The Fuhrer's commands were simple - forward to Moscow! And so the mighty Panzer regiments thundered into action - killing, raping, burning their way across the great wastes of Russia...But this was to be the bloodiest of all Hitler's wars - a war where Russian infantrymen threw themselves before the oncoming tanks, where women fought as savagely as men, where German guns killed Germans and Russians alike, mangling them indiscriminately into tattered hunks of meat. And finally Porta, Tiny, Barcelona, all of them - caring nothing for who should win the war - thinking only of their own survival - began the long retreat - back through the corpse-littered plains where blood and bodies were already frozen beneath the winter ice.
--This text refers to an alternate
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About the Author
Born in 1917 in Fredensborg, Denmark, Sven Hassel joined the merchant navy at the age of 14. He did his compulsory year's military service in the Danish forces in 1936 and then, facing unemployment, joined the German army. He served throughout World War II on all fronts except North Africa. Wounded eight times, he ended the war in a Russian prison camp. He wrote Legion of the Damned while being transferred between American, British and Danish prisons before making a new life for himself in Spain.
--This text refers to an alternate
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Chronology of Sven Hassel's novels,
By
This review is from: Blitzfreeze (Cassell Military Paperbacks) (Paperback)
One of the first things one notices about the Sven Hassel series is that the 27th (Penal) Panzer Regiment seem to have fought on all the European fronts and in several places at once. Oh dear. So, is it possible to read the books in any sort of chronological order? Probably drive you mad trying to work it out but here`s a start (and this isn`t all the books). Thanks to the Porta's Kitchen site for working this stuff out:-
Timescale Title and Notes mid-1941 "The Commissar" - pg38 they are pushing deep into the Ukraine, pg40 Sven mentions Nikolayev (just N of the Crimea if I remember right), and numerous references to large numbers of Soviet prisoners has to be summer of '41. October 1941 to January 1942 "Blitzfreeze" - Attack on Moscow (Operation Taifun). Winter 1942-43 (?) "Court Martial" - Set in Finland but the story doesn`t fit in with anything the Germans did in the North. Probably winter 1942-43 "O.G.P.U Prison" - Have no idea WHERE in the Eastern Front. This is a tough one; pg24 the Jaeger says he is headed to the Caucasus front so seems like '42 or '43, but the prison holds prisoners from the Kiev & Kharkov military districts (pg77). If the Soviets own the prison I would place this during summer '41. So this one is a toss up. (n.b. In OGPU Prison the Old Man refers back to Rasputin the Bear who appears in The Bloody Road To Death - so really this should be after BRTD??) Late 1942-April 1943? "S S General" - Stalingrad - the seige ended with the German surrender 31 Jan 1943 but our heroes manage to break out. Survivors were spotted crossing the Steppe as late as April 1943. In reality no known survivors made it back to the German lines. Late 1942-April 1943? "March Battalion" - On page 10 the Old Man says they are supposed to link up with the Rumanian 4th Army SW of the Volga if they can't make it back to their original lines, this means this takes place at the same time as SS General. Winter 1943 - March 1944 "Wheels Of Terror" - Early in the book the characters talk about when they were in the Caucasus, so we must be at least into 1943. Also it is winter, (as usual for a Hassel novel) so we are probably looking at 1943/44. The clincher is the fighting around Cherkassy in the later chapters of the book. Cherkassy is to the south of Kiev, and fighting took place here in early 1944. A pocket of German troops were almost encircled, but managed to escape, as described in the book. Winter 1943/44 - Start of "Wheels of Terror". Feb/March 1944 - End of Wheels of Terror. April-August 1944 "Comrades Of War" - Seems to follow on from Wheels of Terror. Sven is badly wounded in WoT, and starts CoW on a hospital train back to Germany. It is still winter at the start of the book. WoT ends with the section climbing a cliff and in CoW, (Chapter 3), Sven describes how he was wounded scaling a cliff. In the hospital in Hamburg we learn how Dr Mahler was almost implicated in the plot to assassinate Hitler (July 1944), so this gives us a date reference. We also learn that Sven and the rest spend four months recuperating in Hamburg, on top of time in the hospital in Cracow, and the two weeks on the hospital train. 1943-1944 "Assignment Gestapo" - More Hamburg and prison guard duty. Timescale guessed at - the heavy Allied bombings are a good indication. The city was bombed for an entire week around July 25, 1943. Also at the end of the book they are heading for Cassino. Jan 1944 to May 1944 "Monte Cassino" - Anzio Landings and later Battles of Monte Cassino. mid-1944 "The Bloody Road To Death" - Obviously in the Balkans, pg59 - "this is between the Greeks and the Bulgars"; pg70-SS Moslem Division soldier; escort duty goes through Corinth & Athens-Greece, Belgrade-Jugoslavia, and Budapest-Hungary; and pg221 - fighting the Russians around Jassy, Romania puts this around 6/44-8/44 or so. June 1944 to February 1945 "Liquidate Paris" - Normandy landings through to German retreat across the Rhine. August to October 1944 "Reign Of Hell" - Warsaw uprising - plus a bit extra either side....
