Goodbye, Transylvania (Stackpole Military History Series)

This is a book which tells an excellent and moving story of personal war experiences by an East European ethnic German Waffen SS soldier of WWII. I am a huge fan of all WWII stories and have bought a dozen of war memory books by former German soldiers from amazon, but due to limits of time and inertia caused by daily work and chores, many of them have remain unread on my book shelf, which reminds me of an old saying: “You don’t read a book unless it is a borrowed one.” During the passing summer vacation, I spent sections of my hard-earned free time for a few days on reading the book continually and finished it from the first page to the last. I shall honestly say that it is really a superb book full of interesting and heart-touching facts and anecdotes of World War II about the writer, a former East European ethnic German Waffen SS soldier and his family relatives, friends, and people having ever played notable roles in his life. It helps unfold a vivid picture of the ethnic Germans and Hungarians living in post WWI Romania, of those involved in WWII and the subsequent ethnic persecution and cleansing of them, their accounts of travails, ordeals, and brave struggles amid chaos and afflictions, all forming a continuum of historical vicissitudes throughout the regions in the particular context of time. The author lays emphasis on the three major parts, namely, his war fighting experiences, his views on the conduct of German authorities towards people of occupied places in the high tide of German power, and the facts and eye witnesses of the Soviet brutality on German and other East European lands in the wake of the defeat of Nazi Germany. The war fighting in the Eastern theatre against the Soviet behemoth is truly a hardy and gritty undertaking, extremely exciting but enormously dangerous. The author Mr. Landau and his comrades fought so valorously and tenaciously against great odds and he personally had so many narrow escapes from the grip of death while his less fortunate friends and comrades fell down to earth one after another and often died grisly deaths on the merciless battlegrounds. The author is not a “reeducated” (read brainwashed) hater of Hitler and National Socialist Germany even though he did express his candid and critical view of some cocky and callous Nazi officials with their crass and ham-handed treatment of peoples of occupied countries which in my opinion is mostly fair and objective and not lost in context and proportion thus never appears as blind and sweeping accusations as we sometimes see in some other pathetic and guilt-laden memoirs by former German military men. The author’s descriptions of the utterly brutal, dishonorable, and inhumane conducts of Soviet army and its East European cohorts against German soldiers and civilians alike, many from his own personal experiences and eye witnesses look quite real and credible. Again, he maintains an factual and non-emotional tone in relating the Soviet way by not only revealing such gruesome atrocities but also giving credit and even gratitude to some kind elements of Soviet military and civilians when deserved from which readers can see his fair and balanced mind. On the preciously humane and benign side of the victors, he particularly renders his heartfelt thanks and praises to the English military and civil personnel for their generosity and assistance which according to him, not only saved his life, but also his sanity and helped put him back into a peaceful and civilize post-war life. The author’s writing style is one that really flows smoothly which makes this book very readable and a truly enjoyable page-turner. He seems quite a smart guy with great language and survival skills. Born an ethnic German he naturally speaks German as his mother tongue. As a former Romanian citizen, he speaks Romanian too. He also speaks good Hungarian language, plus his quick learning and masterful use of English later, one can’t help admiring his remarkable linguistic talent. Furthermore, in the book the author also shows his concise, insightful, and often trenchant observations on many aspects of war and life in the tumultuous years, which are often sprinkled with witty and humorous remarks, and are manifest in the three major parts mentioned in the previous two paragraphs that form the central thematic line throughout the book. As it turns out, the following are some interesting and thought-provoking tidbits in which I felt most deeply impressed: 1. Foreword, page IX, the introduction of Transylvanian-Saxons, their outstanding talent and abilities in building a well developed civil life. 2. Chapter 5, page 51, the three-line paragraph that summarize the Russian war-time mentality and behavior (ruthless and resilient in fight, brutal and merciless in victory, cowardly and abject in defeat) in succinct, accurate and unapologetically poignant words. 3. Chapter 11, page 84, 85, the vivid and impactful description of scenes of the war fighting against a ruthless enemy from an disadvantaged position. 4. Chapter 13, page 96, the sober and graphic descriptions of the unbelievably cruel Russian massacre and mutilation of German soldiers and the author’s indignant feeling and thoughts. 5. Chapter 14, page 107, 108, the eye witness accounts of the brutal fighting in the West front against the allies in a desperate situation; Page 120, descriptions of the saving by the author and his comrades of a German woman from being gang raped by Russian soldiers in war devastated Berlin; Page 126, paragraph 2, the author’s searing condemnation of the Russians and their grotesque brutalities with acutely intense and impressive rhetoric of analogy. (This chapter has the most concentrated and breathtaking accounts of fighting in the entire book.) 6. Chapter 15, page 144, on the top, on Russians’ mixed feeling of the hate and fear towards German soldiers; Page 146, on the exemplary and unbending fortitude of the big majority of German POWs refusing to give in to the Russian demands in extremely adverse conditions. 7. Chapter 16, page 159, 167, the author’s sincere and deeply touching lamenting and reflection over the issue of war and humanity for the kind-hearted help he received from some Russian civilians on his escape route from the POW camp in Russia; Page 163, the author’s pertinent and truthful exposition of the ghastly atrocious crimes perpetrated against German civilians by East Europeans especially Czechs amid a rabid, morbid, and unjustified frenzy of hatred and vengefulness in contrast with the relatively much more decent and humane treatment of occupied peoples by German authorities based on well documented and demonstrable facts. 8. Chapter 17, page 178, the last paragraph, the author’s strong statement on the amazing achievement of the Transylvanian Saxon community in North America, pronouncing that “there are more doctors and professors per capita among the scattered Saxon than any other nation on earth”, to which I honestly feel half-believing and half-incredulous and which, if proven true, is undoubtedly an awesome and brilliant feat. The book has 193 pages of writing including Foreword and Epilogue as well as 16 full pages of old pictures portraying the author in various military uniforms or civilian clothing from his childhood to post-war days and also those featuring his beloved families, friends and comrades. These pictures are largely quite clear and telling. All in all, a very good and interesting read! Five stars!

