Pochod smrti napříč Ruskem - Moje cesta do válečného zajetí – Willman Klaus (2022)

The book tells the story of German soldier Lothar Herrmann, who, despite his health condition, was assigned in 1944 to a mountain infantry division, with which he marched to the Eastern Front. When it became impossible to hold positions against the Red Army, the German troops had to resort to a chaotic retreat. Lothar, along with a few friends, lost contact with the soldiers and together they tried to navigate the inhospitable terrain. Completely exhausted, they eventually fell into captivity and became Russian prisoners of war. And here his martyrdom begins. On the long death march, Lothar witnesses many prisoners dying and becomes a witness to the brutality and complete indifference towards the fates of the captured soldiers. Nevertheless, he does not lose hope of returning home one day. Before that happens, he will have to survive very harsh conditions in captivity. The author of the book, Klaus Willmann, decided to tell the fate of the main character Lothar Herrmann in the ich-form, as if he were the hero himself. This type of narration, in his opinion, allows readers to better understand how unscrupulous rulers of all the involved states sent young people to their deaths or plunged them into misery without defining good and evil.