BOOK REVIEW: SURGEON WITH THE KAISER'S ARMY.

 

This is a super book. I found it while trawling on Amazon for new publications. It is edited by the authors grandson having been originally written in the early 1960's.

The author was a medical student when he was drafted into the German army early in 1914. As a fully trained soldier by the outbreak of war he served on the Western Front before his regiment was transferred to the Russian front. Soon after going into battle during the German offensive in November 1914 he was wounded. By that time he had been selected for officer training. During his convalescence it was noted that he had been a medical student so he was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Medical corp.

Despite not having completed his medical training he served the rest of the war as an army doctor on the Western Front. His experiences over the next few years are a fascinating, extraordinary and very illuminating record of Germany at war. Throughout the book he discusses the war from the German perspective and provides a very different view of the war, its origins and its progress from that we may be used to reading.

After the war he returned to university to complete his medical training and became a highly qualified and successful  doctor. However as a Jew he found the rise of the Nazi's intolerable and became an outspoken critic of Hitler. He left Germany and came to England  in 1933 following a tip off that the Gestapo were on their way to arrest him.

He continued his career as a Harley Street surgeon and served in the British army during the Second World War running a military hospital with the rank of Colonel.

This is without doubt one of the best books I have read for a long time. It is very well written and describes not only a fascinating war record but also gives a refreshing general view of the war from a German perspective. Highly recommended.