Anonymous

Not the worst of Buttar’s books, but it’s the same old lying recitation of the communist narrative.

Reviewed: 09-01-24

If you know anything about the author, you know there are no good or great Buttar books. Just varying degrees of bad to worse. This books ranks somewhere in the middle. Meat Grinder is arguably Buttar’s best book, because of its detailed analysis of the battle and the units deployed therein. However, it is still a terrible book because of the almost nonstop drumbeat of communist propaganda. It’s Hitlerite this, fascist that and Nazi this and that.

The other thing that strikes me odd about his WWII books is that there are always Germans pictured on the front of his books, but the books are always about the lying, propagandist, communist perspective. Listening to such nauseating Bolshevik garbage gets old really fast. If the guy would just stick to the cold hard facts of the battles STARTING with the huge German victories that characterized the first half of WWII, I have no doubt he could write some meaningful history. But just like almost every other writer of books on WWII, the story starts only after the allies have turned the war in their favor which is a form of propaganda all its own.

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Half communist propaganda, half truth. Overall not worth the listen.

Reviewed: 05-18-24

The narration tends to grate on you as the hours go by. And it’s done in a wacky, half serious way that is even more annoying. And you can’t help but feel there is a larger truth here that is being deliberately concealed. Should we be surprised? Not really because the guy admits he’s a member of the communist party. A veritable license to lie.

Still, some truth can’t help but come out. Like the admission that 200 seriously wounded German POWs are mass murdered in one admission. Or the high toll of killed Red Army soldiers in various battles. If you read any of the accounts of German veterans of the eastern front they all talk about the human wave attacks which are mowed down until the bodies are stacked 6 or 7 feet high.

Even more telling is the grudging admission that postwar life is pretty bleak even for the wounded and decorated Red Army survivors. In the end, the lack of open honesty and communist propaganda doom the book as a testament to history.

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A totally absurd effort in racist German Bashing with some grudging respect for the German soldier and German Army.

Reviewed: 05-01-24

If you can get past the ridiculous and relentless racist ranting against the Germans, there is a story here about the incredible battles fought in the Rzhev salient. And unfortunately for the incredibly biased author, the Germans were the winners by a huge margin inflicting countless hundreds of thousands of losses on the Soviets with the Red Army making virtually no gains. We are talking about 600,000 or 800,000 Soviet dead with losses 1/5 or 1/4 of that for the Germans.

But to get to that part of the story, the listener is forced to endure nonstop for literally hours, ranting about the “Hitlerite hordes,” “fascist invaders,” “nazi plunderers,” etc, etc, etc. One is left to believe that Stalin, the Soviet Union or the Red Army are just a bunch of innocent playground children pounced on by the nazi monster. It’s pathetic is what it is. It’s something right out of the communist propaganda playbook. SPARE us pppppplease!!!

Stalin was a millionaire mass murderer before the Germans ever crossed the dividing line and had brutally attacked and subdued small countries like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland and Poland. And even before then, Stalin had mass murdered 3 to 4 million of his own people including most of the country’s general staff officers. Anyone that feels pity for these diabolical murderers is a total fool. Because in winning, the Soviet people were stuck with the same homicidal dictator and regime for another 8 long years. And a somewhat less ruthless regime for a lot longer than that.

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5 people found this helpful

Enjoyable, informative and written with the precision of a German staff officer.

Reviewed: 04-09-24

A highly insightful and accurate view of the experiences of a Wehrmacht staff officer from the beginning of his military career prewar to his liberation from the heinous communist Soviet Union. A gripping account of survival when so many good people (German soldiers) died by slavery or out and out mass murder.

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A gripping and highly entertaining drama from start to finish. Absolutely fantastic narration.

Reviewed: 04-06-24

It is hard to find fault with any of this presentation. Although I feel like it is more a compilation rather than a straight story line, it is highly entertaining, highly informative and thought provoking. Nevertheless, there are some errors.

For instance, this battle takes place in 1943. But the first Stalin tanks and SU-100 tank destroyers did not appear on the front lines until late 1944 and even then, didn’t really make much of an impact due to the need to fully depress the main gun between shots in order to load another shell. And in the case of the SU-100, the crews had to use 2-part ammunition, a shell and then a bag of powder. So, the ergonomics which were always bad on Russian tanks, were even worse on these 2 vehicles.

Another little discrepancy that caught my attention was the reference to the SS man’s pistol as being small and effeminate. Well the Luger pistol was anything but small and effeminate. It would make more sense to say a Walter PPK is effeminate except that is the exact gun used by James Bond. So, I’m not sure what that was all about.

But now for the good part. Everything else is pure war porn of the highest quality. The dialogue is fantastic and the narrator the best I’ve ever heard of. He can jump from one character to another convincingly with seamless ease. This ability is one of the things that make this read or listen so superb. Well that and the story. You may find more historically accurate biographies out there but I don’t know of a single one better than this. I’ve listened to this audiobook 5 times now and it is still a pleasure to repeat. Trust me when I tell you that you can’t go wrong with the one.

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Not the best German 1st person account of the eastern front, but well worth listening to.

Reviewed: 02-25-24

If you’ve already deeply immersed yourself into the hell that was the eastern front, you know right away this story is not the equal of a Josef Allerberger, Otto Carius, Guy Sajer, Andreas Hartinger or Günther K. Koschorrek. Those 5 set the standard and it is a very high standard indeed. It is, however, definitely worth listening to with author’s unique perspective before, during and after WWII. The struggle to survive and then prosper in the aftermath of so much destruction. Listen to or read this account first and save Allerberger for last. You won’t regret it.

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A Nonstop Litany of Meaningless Information.

Reviewed: 02-01-24

I listened to this awful thing regretting that I bought it the whole time. If there is a purpose to this never ending stream of meaningless statistics, I have no idea what it is. What a waste of my time. Don’t let it waste yours.

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Why the hell is this rant named, “Where the Iron Crosses Grow??”

Reviewed: 01-31-24

Overwrought, overblown, incoherent, rant full of indignation and fury signifying absolutely nothing. Typical Anglophile racist rant with a wholly unsupported and unsubstantiated narrative which has absolutely nothing to do with iron crosses. Should have been named where the red stars grow and unbridled lies are told.

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Horrible from start to finish.

Reviewed: 01-28-24

I’ve listened to many first hand accounts of Wehrmacht and SS soldiers who fought during WWII. Almost all of them are compelling and fascinating stories. And the narration, if not excellent, is at least passable. This one, however, is bad and right from the start. It’s half baked and horribly narrated. I was only 2/3 of the way through when I decided to end my pain. Save yourself some pain and listen to Tigers in the Mud or Tiger Tracks and you’ll be glad you did.

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For the most part a very good blow by blow account of the eastern front late 1942 to early 1943.

Reviewed: 01-19-24

I liked this telling of the combat on the Eastern Front, but with a few exceptions. The story harped about so called “German atrocities” on the Eastern Front way too much. He never mentions the fact that over 100,000 Ukrainians served along side German soldiers of the Wehrmacht including the tens of thousands that fought with the Germans at Stalingrad. He never mentions the tens of thousands of Ukrainians who volunteered to fight with the Waffen SS and including as concentration camp guards. He never explains that most of the so called “atrocities” were really reprisals against the partisans who were basically bands of mass murderers without uniforms. He never mentions that many of the pogroms against the Jews were committed by the Poles, Latvians, Lithuanians and Ukrainians. In a sentence, this would have been perfect without the anti-German bias and the lying communist accounts of the battles.

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