On the Devil's Tail
In Combat with the Waffen-SS on the Eastern Front 1945, and with the French in Indochina 1951-54
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Narrated by:
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James Anderson Foster
About this listen
This is the riveting true story of Paul Martelli, a 15-year-old German-Italian who fought in Pomerania, on the Eastern Front, in 1945 as a member of the 33rd Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS "Charlemagne" and later as a soldier with French forces during three years (1951-1954) in the Tonkin area, Vietnam.
Paul recounts his time at the Sennheim military training base, where he was introduced to the rigorous discipline of body and mind. He then goes back to 1940, during the German invasion of France, when he was still a boy in Lorraine, hinting at his motivations for enlisting with the Waffen SS. He reveals his and many young soldiers' exciting and often humorous escapades at Greifenberg, his first love with a German girl helping refugees, and his experiences and feelings during the combats at Körlin, during the strenuous defense of Kolberg, while regrouping at Neustrelitz, and at the German defeat. With a companion, he ends up at a castle delivering a group of women camp prisoners to a Russian officer, living in disguise among enemy soldiers until he escapes and surrender to the Americans.
After his sentence, imprisonment, evasions, and military service in Morocco, Paul is sent to fight in defense of bases north of Hanoi, Vietnam. He survives three years of fierce combats, assaults, ambushes, night patrols, fatal traps, and mortal risks, but, deep down, he compares his service with the Waffen SS during the last year of war with the inefficiency of the French Expeditionary Force in the Far East and comes out deeply frustrated. At almost 26, he has fought and lost in two wars, both against the communists, be they Soviet or Viet-Minh. Unemployed, and with the ideals of a "Nouvelle Europe" in pieces, he briefly joins the French Foreign Legion, his last hope, but in the end chooses another path.
This is a unique memoir, packed with incident and recounting the story of one individual caught up in a series of life-changing events.
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Good Story, Too Preachy
- By Michael Brown on 09-15-17
By: John E. Nevola
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Blood Red Snow
- The Memoirs of a German Soldier on the Eastern Front
- By: Günter K. Koschorrek
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Gunter K. Koschorrek was a machine-gunner on the Russian front in WWII. He wrote his illicit diary on any scraps of paper he could lay his hands on. As keeping a diary was strictly forbidden, he sewed the pages into the lining of his thick winter coat and deposited them with his mother on infrequent trips home on leave. The diary went missing, and it was when he was reunited with his daughter in America some 40 years later that it came to light and became Blood Red Snow.
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One of the best personal accounts coming out of WW2
- By Sonia Lopez on 12-09-19
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Parachute Infantry
- An American Paratrooper's Memoir of D-Day and the Fall of the Third Reich
- By: David Kenyon Webster
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 17 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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David Kenyon Webster's memoir is a clear-eyed, emotionally charged chronicle of youth, camaraderie, and the chaos of war. Relying on his own letters home and recollections he penned just after his discharge, Webster gives a firsthand account of life in E Company, 101st Airborne Division, crafting a memoir that resonates with the immediacy of a gripping novel.
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The Finest Infantry Memoir of WWII
- By Michael Richards on 11-21-16
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One Soldier's War
- By: Arkady Babchenko, Nick Allen - translator
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1995, Arkady Babchenko was an 18-year-old law student in Moscow when he was drafted into the Russian army and sent to Chechnya. It was the beginning of a torturous journey from naïve conscript to hardened soldier that took Babchenko from the front lines of the first Chechen War in 1995 to the second in 1999. He fought in major cities and tiny hamlets, from the bombed-out streets of Grozny to anonymous mountain villages.
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Real, Brutal, & Honest
- By Patrick on 05-09-16
By: Arkady Babchenko, and others
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Nocturne
- By: Diane Armstrong
- Narrated by: Deidre Rubenstein
- Length: 16 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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It is Warsaw, 1939, and Elzunia is an indulged teenager who longs for a heroic life filled with romance. But the outbreak of war shatters all her dreams. As bombs fall, she meets Adam, a taciturn airman whose fate becomes entwined with hers. In despair over the occupation, Adam joins the Polish resistance, then flies bombers for the RAF.
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Blech
- By Caroline H. on 02-20-11
By: Diane Armstrong
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Eye of the Red Tsar
- A Novel of Suspense
- By: Sam Eastland
- Narrated by: Paul Michael
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Shortly after midnight on July 17, 1918, the imprisoned family of Tsar Nicholas Romanov was awakened and led down to the basement of the Ipatiev house. There they were summarily executed. A decade later, one man lives in purgatory, banished to a forest on the outskirts of humanity. Pekkala was once the most trusted secret agent of the Romanovs, the right-hand man of the Tsar himself. Now he is Prisoner 4745-P. But the state needs Pekkala one last time.
