Condemned to Live: A Panzer Artilleryman's Five-Front War

Condemned to Live is a the memoir of Franz Frisch, who served in the German Army during World War II. Frisch was 19 years old when, in 1938, he was drafted into an artillery battalion from his hometown of Vienna, Austria. Serving nine years as a Panzer artilleryman, he fought on five fronts in the European war: Poland, France, the Soviet Union, Sicily, and Italy. In March 1945, he became an American prisoner of war and spent two years in captivity.

The remarkably candid photographs display the war’s devastation and death, but most striking are the people images: camp life, friends, enemies, and refugees. Using a popular Kodak box camera, Frisch shot pictures from 1939 in Poland, until 1943, when film became unavailable. He periodically sent the film to his mother to be developed.

Frisch writes about the human interest subjects, mainly comrades and family, his personal war. He eschews Hitler’s grand strategies, field marshals, Panzer tactics, or recounting the war’s outcomes, all beyond his control. The narrative includes extensive remembrances of a private soldier’s small and volatile world, conforming to the level of authority and responsibility, viewpoint, and informality of the man who took the images.

Available from:
White Mane Publishing Co Inc.