164 of 170 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Poignant and Powerful., July 1, 2004
This review is from: The Forgotten Soldier (Paperback)
This is simply one of the most memorable and important books that I've ever encountered. I first read it in 1994 and it remains as vivid in my mind today as it did on the day ten years ago that I finished it. I have heard questions regarding its historical accuracy but can only say that his account of the nature of war can be supported by other German memoirs of the Eastern Front such as "The Black March." Was the GrossDeutschland Division in all the places that he claimed? Perhaps not, but I will say that, as the Eastern Front disintegrated, it was far from unusual for scratch companies to be formed regardless of where the units derived. Either way, it's a magnificent read. His desription of the Hitler Jugend before the battle of Belgorod is absolutely priceless with their banners reading "The World Belongs to Us." In chapter four, his romance with the Berlin girl Paula happens to be one of the most engaging and believable relationships I've ever run across in print. I've read it aloud to high school students and they loved it. The book should appeal to anybody who has experienced passion.
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105 of 107 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This book really tells it like it was, May 28, 1998
By A Customer
It meant a lot to me when I first read the book "The Forgotten Soldier." I was thoroughly impressed. I found right away some mistakes, but that was mostly unimportant. What really mattered was the emotions it invoked. Feelings I had surpressed for more than 25 years, it all came back and a few times I had to put the book down. I just could not continue. All the emotions, all the fears, everything. How can anyone who was not there criticize anybody who was there and lived through it. I liked the book and will always say so. We were very proud of our "Aermelstreifen" (arm band) "Grossdeutschland," still are. A few others from my division are finally coming around to realization that Guy Sajer did not write a novel but what he felt. I served in the war with 17th Company, Panzer Grenadier Division "Grossdeutschland" as a Funker (radioman) for my sergeant, with the Infanterie-Geschutz Kompanie, 15 cm heavy infantry howitzers. It was an interesting life, to say the least. I have to say I liked it because that is where everything happened. Whenever I was up front, which was 29 days of the month, mostly all hell broke loose and when I was relieved by another fellow, nothing happened when he was there, when I came back, everything started all over again. This was all when I was a corporal. I now live in the United States, but I still keep in touch with my comrades from the "Grossdeutschland". In the Pamphlet "Army History" on page 18, a Hans Wegener hit it right on the head about Guy Sajer and I can only second everything that man said. Helmut Ortlepp
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74 of 88 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Vivid (And Longwinded) Account of the Eastern Front Collapse, September 8, 2004
This review is from: The Forgotten Soldier (Paperback)
One of the essential preparations for modern warfare is to deny the humanity of one's enemy. This makes it much easier in psychological terms to both kill, and then to live with the knowledge that one has killed. And in the years following the end of WWII, the disclosure of the full extent of the Holocaust has done this in reverse. It's hard to imagine regular people committing such acts, and shades of gray are tossed out the window, so that the entire German military is equated with the Nazi party, and thus evil. For younger Americans, Nazis are cartoon villains invoked whenever a villain of unquestionable evil is required. And German soldiers in field gray are usually faceless automatons (see, for example, Saving Private Ryan, the Band of Brothers series, the Medal of Honor video game).
For anyone seeking an alternate perspective of the common German soldier, this book is an invaluable (if overlong) work. Sajer was a half-German, half-French teenager of conflicted identity who enlisted in the Wehrmacht in order to be part of something glorious (although he never really seems clear what that is). Like so many naive young men seduced by the idea of war and being a soldier, it doesn't take long for reality to intrude. Following a vigorous training, he becomes part of the Rollbahn supply corps. Hundreds of pages of sheer terror follow, as he and his friends are thrown into the maw of the Eastern front.
Most people have more than a passing knowledge of WWII know that the Eastern front was a big mistake on the part of the Germans. Between the insane winters, the overstretched supply lines, constant partisan harassment, and ultimately, the sheet number of Red Army troops, the Germans never had a chance. Knowing that on a strategic level is one thing, but hearing about what this meant to the average soldier on the ground is something else. And hearing it from someone who was there is even more compelling. You've never read about being cold like this. Cold that cracked the hands and caused sores so that men would urinate on each other's hands in order to provide brief relief. Hunger was the other major issue, and it's impossible to conceive of men living in such conditions surviving on the meager portions available.
Terror and misery is the major theme of the book, as the front collapses and Sajer spends most of the war retreating. He and his friends volunteer for the Gross Deutschland, a renown SS division, which doesn't appreciably improve their plight. Although they were previously running supplies to front line positions, they now find themselves manning positions in rearguard actions, constantly being strafed by Russian airplanes who began to control the sky, and often on the verge of being overrun by Russian tanks or infantry. As Sajer's unit falls back through the Ukraine and over the Baltic coast and into Prussia, the chaos is palpable and it seems remarkable that the German army managed to remain any semblance of order. And ultimately, it simply becomes a matter of racing to find some British or American troops to surrender to before the Russians catch up.
That's one of the several minor flaws of the book, the Russians are entirely portrayed as barely human savage hordes who would mindlessly throw themselves into battle, complete with war cries. Granted, the German soldier was probably indoctrinated to think of them that way, but Sajer only occasionally displays any empathy for them as fellow soldiers. Another minor problem is that the book is awfully long-winded. There's a lot of interesting detail, but the problem is that you have to sometimes slog through uninteresting detail to find it. There's also a saccharine love story that seems very hokey.
It should be noted that there have been claims made that the book is a fake, and that Sajer made the whole thing up. These claims focus on particular details and have been fairly convincingly rebutted in a vigorous debate that took place in publications like Army Journal, (copies of these exchanges can be found online fairly easily). It's worth noting that since the book's original French publication in 1967, no one has disputed its description of life for the German soldier on the Eastern front. Others have criticized the book on the grounds that it attempts to engender sympathy for an army that destroyed Europe and made the Holocaust possible, and that, essentially, "they got what they deserved." To a certain extent this is valid, since Sajer has said repeatedly that the book is a tribute to his fellow soldiers and to their bravery and suffering. But if one does feel sympathy for Sajer and his fellow soldiers, it at least means that the reader has a true sense of the horror of war and will keep this knowledge in mind when the next time their own country rushes to battle.
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