Back in the 90's, a few paragraphs were included in Russ Schneider's book "Gotterdammerung 1945," from Heinz Landau's book which perked my interest in someday obtaining it. But the rare times I could locate a copy, it was always priced too high. Now that I have a cheaper paperback edition, it was worth the wait & was a good read. Landau saw extensive combat action with the Waffen SS as a Roumanian volunteer from ethnic German extraction. The ethnic Germans & Roumanians in that country absolutely loathed each other, & few Germans wanted to serve in the Roumanian army, due to the persecution & sometimes murder of Germans in Roumania before the war, so when war broke out with the USSR, many joined the Wehrmact & Waffen SS. The Roumanians fought treacherously during the war, as did the Italians. They would later switch sides & fight with the Red Army in 1944, causing the loss of an entire German army. Landau describes one battle, where the attackers were entirely Roumanians serving the Red Army. He & his comrades were so enraged, they beat back the assault with few Roumanian survivors, with such savagery, even the Russians were astounded by the losses! Heinz was sickened by the monstrous atrocities committed by the Red Army against Hungarian & German civilians, especially the mass rape of women. He & his comrades would execute with a bullet in the head, all Red rapists who fell into their hands alive. Heinz personally destroyed several Soviet tanks with Panzerfaust bazookas, as did many of his comrades in an anti-tank company with their PAK-40 anti-tank guns, or in close combat with hand held weapons. He was very lucky to have survived the war with all the injuries he suffered, & we are very fortunate to have his written account of his experiences today. I highly recommend this book.

I got this book as another Eastern Front memoir from the German point of view. The author was an ethnic German from Transylvania who enlisted in the SS to avoid service in the hated Romanian army. He was in a unique position to see the war from a variety of locations, units, and positions due to his assignment to an internal security CID-type unit. He spent part of the war operating undercover in different units and organizations, including SS, Organization Todt, NSKK, etc to root out fraud, waste, and abuse. His account of what motivated him, his ethnic background and how it informed his decisions and affected his life, and his experiences in the SS were fascinating in a way no strategic-level book can ever be. One of the most important aspects of this personal account is the human face it puts on the German soldier AND the SS soldier. If your history only comes from pop culture sources, mainstream text books, or movies, you have absolutely no idea what really happened and just who the German soldier was. If you've never dug into their personal accounts, you have no way of knowing they weren't the faceless Nazi monsters movies portray them as. Landau, for instance, discusses how sarcastic and derisive SS soldiers (supposedly mindless Nazi fanatic automatons) could be towards the government. He also describes the horror they experienced fighting the Russians and the war crimes the Russians routinely committed (whitewashed by the victors) against both soldiers and civilians. Landau's story is also partly a bittersweet story of his return home to Transylvania many years after the war and after the collapse of the USSR and his reunion with his surviving family. If you're interested in personal accounts of the war, you will really enjoy this book.

Really wanted to get a different perspective in reading this book. It was a quick read, but difficult to take seriously thanks to all the contradictions and revisionist histories. 1.) The author talks about his German ancestors arriving in Transylvania 800 years ago, and claims the Romanians/Vlachs came as migrants later. But later in the same book he talks about how the Romanian/Vlachs are descendants of the Dac’s-who were in Transilvania 2000++ years ago according to Roman & Greek records. 2.He brings up the fact that there were tensions between the Romanians and Germans in Transylvania, but doesn’t explain that the Germans received 500+ years of favorable treatment from the Hungarian Kings versus the Romanians, who were prevented from accessing land rights and attending higher education because of their Orthodox religion. 3. He laments the Romanian people being angry in WWII, but doesn’t explain that may have been due to Romania being partitioned by the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact (just as Poland was), and the resulting stream of Romanian refugees who were displaced from their homes & killed.

