Daedalus Returned

Rating:
Summary: A vivid portrait of a lesser known campaign
Review: I have read several first hand accounts of WWII, with a special emphasis on the German perspective. With this in mind, never have I encountered a book so well written as Baron von der Heydte's. The language is clear and very descriptive, allowing the reader to easily slip into the Cretan setting the author lays out. It is apparent that von der Heydte was a deep intellectual thinker as he frequently makes referencees to Greek mythology, and takes time out from the action to discuss his feelings on the morality and insanity of war. His description of the fighting on Crete is first rate and leaves little to be desired. What is also pleasing is that he relates his innermost feelings to the reader throughout the text, giving a truly human side the German fighting man. Little emphasis is placed on Nazism and I think this is a result of the deep intellectual that he was. He saw though much of the propaganda of the Third Reich, yet still performed his duties a proffessional German soldier. In Baron von der Heydte we find a very honorable man indeed, and one cannot help but admire his character. If you a looking for a rare, first- hand account by a fine soldier, do not pass this book up.

Rating:
Summary: A vivid portrait of a lesser known campaign
Review: I have read several first hand accounts of WWII, with a special emphasis on the German perspective. With this in mind, never have I encountered a book so well written as Baron von der Heydte's. The language is clear and very descriptive, allowing the reader to easily slip into the Cretan setting the author lays out. It is apparent that von der Heydte was a deep intellectual thinker as he frequently makes referencees to Greek mythology, and takes time out from the action to discuss his feelings on the morality and insanity of war. His description of the fighting on Crete is first rate and leaves little to be desired. What is also pleasing is that he relates his innermost feelings to the reader throughout the text, giving a truly human side the German fighting man. Little emphasis is placed on Nazism and I think this is a result of the deep intellectual that he was. He saw though much of the propaganda of the Third Reich, yet still performed his duties a proffessional German soldier. In Baron von der Heydte we find a very honorable man indeed, and one cannot help but admire his character. If you a looking for a rare, first- hand account by a fine soldier, do not pass this book up.

Rating:
Summary: A classic wartime memoir!
Review: This is one of the rare times that I have read a book in two successive days and there is a good reason. The battle of Crete remains one of the least known episodes of World War II, but it is extremely significant since it marked the absolute zenith of the Wehrmacht's might, just before it embarked on the disastrous Operation Barbarossa. Nothing seems to escape from von der Heydte's attention: the historical background of Crete, the landscape of the island and the personalities of his own soldiers whom he describes with vivid pictures. Von der Heydte was a battalion commander of the dreaded and elite German paratroopers who assaulted Crete against its British, Australian, New Zealander and Greek defenders in May 1941, and although he didn't fight in the crucial Maleme sector but in the neighbouring Galata-Canea area, he witnessed the whole drama of the battle. The operation "Merkur" was the brainchild of German General Kurt Student who had taken every possibility into consideration but then everything turned out contrary to plans and expecations. The author describes in excellent detail the combat jump, the chaos of the first hours on Cretan soil, the fierce enemy resistance, the painful losses, the hunger, the thirst and the desperation of the first days when the battle was hunging on a balance, so that the Berlin radio made its first mention of the attack on Crete five days after the beginning of the battle! Here and there a paragraph is a real gem o literature proving that the baron's pen is at least as mighty as his sword. The chapter "The Dressing Station" is one of the best I have ever read. Humour, horror, human relationships, personal drama and the solitary burden of leadership in battle are interwoven in a marcellously told story, which does not omit the broader view from the Generals' aspect. Von der Heydte has written a real masterpiece of military literature, although he was fighting from the side of an evil regime.