Gurschlka, Michael/Gratschmeyer, Otto Wir waren die Jüngsten. Zeitzeugen der Jahrgänge 1919 bis 1935 berichten

From the last large-scale tank battle on the Eastern Front in 1943 to the bitter end in the Austrian Weinviertel north of the Danube in April 1945, the author illustrates the human tragedies behind the military moves. Numerous contemporary witnesses from Germany, Upper and Lower Austria and Vienna from the last eleven years of military service, 1919 to 1929, report on life as civilians, the position and conscription, the retreat that began in 1943, the Soviet or Western Allied superiority in troops as well as tanks, aircraft and artillery, on the march and in the position, and Russian captivity.

Furthermore, hundreds of reports noted in letters and war diaries, information from soldier's books and military passports, photographs, sketches drawn up, award certificates and death certificates from archives in Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic and Russia provide information. About the fighting at the Kuban bridgehead, the withdrawal of Army Group A from the Caucasus and the struggle for the city of Kharkov and the Ukraine. About the offensive in the Kursk area in 1943, the landing of Western Allied troops in Sicily and the gruelling battles on the Gustav and Goth lines in the Italian theatre of war.
About the crushing defeat of Army Group Centre in the Minsk area in 1944 and the Soviet advance on the Oder in northern Germany, where graduates of the 18th Fahnenjunkerlehrgang of the Kriegsschule Wiener Neustadt were also deployed. About the landing of the 21st Army Group, "D-Day" on the beaches of Normandy in western France and the retreating battles of the 3rd Panzer Division (Army Group South) across Romania to the Danube in Hungary.
About the Ardennes (Belgium) and Lake Balaton (Hungary) offensives and the battles of the Reich's Grenadier Division "Hoch- und Deutschmeister" at the Gran Bridgehead as well as their retreat via the Reich's protective position near Radkersburg to Lower Austria, where fierce battles for the last crude oil wells of the German Reich raged between the German 8th Army and the Soviet 7th Guards Army in the greater area around Zistersdorf in April 1945. Processes visualised on original maps, sketches of grave sites and interviews with contemporary witnesses allow the reader to compare the dramatic and inhuman situation between soldiers of opposing nations and the fleeing population. In this way, it was even possible to reconstruct and present details that took place on our own doorstep at the time. This 2nd volume ends with the battles in the Weinviertel, on the March, Thaya and Zaya rivers, in the areas of Hohenau, Großkrut/Altlichtenwarth, Mistelbach, Poysdorf and Laa, with reports from then 17-year-old members of the Waffen SS combat group "Bohemia and Moravia", regiment "Konopacki". The association for the clarification of the fates of missing and fallen soldiers finally led the author to the Wechsel region of Lower Austria and Styria, where the death of a member of the Soviet 26th Army who was believed to be missing could be clarified after decades.