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Wow What a Book
- By Sara on 07-31-14
By: Sam Eastland
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Presumed Innocent
- By: Scott Turow
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann
- Length: 15 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Rusty Sabich, family man and the number-two prosecutor of Kindle County, is handed an explosive case—the brutal murder of a woman who happens to be his former lover. A shocking turn of events suddenly transforms him from the accuser into the accused... and plunges him into a nightmare world where nothing seems real and no one can be PRESUMED INNOCENT.
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Excellent Book, Gripping Entertainment!
- By Glen on 04-16-10
By: Scott Turow
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The Village
- By: Bing West
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Few American battles have been so extended, savage, and personal. A handful of Americans volunteered to live among six thousand Vietnamese, training farmers to defend their village. Such "Combined Action Platoons" (CAPs) are not a lost footnote about how the war could have been fought; only the villagers remain to bear witness. This is the story of 15 resolute young Americans matched against two hundred Viet Cong; how a CAP lived, fought, and died; and why the villagers remember them to this day.
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It is like you were there!
- By Gina on 06-17-21
By: Bing West
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Last Stand: The Complete Box Set
- By: William Weber
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 24 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Four audiobooks in one box set: Last Stand: Surviving America's Collapse, Last Stand: Patriots, Last Stand: Warlords, and Last Stand: Turning the Tide. John Mack, a prepper and former soldier, struggles to save his family and community after an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) takes out the country's electrical grid. With most electronics, communications, and transportation destroyed in a matter of seconds, the nation quickly collapses into anarchy. Threats emerge from enemies both foreign and domestic.
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Mixed feelings on "The Last Stand" series
- By filmakr on 11-03-18
By: William Weber
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The Man Who Broke into Auschwitz
- A True Story of World War II
- By: Denis Avey, Rob Broomby
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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The Man Who Broke into Auschwitz is the extraordinary true story of a British soldier who marched willingly into the notorious concentration camp, Buna-Monowitz, known as Auschwitz III. In the summer of 1944, Denis Avey was being held in a British POW labor camp, E715, near the site of Auschwitz III. He had heard of the brutality meted out to the prisoners there and he was determined to witness what he could.
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Great, great story
- By Anonymous User on 08-12-11
By: Denis Avey, and others
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Devil's Guard
- By: George R. Elford
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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The personal account of a guerrilla fighter in the French Foreign Legion reveals the Nazi Battalion's inhumanities to Indochinese villagers.
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If it is only half true...
- By ROS5FAM13 on 06-17-20
By: George R. Elford
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Ghost Soldiers
- The Epic Account of World War II's Greatest Rescue Mission
- By: Hampton Sides
- Narrated by: James Naughton
- Length: 5 hrs and 57 mins
- Abridged
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At once a gripping depiction of men at war and a compelling story of redemption, Ghost Soldiers joins such landmark works as Flags of Our Fathers and The Greatest Generation Speaks in preserving the legacy of World War II for future generations.
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Ghost soldiers
- By Zach on 09-07-03
By: Hampton Sides
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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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The Centurions
- By: Jean Larteguy, Robert D. Kaplan - foreward
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 17 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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When The Centurions was first published in 1960, readers were riveted by the thrilling account of soldiers fighting for survival in hostile environments. They were equally transfixed by the chilling moral question the novel posed: how to fight when the "age of heroics is over". As relevant today as it was half a century ago, The Centurions is a gripping military adventure, an extended symposium on waging war in a new global order, and an essential investigation of the ethics of counterinsurgency.
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Superbly read. Unbelievably timely
- By Benjamin on 05-05-21
By: Jean Larteguy, and others
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High rating with a major proviso
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Twilight of the Gods
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A truly unique look at the Eastern Front from a devout Nazi.
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Wounded five times and awarded numerous decorations for valor, Gottlob Herbert Bidermann saw action in the Crimea and siege of Sebastopol, participated in the vicious battles in the forests south of Leningrad, and ended the war in the Courland Pocket. In his memoir, he shares his impressions of countless Russian POWs seen at the outset of his service, of peasants struggling to survive the hostilities while caught between two ruthless antagonists, and of corpses littering the landscape.
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a different view of Normandy 1944
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What listeners say about On the Devil's Tail
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Ron B, Vero Beach
- 01-27-24
I don't believe it
This is a wide ranging tale of what purports to be a true story of a very young Waffen SS soldier who takes part in some of the well known battles in Russia and then Vietnam. however, the description of those battles and his actual experience in them is not believable. Not badly written and well narrated.
