My name is Adrian Matthes, I am 25 years old and I live and study in Erlangen. My interest in history began in my childhood with a fascination for knight castles, pirate ships and the ancient Romans. I only began to study the Second World War in my youth and initially I researched my family history. The memories of the war were always present in my grandparents and other older relatives, and occasionally the fate of family members who lost their lives in the war was discussed.
When I was 13, I went to a flea market in my hometown and ended up talking to an older gentleman from a neighboring town. It turned out that he had served as a tank driver in the German army during World War II. This was a formative encounter for me, because he was able to answer many of my burning questions and took a lot of time to tell me about his youth. He took great pains to give me a realistic view of what happened, not omitting the immense suffering of war.
Over the years, a real friendship has developed between us. When I was about 17 years old, I started to write down the key points of his stories, which I now knew almost by heart. My intention was to be able to reproduce his reports authentically and in his own words at a later date. The notes, which soon grew into a small booklet, met with interest among friends. Eventually, we published a small book.
The demand was overwhelming and within a few weeks we had received hundreds of orders from all over the world. Soon there was a second and third edition. With the income, we were finally able to finance a trip to Normandy together. There, he showed me the positions of his unit's former positions in the terrain and we also visited some military cemeteries where he showed me the final resting place of his comrades. We were given the opportunity to ride in “his” tank again and then gave presentations to an interested audience.
Through this endeavor, I came into contact with other surviving war veterans from a wide range of military branches. Encouraged by the success of the first book, I started documenting more memories alongside my engineering studies, which I had begun in the meantime. In the last seven years, 13 books have been written, some of which have also been published in English, Spanish and Hungarian.
2025 befinde ich mich im Masterstudium und meiner Leidenschaft für das Recherchieren, Nachforschen und Schreiben bin ich treu geblieben. Es ist – 80 Jahre nach Kriegsende – schwer geworden noch lebende Kriegsteilnehmer zu finden, die sich für ein Buchprojekt eigenen. Ich habe deshalb begonnen mich anderen Themen zu widmen und 2023 eine Chronik über den Luftkrieg in meinem Heimatlandkreis veröffentlicht. Auch in Zukunft möchte ich noch zu ausgewählten Themen publizieren. Sie kennen noch lebende Veteranen oder sind im Besitz von Tagebuchaufzeichnungen, unveröffentlichten Manuskripten oder Fotoalben? Schreiben Sie mir! Ich freue mich über jegliches Material, das für eine faire Geschichtsbetrachtung zur Verfügung gestellt wird!
Adrian Matthes, Erlangen, 2025
English 
German