From Lemberg to Bordeaux

From Lemberg to Bordeaux

Author	Leo Leixner
Original title	Von Lemberg bis Bordeaux
Translator	Steven Lehrer
Country	U.S.
Language	English
Genre	Non-Fiction/History
Publisher	SF Tafel
Publication date	2017
Media type	Trade Paper
Pages	506
ISBN	1543059252
Followed by	Generaloberst Eugen Ritter von Schobert; Lebensbild eines deutschen Armeeführers (1942)

From Lemberg to Bordeaux ('Von Lemberg bis Bordeaux'), written by Leo Leixner, a journalist and war correspondent, is an eye-witness account of the battles that led to the fall of Poland and France. In August 1939, Leixner joined the Wehrmacht as a war reporter, was promoted to sergeant, and in 1941 published his recollections. The book was originally issued by Franz Eher Nachfolger, the central publishing house of the Nazi Party.^[1]

Contents

From Lemberg to Bordeaux went through four editions and sold in the hundreds of thousands of copies by 1942. ^[2] Although the book is filled with Nazi ideology, Leixner’s work has a certain ambivalence, beginning with its dedication honoring four deceased correspondents but making no mention of living colleagues. Leixner was assigned to various infantry companies and documents his steps from one to the next. During attacks he was often at the front. He made many of the dramatic photographs contained in his book. The photos show tense Wehrmacht soldiers before battle, vanquished enemy troops, living and dead, and devastated battlefields. Leixner did not photograph dead German soldiers. When he shows a wounded comrade, the man has a bandaged head and nonchalantly puffs a cigarette. Leixner’s photos may illustrate his doubts about the war. They veer between two poles: everyday life and brutal carnage. Some show farmers at work or families on wagons. Others are filled with death, dying and destruction. The photos reflect Leixner’s own situation. He was in poor health, frequently ill and exhausted, and no doubt longed for the relative quiet of his journalist’s life before war broke out.

Locations described and ideology

Leixner writes of his own impressions in Poland and the Galician city of Lemberg. He marches from the Netherlands to the North Sea coast and through Belgium to Bordeaux in France. Leixner’s war reporting is replete with Nazi slogans and ideology. When Leixner and his company stay in a castle outside Tarnów belonging to the Szlachta family, "the countess has expressed her wish that early tomorrow morning a mass be read in the castle chapel. Should we call in a priest for a forbidden hour, despite our standing rules? We have no basis to object, but believe that there will be plenty of time to find a priest in the morning. The countess asks our motorcycle driver if we are Catholic. Would we like to attend the mass? The countess tries to be nice to us, but true soul strengthening for the German soldier in these hard days is found only within himself. The countess will not understand."

Style

Leixner was an engaging writer. He had a doctorate in German literature from the University of Graz, with a thesis entitled Mohammed in German Poetry. ^[3][4] Leixner was himself a poet, and his descriptions of battle are almost blank verse. Here he writes of the fighting at Wegierska Gorka in Poland: "We capture another height. For a moment the view astounds us: Blue twilight has descended on the Sola Valley, so soft and elegant, as though ignorant of the death and destruction below. The twilight battles the red glow of innumerable gun barrels, eerily illuminated by the azure hour. Tracer shells race in thick, endless streams toward the concrete bunkers. The tracers spin an arrow-like web of threads into a glowing green net of devastation over Wegierska Gorka. A thousand fire-spitting steel pipes become a sinister organ blaring out an unsettling fugue of war." Leixner writes with ironic wit: "Our motorized advance division roars through Jelesnia. We pass the village church, where fifty colorfully dressed town virgins cower, as though in front of the big bad wolf; little lambs shaking fearfully in the presence of the high and mighty. With a horrified conspiratorial glance one moves her hand in greeting, while another grasps a bowl of holy water, with which German iniquity can be washed away. Otherwise, heaven forfend, we might avail ourselves of the pious local girls, for whom we have not the slightest feeling or interest. A primitively comic picture: we shake with laughter kilometers further on." Leixner is especially talented at portraying grim soldier humor: “Is that the Polish border, Herr Lieutenant?” asks a rifleman. “It was the Polish border,” is the answer.

Author

Leo Leixner was a German war correspondent who was killed 14 August 1942 in Krasnodar-Kuban (Russia). He was shot through the head while crossing the Kuban River in an inflatable boat. He was awarded an Iron Cross First Class on the day of his death.^[5]

References