World War II Database

I confess. My weakness is going to a local bookstore at lunch and browsing in the World War II section. Instead of checking out one of the massive picture books one day and wiling the hour away, by chance I picked up Behind Hitler's Lines: The True Story of the Only Soldier to Fight for Both America and the Soviet Union in World War II. "Catchy title," I thought. I left with the book in hand wondering how an American paratrooper could end up fighting in the Russian army.

Published previously as The Simple Sounds of Freedom, you won't be disappointed in Behind Hitler's Lines. This book is a biography of Joe Beyrle, a member of the 101st Airborne Division during World War II, a man who:

• made two parachute jumps into France prior to the European invasion to aid the French resistance;
• jumped with the 101st into Normandy on D-day but was captured by the Germans;
• was machined gunned by American fighter planes while being transported in a boxcar with other prisoners;
• was tortured (and nearly killed) by the SS in Berlin after an escape attempt, and rescued at gunpoint by the Wehrmacht;
• escaped his prison camp as the Russians advanced on the Eastern front;
• fought as an infantryman in the Russian tank corps, under the command of a woman major;
• was wounded, then evacuated east, and met Russian General Zhukov while recovering;
• made his way to Moscow, with a personal letter from Zhukov in hand guaranteeing his passage, where he was mistaken for a German spy by American embassy officials.

How Beyrle managed to survive this odyssey of events is a miracle, especially the torture/rescue episode. Taylor recreates this situation well, as he does in retelling other circumstances throughout the book. He writes about the torture incident:

"The Gestapo stepped back (after the Wehrmacht soldiers walked in, with a colonel), pretending to ignore the soldiers. Joe became fascinated by the contrast in uniforms—black for the Gestapo, gray-green for the Wehrmacht—and gaped when they ended a brief conversation and started to look daggers at each other. In the tense silence he could hear Brewer (another prisoner) wheezing through a broken nose. It seemed to Joe that there could only be a disagreement about who would execute the execution" (257).

But Joe was wrong. What he witnessed was a power struggle between competing interests: professional soldiers of the Wehrmacht asserting their jurisdiction over prisoners verses the goon tactics of the Gestapo. And as a speaker of German, he began to understand the rift. "'Shoot'em!' Joe yelled like a drunk. 'Mal halten!' the colonel shouted back" (259), the soldiers with machine pistols poised to fire. A few minutes later, the prisoners were shoved out the door and into the back of car, rescued by the Wehrmacht officer, himself of veteran of the Russian campaign.

Safely in the car, the colonel asks Joe:

"'Where were you trying to go...if you had made it out of Berlin?'
'East.' The colonel nodded slowly as the staff car crept around bomb craters and rubble. 'We soldiers must do what we do.' Joe felt great respect for him, almost as great as his gratitude (260)."

Beyrle's one word response tells us much about this character, especially when he could have played it safe back at the prison camp, and about the understanding of duty that exists between professional soldiers.

Taylor structures this book around the events of the Allied invasion: the push through France, Operation Market Garden, the Battle of Bulge, etc., so readers always have an idea about where Beyrle is in relation to these key events and other people involved in them.

All in all, Behind Hitler's Lines is an engaging read, a real page-turner, and well worth the $7 for the paperback. Maybe you'll shake your head once or twice like I did and wonder, "how did Beyrle manage to live through ALL of this?" I thought of Mark Twain, too, when he said that "truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn't." You got that right, Mark.

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