It's refreshing to read something about World War II written from the German perspective. The Germans and Hungarians weren't the worst people active in Romania during the war. They had a sense that they were protecting Europe from the Russian Communists and that the British and Americans will ultimately have to fight the Russian Communists themselves. Well told story with lots of personal details.

From a historical view point it is very worth reading. I did not find Mr. Landau very likable.like many only children is very self centered.he tends to see the war from his view point only.he is full of hate toward the Russians and others,never talking about the crimes of the SS.nonetheless,I found his tales of the conflict interesting.The soldiers on both sides especially german and russian had difficult lives,and this is is well presented here.

This first hand account about the 2nd Word War was quite delightful and well written. Landau was not a Romanian except in the geographic sense because of the countries rearrangement after World War I. While reading this the reader will learn about the different nationalities involved. His adventures are very entertaining and enlightening about the areas the author had to fight in. His story takes you to the last days of the fighting in Berlin and the fall of the Reich and beyond. He was taken prisoner on the last day and relates his imprisonment and escape.

Goodbye Transylvania reading this book I must say the author saw a lot of combat and a lot of different style missions. Easy to read and understand makes t he book worthwhile. The many training schools and the actual battles are described in detail. His description before the war of ethnic people living in Romania in the beginning is the most interesting to me. It gives a feel of the hostile towards people of not Romanian ancestry. One tough combat soldier who survived the war with a lot of near misses and was lucky to make it to British lines. Interesting read

When i ordered this book it sounded very promising but as soon i started reading it i regret it . Book is missing detailed accounts of combat and daily life of the Waffen SS soldier, most of the actions were described in following style:”we came, we were shooting, battle is over etc. , with one word very poor book, poor of happenings and poor of giving you detailed picture of the battles. If you are looking for real and interesting account try ”Eastern front” by Leon Degrelle, i can promise you something special.

Une histoire digne d'un film d'Hollywood. L'histoire dans la front Est est surprenant. Bon livre et pas cher, je recommande.

From a Axis perspective, it is a very open view of the war at a soldiers level. Stories like this are a view rarely though or written about since the axis lost the war. I recommend.

This must surely rank among the most engaging military memoirs of the twentieth century, quite unique in being written in English by an ethnic German (a Transylvanian Saxon) who spoke Romanian and Hungarian as fluently as any native - and who later added Russian to his linguistic armoury. Aside from Landau's cosmopolitan background, it is his sense of humour which most captivates the reader, a youthful veteran who seeks out the comic side of each fresh predicament in amusingly idiomatic English and almost never whinges about the perilous situation facing him each and every day, if not hour. He has little to say in favour of Romanians or Russians, however, so this book is probably best avoided if you are from either of these nations or strongly empathise with them: Landau and his family paid dearly for their minority status in post-Trianon Romania, both before and after the Communist takeover, and this accounts for the bitterness felt by most of those isolated 'ethnics', rarely expressed so frankly and fluently in ordinary everyday English. Music, song and poetry play a big part in this story, and on several occasions even ensure our hero’s survival. They are woven into the narrative in the most beguiling way, with lyrics presented in English as well as German/Hungarian, providing insights into the warp and weft of Transylvanian culture, its linguistic sophistication, civilised values and deep respect for family, folkways, and nation. I have recently been studying the Donauschwaben (Danube Swabians) of the Banat (since 1919 part of Romania) and southern Hungary (Schwäbische Turkei), many of whom crossed Landau's path during the war. By contrast with the town-dwelling ‘Saxons’ of the Carpathian foothills, these were rural types who drained, tilled and harvested the Hungarian/Habsburg breadbasket for the best part of two centuries. A vivid sense of complex loyalties beset all the Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans) of central-eastern Europe, bound by language, folk music, and countless other ties to throw in their lot with the Third Reich after decades of oppression under various masters. Their story is little known in the English-speaking world, so this book performs a real service, a picaresque tale of a young man eager to enter a life of male comradeship and adventure, while also escaping the perils of small-town persecution. Landau was clever and lucky enough to come out alive, but that is what makes his story so engaging: challenges met, overcome and relished. There is something of the Good Soldier Svejk in this ‘ordinary’ private (later lieutenant) who somehow gets the better of senior officers for whom he is little more than cannon fodder, a humble soldier from a semi-mythical frontier town (Kronstadt/Brasov practically lives off the Dracula industry these days), who is finally reconciled with the Anglo-Saxon foe, and whose dogged enthusiasm for life and laughter wins through against all odds.

Good WW2 history book , good price and I got it quick