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- Jim
- 08-16-22
One of the BEST memoirs from a German Perspective
The story of Paul Martelli is epic. He is a true soldier who doesn't hesitate to go into combat and has very smart wits to survive. Most memoirs start very slow and combat is sparse. . Martelli is thrown into combat at 15 years old and I'd say more effective than any solder twice his age. One of the only soldiers to not complain about the situation and do the best with what he's got. Then it starts all over again for him in the French Foreign legion. If he was older during world war 2, he would've been promoted very fast up the ranks.
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- Chris Hummel
- 03-06-23
Fascinating Account
In reading other reviews, I have to agree with some of them. This is an exciting read/listen, well-read and engaging. There is no question that as a volunteer for the SS Charlemagne, Frenchmen in service of the Nazis, albeit as a 15 year old in 1944, there are enormous moral issues connected to Martelli's service. He is at pains to argue his unit did nothing wrong and did not participate in war crimes, but his account, free of the Nazi racism instilled in all SS units, seems highly sanitized. The story is, however, chock full of action, likely embellished (though he includes his many mistakes in Nazi and French service). It is hard, however, not to accept this as the story of a mostly decent, if extremely hot-headed and politically-naive young man. Despite what may or may not be true (it is possible it is accurate), it paints a picture of a broader experience of young men in combat and the lot of the soldier who finds themselves out of place in peacetime. With a large grain of salt for some of it's shortcomings, I would recommend this as a very interesting listen.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Rodney
- 02-22-23
If Rambo was a NAZI
First, I'm not a woke warrior and enjoy reading various WW2 books from the German and Japanese perspective. In this case, it's a French-German perspective - I have no issues with that at all, and it's literally the reason I got the book.
Another reviewed said it all however, they said 'unbelievable'.
Correct, the book is 'unbelievable', as in it's not really all that believable. You have a guy who constantly was threatening his superiors, finds himself in constant trouble yet always escapes by the skin of teeth, is sleeping with hot chicks, yet can pull a gun from his his blanket and randomly kill people sneaking up on him. It's nonsense.
The book comes off as being heavily embellished, maybe by someone who saw one too many action movies, but with a NAZI twist since often the guy comes off as a bad guy. Not a cool bad guy, just a guy who has a rotten core. I don't know, for me, I like my action heroes to help old ladies, not steal from them, but that's just me I guess.
But, with all that said, the book is mostly entertaining -- like a movie. Too much like a movie.
The reader does a good professional job, I listened to it at 1.2x speed and could have gone faster, but thought that sounded best.
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2 people found this helpful
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- B. Hines
- 07-09-23
Interesting
A interesting look into a soldier who found the calling as a young man to join the Waffen SS Charlemagne division. His experience from this and getting himself to Vietnam fighting to communist again was interesting information of post WWII. As a whole I enjoyed the book and can really respect someone who had such a fervor commitment to fight against communists expansion.
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- Customer
- 05-07-21
Good read
The WW2 segments were compelling but the SE Asia commentary was more interesting to me. i have not read much beyond B B Fall's Rue San Joyeux and Hell in a Small Place 40 years ago. Hearing the non com view of the situation pre fall of the north was very interesting.
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- Bob
- 03-09-24
Nice
Entertaining narrative of an SS volunteer, however, it lacks detail still worth the time, however
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- Chris C.
- 01-19-19
unbelievable first account
One of the best personal accounts of the late war of a very daring young warrior.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 05-03-23
A point of view that we do not often hear from.
The story is amazing. It really fills in a gap of time and completes a different perspective to stories I have read in the past. The narrator is very impressive with his mastery of many languages.
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- C. G. Telcontar
- 03-23-23
If only half of it were true...
My BS detector went off fairly early in this 'memoir' of an Eastern Front French SS soldier. And it continued to go off throughout the book, over and over. From his apparently endless insubordination to his credentials as a boxer even Mike Tyson would be skeptical about fighting, to his amazing end of the war soft landing at a castle with Soviets who let him walk around freely as he defends the honor of a pair of German maidens. Ooh boy that right there ought to be enough, but wait, there's more! When he gets to the postwar stuff the story gets into Realityville, sort of. He's supposedly locked up in the same prison as Pierre Laval for a time, but escapes easy peesy without any details given. He bums around France and Italy and does another stint in prison along with another escape before volunteering to go overseas to fight in Vietnam. There the story really sinks down to the level of yeah this sounds semi genuine and could have happened that way. There's more drinking and fisticuffs than fighting the Viet Minh, however, and when you finish, you're glad you made it. An amusing romp, but only barely, and in certain places, can it be called non fiction.
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