Through Fire and Sky

Volume I: From Infantryman in France to Luftwaffe Reconnaissance over Soviet Lines, 1938–1944

Karl Knoblauch

• Publisher: Greenhill Books
• Year: 2026
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781805001058
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: History

Karl Knoblauch's wartime diaries illuminate the forging of a soldier's resolve from youth to frontline officer amid the pressures of a world at war.

A well-written and rewarding memoir that provides keen insight into the mindset of a patriotic young man willing to make sacrifices for his country.' — Robert Forczyk

In this masterful two-volume account, Prussian solider and officer Karl Knoblauch draws on his wartime diaries to detail his fascinating military career during the Second World War. In this first volume, he recounts the years leading up to the outbreak of the war through to 1944. 

In 1938, just before the outbreak of war, a 17-year-old Karl Knoblauch volunteered for military service and began his career as an infantryman before joining the air force as aircrew. Later, Knoblauch was seriously wounded in a Russian fighter attack over Wjazma and had to leave his squadron. After recuperating, he returned to the frontline as an officer in the ‘Hermann Göring’ Division, where this first volume comes to a close.

Knoblauch describes his experiences in sober and stark detail, creating a gripping and comprehensive first-hand account of his time fighting for the Wehrmacht. Supplemented by several photographs and appendices, this is a must-read for any military history enthusiast.

Table of contents

• Foreword
• Translator’s Note
• Preface
• Chronology
• The Infantry: Starting on a Difficult Life, November 1938
• The Army Non-commissioned Officer School, November 1938–January 1941
• Operative Luftaufklärung des Heeres (Operational Army Aerial Reconnaissance), January 1941–August 1944
• Comrades
• Plates
• Acknowledgements