There are two parts to this book, on one side we have a first-hand account of the war from the view of a soldier and on the other what appears to be a propaganda leaflet.
To start with, Meyer provides the account of the war he fought, starting in Poland, campaigning through the Balkans, his battles on the Eastern Front, and his final battles fought in the west preluding to his capture, trail and imprisonment as a convicted war criminal. Meyer does provide a graphic account of his experiences, and one is able to appreciate to some degree what it must have felt like to have been there.
However to the other side: one notes throughout Meyer's work how his men never commit any war crimes in the east nor the west however he gladly provides various accounts of the war crimes committed by his foes. As the book proceeds into the chapters dealing with Normandy and beyond, one gets a sense of some pretty warped and radical views: he notes how it was the French resistances own fault French civilians were shot in reprisals and does not provide any feeling of remorse for such comments. He allows room to denounce the Allied bombing of Caen, stating the city was abandoned, yet fails to mention how it was major supply node, headquarters, and eventually a retreat route for German forces - it was hardly abandoned of German forces. It is these types of comments, and his defensive nature of the murder his men committed against Canadian troops that make half this book feel like a propaganda leaflet.
