When Eternities Met: A true story of terror, mutiny, loss, and love in a disremembered Second World War - Softcover

Rohde, Matt

Softcover

ISBN 10: 099806260X ISBN 13: 9780998062600

Publisher: Pencil and Barn, 2017

Synopsis

When Eternities Met is the true story of the wartime odyssey of five young lives, two boys and a girl coming of age in a small town in the American Midwest and another teenage boy and girl mired in the ‘bloodlands’ of Central Europe. Their vantage point illuminates a Second World War not found in the great histories, a war of ambiguity and ambivalence. It is the war as it was for many, if not for most. When Eternities Met delivers a fresh and bracing perspective on the familiar, from the Allied bombing campaign to the Ardennes and the crossing of the Rhine at Remagen. A ground-level spotlight is cast on the war’s lesser-known, including an American massacre of thousands of civilian refugees that takes less than an hour, a mutiny by Ukrainian Waffen-SS troops in France who then join the local resistance while attracting the attention of the OSS, the SOE, and the NKVD, and a young death that turns a brash joke over some beers into a lifetime promise. A wartime chronicle with a particular twenty-first century resonance, When Eternities Met is drawn from numerous interviews, hundreds of letters and other personal documents, and archival research in France, Germany, London, and Washington. The main text of the nonfiction tale is buttressed by an additional hundred pages that include almost eight hundred endnotes documenting the sources used, while also providing additional tidbits of information and musings on the war, war historians, and some of the surprising connections to issues faced in our current disjointed age.

About this title

About the Author:

Matt Rohde was raised in a small Wisconsin town. Each summer during his college years he held a paid internship as a school janitor, where most of his post-secondary education took place. His first job after graduation was as a daytime bartender in a Milwaukee hotel, followed by several stints when he drove truck and loaded boxes at a cheese factory. He later completed a three-decade career with the federal government as the senior-most U.S. official responsible for multilateral trade policy coordination, serving in the Executive Office of the President through several administrations. Throughout his government tenure as an attorney, analyst, trade negotiator, and advisor to cabinet officials, he was often called upon to give presentations at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute, the FBI Academy, the National Security Agency, and the Central Intelligence Agency. His writings have appeared in the New York Times, Baltimore Sun, and other publications. He holds a juris doctor degree and a bachelor of music, and is an accomplished classical pianist.

Review:

"An absorbing and heartbreaking story." - Robert Beckhusen, editor, WAR is BORING (WarisBoring-dot-com)

About this edition

• Publisher: Pencil and Barn
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 099806260X
• ISBN 13: 9780998062600
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 458