Rating: 
Summary: So real it's scary
Review: Before reading this book, I really didn't know that much about things like snipers, tanks and urban warfare. Now when I watch the news about the Battle of Fallujah, I can picture it all in my mind as they talk about snipers taking pot shots at our soldiers and the booby traps set for them. Practically every trick mentioned in Fallujah appears in Grandfather's Tale. Of course, it's a World War two book, so I suppose that a lot of these tactics have not changed.
Rating: 
Summary: Horrible book
Review: Even though it has been said in many other reviews, I think it needs to be said again:
Don't waste your money on this terrible book!
I came across this book while searching for WW2 memoirs in the same vein as "The Forgotten Soldier" and "In Deadly Combat". From the look of it, I though it would be another great memoir. I guess it was my fault for not reading all the reviews, but since it was included with a lot of other excellent memoirs, I thought it would at least be a good first person source of historical information. It was a huge shock when it dawned on me during the first 20 or so pages that this was a novel, not a memoir. Add to this terrible writing and dubious history and you end up with a big disappointment.
I put the book down after the first chapter (and it was a huge test of willpower to get through that far) and will not pick it up again.
The final thing that really bothered me was the cover art. It is an obvious picture of modern US Soldiers, but with a swastika superimposed on one of the soldiers arms. This is a huge insult to the soldiers in the US Army. I find it hard to believe that the publisher could not find a historical picture of real German soldiers.
Rating:
Summary: GERMAN SNIPER IN WW2
Review: I feel that this is a good book about the German sniper's tactics and use of different weapons in combat. The book is very descriptive in detailing the horrors of combat. The brutal artillery barrages are especially creative which gives the reader a concise mental visualization. The main character, Jeorg is drawn into this six year conflict, and becomes a killing machine. Jeorg questions the reasons for destruction and death, but he is drawn further into this emotional conflict because killing is his only avenue for his survival. The use of German ranks instead of U.S. Army equivalents would have made the story more authentic. Also, on page 27, during Jeorg's infantry training he was trained on the MG42 (machine gun). If this training was taking place in September of 1937, it would have been impossible due to the fact that MG42 wasn't issued until the year of 1942. The MG34, was the standard German machine gun until then. In chapter 14, the start of the "Wacht Am Rhein" was written as December6, 1944. The actual date was closer to December 16,1944(Battle of the Bulge). This book was very hard to put down and describes the futility of war on the foot soldiers level.
Rating: 
Summary: It's great
Review: I found this book to be easy to read and digest, as well as highly entertaining and educational. The sheer number of battles covered makes it a good book to have, as many are not mentioned in most history books (like the battle of Svastopol).
Rating:
Summary: An action-filled book about survival and the horror of war
Review: I have never read a book quite like this one. It takes the reader back in time, to before the world war even began. The main character, Jeorg, takes you along on his journey as he is conscripted into the Wehrmacht. He begins his journey as a simple baker who is a good shot with a rifle. Gradually, and with the need of one who must survive a very deadly ordeal, he acquires skills of all sorts. The Jeorg at the end of the book is quite different from the one in the beginning. Along his six years of fighting he racks up incredible kill counts (which I believe is quite possible, since there were several German snipers killed by the Russians who had hundreds of kills recorded in their personal books), and loses more than a few friends. His story is one of survival, betrayal, and trajedy.
Rating:
Summary: Good book
Review: I mostly read about the same events shown from a different point of view (Allies'). And this book provided me with a different prospective.
P.S. For me also the number of kills seemed strange.
So I did a little research. US lost at least 80% of its snipers during advance in Italy. It looks like "granpa" did not lie at least about this part.
Rating:
Summary: don't waste your money
Review: I noticed in the section 'People who bought this book also bought.....' a list of german war autobiographies. I have read most of them and found them to be very interesting and imformative. Anyone interested in what german soldiers experienced in ww2 should purchase one of these (non-fiction) books. Anyone interested in an innaccurate, poorly constructed, simplistic, unrealistic and ultimately quite boring (fictional) account of a german soldier should purchase this one. The historical faults are numerous, though the overall history of the war is accurate, the authers knowledge seems to stop at about the 12th grade level of historical knowledge.The historical faults are too numerous to go into. One thing that is usually accurate in these types of books is weapon nomenclature, as regards to calibre effectivness etc. Not this one. He has his main character lugging around several rifles and thousands of rounds of ammunition from front to front. For instance, taking a ruusian semi automatic rifle to use as a sniping weapon over and above his bolt action. Even the most basic rifle enthusiest knows that semi automatics are inherently less accurate than bolt actions, even today most armies ( British, U.S. Marines) use bolt action sniper rifles over automatics. And yet this auther would have us believe that a semi auto mass produced in the forties in russia would achieve as good accuracy as a bolt action, and not only that but with no special attachments a sight could be fitted and it could successfully shoot out to 600 metres with good accuracy! This probably irritated me most about the book, because of all the historical innaccuracies, the simplistic and unrealistic action sequences and plot lines (such as the main characters escape from berlin and susequent stroll through the woods back to his wife and her hoard of gold), the least this guy could have done was study up on sniping. By study up I mean read one or perhaps two books on the subject.
Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your time
Review: If you know anything about WW2 small arms weapontry, this book will frustrate you beyond no belief. It has so many technical errors about the weapons that you will not be able to focus on what the author is writing about. Of course, if you don't care about these technical things, maybe it won't matter to you.
Rating:
Summary: A whole new perspective
Review: If you want to see what the war was like for a front line soldier on the German side, read this book. It begins in the near future, when the main character is an old man. He hasn't ever told anyone what happened to him during the war. When his grandson finds a box of German medals in an old cigar box up in the attic, he decides to tell him the story.
From here, the book goes to 1937. Jeorg, the main character is conscripted into the German army. Details of training, swearing allegience to Hitler, the equipment he is issued, etc. are given in great detail.
After that the story goes to the invasions of Poland, Western Europe, Crete, and the Soviet Union. When Germany goes on the defensive, the main character fights in Italy, France, and finally (a very climactic) the battle of Berlin.
Rating:
Summary: Very good and entertaining
Review: Just a quick note to say that I think this is a great book and very worth reading.
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