Sniper on the Eastern Front

A Sniper on the Eastern Front begins when Allerberger, a front-line machine-gunner, receives a minor hand wound in combat. While convalescing, he happens upon a captured Red Army sniper rifle and, on a lark, starts shooting targets with it. Those around him immediately realize what his real talent is. Allerberger is made a sniper on the spot, issued an 8x scope to go with his Russian gun, and sent out on a more or less freelance mission to kill as many Soviets as he can. What follows is his memoir of operating in a landscape of nightmares. ~~~ In the beginning, Allerberger wonders whether he's doing a noble or cowardly thing. Plenty of soldiers, even on his own side, hated snipers. But this was the Eastern Front, the worst place in the unholy epic of human warfare. In one scene, seconds after an artillery attack, Allerberger's charred, steaming and limbless comrade looks him in the eye and asks, "What happened? Why is it so dark?" Then he begins to cry and dies on the spot. ~~~ "Alas, there was no place for sentimentality in this war," Allerberger reflects, and pulls the trigger one more time.