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Adventures in My Youth
- A German Soldier on the Eastern Front 1941-45
- By: Armin Scheiderbauer
- Narrated by: James A. Gillies
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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The author could be described as a veteran in every sense of the word, even though he was only age 21 when the war ended. Armin Scheiderbauer served as an infantry officer with the 252nd Infantry Division, German army, and saw four years of bitter combat on the Eastern Front, being wounded six times. This is an outstanding personal memoir, written with great thoughtfulness and honesty.
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Heartfelt, vivid and sober story
- By Alek on 01-07-18
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StuG III Brigade 191, 1940-1945
- The Buffalo Brigade in Action in the Balkans, Greece and from Moscow to Kursk and Sevastopol
- By: Bruno Bork, Anthony Tucker-Jones - foreword
- Narrated by: Bruce Mann
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Based on their experiences during the First World War, the Reichswehr decided that the infantry support gun of the future should be an armored, motorized vehicle: the Sturmgeschütz III. The weapon was used in the 'fire brigade role' at hotspots along the Front, where it was much feared by enemy forces. This book tells the tale of Brigade 191, aka the 'Buffalo Brigade', who used the Sturmgeschütz III as they took part in Operation Barbarossa in the Ukraine, saw action during the fight for Greece and were deployed to the areas of heaviest fighting in the campaign against the Soviet Union.
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Ruined by awful narrator
- By MortonC on 01-19-24
By: Bruno Bork, and others
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We Will Not Go to Tuapse
- From the Donets to the Oder with the Legion Wallonie and 5th SS Volunteer Assault Brigade ‘Wallonien’ 1942-45
- By: Fernand Kaisergruber
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 18 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Until recent years, very little was known of the tens of thousands of foreign nationals from Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, and Spain who served voluntarily in the military formations of the German army and the German Waffen-SS. In Kaisergruber's book, the listener discovers important issues of collaboration, the apparent contributions of the volunteers to the German war effort, their varied experiences, their motives, the attitude of the German High Command and bureaucracy, and the reaction to these in the occupied countries.
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Why did it end at Cherkassy?
- By DAVIS J BEAM III on 03-28-18
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Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942
- By: Ian W. Toll
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 22 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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On the first Sunday in December 1941, an armada of Japanese warplanes appeared suddenly over Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and devastated the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Six months later, in a sea fight north of the tiny atoll of Midway, four Japanese aircraft carriers were sent into the abyss. Pacific Crucible tells the epic tale of these first searing months of the Pacific war, when the U.S. Navy shook off the worst defeat in American military history and seized the strategic initiative.
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Astonishingly good.
- By Mike From Mesa on 09-01-12
By: Ian W. Toll
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Panzer Ace
- The Memoirs of an Iron Cross Panzer Commander from Barbarossa to Normandy
- By: Richard Freiherr von Rosen, Robert Forczyk
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Richard Freiherr von Rosen was a highly decorated Wehrmacht soldier and outstanding panzer commander. After serving as a gunlayer on a Pz.Mk.III during Barbarossa, he led a company of Tigers at Kursk. Later he led a company of King Tiger panzers at Normandy and in late 1944 commanded a battle group (12 King Tigers and a flak company) against the Russians in Hungary in the rank of junior, later senior lieutenant (from November 1944, his final rank). Only 489 of these King Tiger tanks were ever built.
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Not what I expected
- By Gabriel on 01-04-19
By: Richard Freiherr von Rosen, and others
What listeners say about Twilight of the Gods
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- Kindle Customer
- 07-13-20
Post-war Nazi propaganda in part but also history
This is a first-hand report of the last days of Berlin. and in part post war Nazi propaganda. after the war in 1953 he moves to Argentina with the rest of the Nazis and makes the life there.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Debra Faber
- 02-15-20
Propaganda piece
This book provides good history if you can look past the Nazi propaganda it contains.
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- Hendrick
- 09-29-23
Intriguing Account of the Battle of Berlin
The story of an anti-Soviet fighter who first fought the Soviets in Finland, and then joined the Waffen Schutzstaffel so he could fight the Soviets in the wider war against communism. As a non-German fighting for Germany his point of view is an almost unique perspective among war memoirs, far more ideological than the average German account as well as far less afraid of postwar backlash by occupation or collaborationist governments. Hillblad's account of the Battle of Berlin alone makes this book a valuable read for anyone who wishes to study what is perhaps the most symbolic battle of the last century.
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- Matt
- 03-14-24
Great Story Average Narration
Nice to listen to a viewpoint from the “other” side. Good book. The narrator is ok as it is a biography, still kind of dry. I’m also gonna assume all the “nazi propaganda” comments are Russians.
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- Anonymous User
- 06-06-23
I always love the detailed memoirs
Great pice to listen to personaly one of my favorite memoirs in my library I highly recommend it my not be long to still good
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- Anonymous User
- 07-12-23
Great book
I wish it were longer. Ignore the close minded people calling it propaganda. Captures a point of view we are rarely allowed to see.
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- Michael W
- 02-21-24
Great experience detail
Great first person, down to Earth experiences. Not a fan of British professional speaker naration though.
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- Anonymous User
- 09-21-22
Great for what it is.
Great view from the other side of history we so often get left in the dark about. Those who are coming from a certain viewpoint will call it propaganda, but I do not believe it is anymore propaganda ridden than any of the American, British, or Soviet accounts that portray their own side favorably. Had they lost and wrote similar accounts of their experiences, those would also be called “propaganda”. Throw aside your biases and knee jerk reactions from years of being told the same old lines by text books written by the victors and history teachers who have never been there and listen to what a man on the ground who was actually there has to say about the war. My only complaint is that it is not longer.
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- J.Brock
- 12-09-19
Good hearing another viewpoint, but hard to follow
Hearing about the war from the vantage point of the Germans, and in this case the Swedish Panzergrenadier, is always interesting. You know what happened in the war, and you know that the German's ideology was the most atrocious and diabolical the world has almost ever seen throughout history. Interestingly, those fighting on the Eastern front were fighting to rid the world of the communist scourge that was Russia or "Ivan." That is the gist of this book. However, this book is hard to follow. It's not ordered in any particular way, so it makes it difficult to know what is going on and when. Also, the narrator is a bit shrill in this work.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Matthew A. Larmee
- 06-02-22
Interesting
Was an interesting perspective from the German (foreign fighter) side. would recommend to anyone interested in WWII history.
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