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Classic Sven Hassel,
By Utah Blaine (Somewhere on Trexalon in District 268) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Blitzfreeze (Paperback)
This is a fictional account of the German Army's advance toward Moscow in 1941 (Operation Typhoon), and the subsequent retreat following the Soviet winter offensive in early December. The action centers around a small group of German soldiers (tankers) as they fight, whore, and plunder their way to Moscow and back. Many of the characters from other Sven Hassel novels are here including Tiny, Porta, and the Legionnaire. Somehow this group seems to survive all the bloody battles of WW II intact, and they appear on virtually every front. This book (and Hassel's writing in general) are not as rich as the more recent Eastern Front fiction by Russ Schneider, but they are entertaining and somewhat informative from a historical perspective. They do not have the historical detail of, for example, the Flashman books by George Fraser. Hassel himself supposedly served in several fronts in the German army, although his exact role appears to be a matter of some dispute. This edition was translated into `British' English, so many of the idiomatic phrases are a bit odd to an American's ear. The scale of the carnage and the unprecedented brutality of the war on the Eastern Front are graphically detailed by Hassel. The best part of this book is the effort (subterfuge) by Tiny and Porta to obtain a fine meal from Supply Sergeant Brumme! The primary weakness of this book is that other than location, it isn't really different than any of the rest his books. Grim, desperate fighting mostly, with some hilarious interludes interspersed. This isn't great literature and there isn't much in the way of intellectual fodder in this novel, but if you are looking for an action story about the Eastern Front, you may find this enjoyable.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Less fact than fiction,
By
This review is from: Blitzfreeze (Cassell Military Paperbacks) (Paperback)
Having read a couple of Sven Hassel Books in my teens, I came across them and decided to get the series complete. Being interested in the 2nd WW, I looked forward to reading this book. Unfortunately, there are several things wrong with it.
First, the story is a compilation of several shorter stories, on about the advance towards Moscow, one about a commando raid into Moscow and one about the retreat from Moscow. Then there is the page after page of ramblings by Porta (one of Sven's companions who makes up stories every time he opens his mouth), which in my opinion distracts from the main story. Sven also describes material that didn't exist yet, or wasn't used by that side, such as Panzer III's with a 50mm gun, Russian 100mmm anti tank guns, panzerfaust anti-tank weapons or concrete on Soviet T-34's to prevent magnetic mines from being attached to the hull of the tank. Sven Hassel's style of writing involves very gory details, but although that does help the feeling of being immersed in the situation at that time, at times it seems that there is little but body parts in the barbed wire and trees. Besides that, from his stories one gets the impression that rape and murder was happening on both sides of the lines on a daily basis. The occurances of friendliness or compassion are very rare indeed. I find his stories entertaining to read, but the lack of historical accuracy and the doubtful credibility do take away from the enjoyment of the reader. Sven Hassel has written better books than this one, but if you want to get your entire Sven Hassel series complete and don't mind the things I mentioned above, do go ahead and buy it!
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