Most accounts of the Battle of Stalingrad have been written by high-ranking German officers. In contrast, I Remember Stalingrad by Dr. Hans Welzel, edited by Elizabeth Schmid, provides a rare and harrowing perspective from the eyes of a common soldier—an unflinching testimony of endurance, loss, and survival.
Dr. Hans Welzel was born in 1907 in Austria to a family of schoolteachers. While studying pharmacy and working as a research scientist at the University of Vienna, he refused to join the Nazi Party during the German occupation. For his defiance, he lost his university position and later was drafted into the German Army in 1941—not as an officer, despite his PhD, but as a common soldier deemed “politically unreliable.”
Welzel’s path led him to the hell of Stalingrad, where he served in a medical unit during the infamous Soviet encirclement of 1942–43. Amid freezing conditions, starvation, and relentless fighting, he witnessed the deaths of thousands of fellow Austrian and German soldiers. Following Germany’s surrender, Welzel was captured and endured six brutal years in Russian prison camps—where survival for common soldiers was nearly impossible. Against the odds, he returned home in 1948, physically weakened but emotionally unbroken.
Edited by Dr. Elizabeth Maria Schmid, I Remember Stalingrad illuminates not only the unimaginable suffering of ordinary soldiers but also the resilience of the human spirit in the face of overwhelming despair. By chronicling Welzel’s story, the book preserves a firsthand account that challenges sanitized or officer-centric narratives of Stalingrad.
This compelling memoir is both a personal remembrance and a valuable historical document, shedding light on the lived experiences of those often left voiceless in history.
Readers interested in the lasting legacies of World War II may also explore Dr. Schmid’s memoir, Adolf Hitler’s Ghost, which reflects on her own family’s survival during the war and its aftermath.
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