Facebook X YouTube Instagram TikTok NetGalley
Google Books previews are unavailable because you have chosen to turn off third party cookies for enhanced content. Visit our cookies page to review your cookie settings.

A Prisoner of Stalin (Hardback)

The Chilling Story of a Luftwaffe Pilot Shot Down and Captured on the Eastern Front

Aviation > WWII > Luftwaffe Military > Biographies Military > Frontline Books WWII > Battles & Campaigns > Russia & the Eastern Front

By Gerhard Ehlert, Christian Huber
Frontline Books
Pages: 128
ISBN: 9781526733214
Published: 10th October 2022

in_stock

£16.99


You'll be £16.99 closer to your next £10.00 credit when you purchase A Prisoner of Stalin. What's this?
+£4.99 UK Delivery or free UK delivery if order is over £40
(click here for international delivery rates)

Need a currency converter? Check XE.com for live rates

Other formats available - Buy the Hardback and get the eBook for £1.99! Price
A Prisoner of Stalin ePub (990.9 KB) Add to Basket £6.99


Leutnant Gerhard Ehlert was one of the few survivors of 2. Nachtaufklärungsstaffel, part of the Luftwaffe’s 6th Air Fleet, which operated on Eastern Front during the Second World War. Although he came from a family that spoke out against Hitler and the Nazi regime, he volunteered to join the Luftwaffe. He went on to undertake combat patrols under the most extreme circumstances.

Facing hazardous weather conditions – often landing his aircraft ‘blind’ in heavy fog – and mountainous odds against Soviet air superiority, Ehlert completed twenty-two sorties before his Dornier Do 217M-1, coded K7+FK, was shot down on 14 June 1944. Despite strenuous efforts to escape the Soviets, along with his rear-gunner Feldwebel Wilhelm Burr, he was captured by the Red Army. What followed changed his life forever.

Though interrogated repeatedly, Ehlert revealed nothing about his missions or duties. Then, during his transfer to a prisoner of war camp, he had to face a hostile crowd of Russian civilians who had suffered from the devastating effects of the Luftwaffe’s bombs. In the long journey eastwards across the bleak Russian steppes to the camp at Yelabuga, a town in the Republic of Tatarstan, Ehlert reflected on his early years and the road he took to the east and the horrifying situation he was in. But it was not the months he endured in the freezing prisoner of war camp which became his most haunting memory – it was when the war ended.

The Russians announced that with peace came new rules. Now the prisoners must work and the food ration would be reduced. Their uniforms were removed, and all privileges of rank dismissed. To the Soviets they were no longer prisoners of war, they were mere criminals and were treated accordingly.

Transferred to Bolshoy Bor in the north, day after day the men had to transport logs, even through the snow and ice of winter, with many of the prisoners dying of malnutrition and exposure. The Russians told them they were ‘to rebuild what they destroyed in the Soviet Union’.

Ehlert’s suffering finally ended in 1949. He was able to return to his parental home, initially being treated as an unwelcome stranger. When he related his story to Christian Huber, Gerhard Ehlert was in his 90s, by then a happy father and grandfather, and undoubtedly a survivor.

“The 'chilling' in the subtitle is indeed accurate. German POWs in the USSR fared far worse than in the UK or US. It's an interesting adjunct to the usual WWII battle and campaign books...Enjoyed it."

Read the full review here

Historical Miniatures Gaming Society, April 2024

As featured on World War II Today

WW2 Today

I highly recommend the book because it shows a less known history. It shows how life was in Russian camps, how Germans felt after the war, and how Germans born afterwards deal with their past.

Read the Full Review Here

Coffee & Books

As featured on Army Rumour Service

Army Rumour Service (ARRSE)

About Gerhard Ehlert

GERHARD EHLERT was one of the few survivors of the Luftwaffe’s 2nd Long-Range Reconnaissance Group, part of the 6th Air Fleet, which operated on Eastern Front during the Second World War. Captured in June 1944, he did not return to Germany until 1949. When he related his story to Christian Huber, Ehlert was in his 90s, by then a happy father and grandfather, and undoubtedly a survivor.


About Christian Huber

Born in Wasserburg am Inn, Germany, in 1964, CHRISTIAN HUBER has worked as a journalist for some twenty years. As well as being the publisher of a weekly newspaper in south-east Bavaria, he has also published a number of books relating to the events of the Second World War.

Customers who bought this title also bought...

Other titles in Frontline Books...