Customer Reviews

S. S. General

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Sven Hassel manages to capture the pure essence of survival in a world gone mad. his stories are realistically horrific yet can capture your mind in a book, which after reading through the first few chapters, you won't want to stop reading it, and once you've finished, you want more.

Out of all Sven Hassel's books, SS General is not only the most intruguing but also the most enertaining. He manages to combine an excellent war story while preserving a uniue repetoire the reader achieves with all the usual characters (Tiny, Porta, etc) A brillinat book, read it!

Sven Hassel is a true survivor. His personal account of the horrors of war, the futility and the hope that you must keep going against the odds are no better summarised than in the SS General. The amazing story of his escape from the hell of Stalingrad is compulsory reading.

For anyone interested in this campaign or the Eastern Front in general, SS General (along with Blitzfreeze) is a must.
Hassel potrays the full horror of the encirclement with a cold eye for the searing detail that cannot be achieved by anyone who did not freeze and starve on the Eastern Front himself.

all the books sven wrote are great.i cant pick any of them which i found the best. the roughness and the extreme humor combined can't be found by any author this days lets honour the man !!!!

If you want to read about the complete stupidity of war and the pure incompetence of the generals and higher ups whose decisions mean life or death to the common soldier, this is a must read. The auuthor's experiences with his commanders hold true not only for Germany but any other nation which goes to war for whatever reason. The lower ranks on the front lines know the truth which their commanders not in the field have absolutely no idea. The orders from the top can be disasterous.

This is another must read from beginning to end. Its riveting story makes the reader want to read until the book is finished and then perhaps read again.

Reading Sven Hassel since 1967 and he's my favourite author.His books are of a kind you will read and read and read.... so you must not forget that time too many innocent people died. Sven Hassel has prooved in his books the senselessness of the war. Who can tell me more about Sven Hassel? Joop van der Does

SS General was a thrilling yet creative aspect of the battle. Sven Hassle made A fantastic group
of characters, terrifying settings, and a perfect conflict to wrap the story up, Sven Hassle told a "over the edge experience" plot, very powerful theme
The Characters was Sven Hassle is a guy that has fear but does not show it a leader (Ss general), Porta one of his really great buddies. Tiny is a guy that is doing it for his dream. Gregor a man of hatred and is a jerk yet they stick together. Legionnaire the shyest of them all. These are the main characters there are Lots of other soldiers, Generals and other people that are only in the book for a brief moment.
This book took place in Russian enemy territory, and in Germany. Sven and his comrades ran up and down the freezing winter days of Russia and Germany. They setting took place in Stalingrad, boot camp, enemy lines, the woods, and other little towns they embark on.
The conflict of the story was mainly living the bitter cold and trying to stay alive, without food or water. They ate blood snow, ate Russian soldiers. And took everything they could get. And to do what there leader told them to do Hitler.
As the plot went on it started by going on a mission to Stalingrad and when they got there enemy was one step a head of them and trapped Sven And his buddies. And they had to battle tanks, and masses of soldiers, cold, and starvation.
There are lots of little themes in this book but I see that the moral of this story is. You got to fight for what's right no matter what, and never quit.

I read this book almost thirty years ago, and images from it are still seared into my memory: the anguish of the soldiers trapped in the frozen hell of winter, unable to escape as Russian tanks roll up at the same time every day playing cheerful music as they randomly blow up foxholes; the "supply drop" which is not what it at first appears (I won't give away the bitter irony of the scene); the long march back home through the frozen tundra with soldiers literally freezing where they sit; and, of course, the brutal bitter twist at the end. I don't know if this book is based on personal experience or not, but it is certainly the most convincing novel of the horrors of war that I have read. Read this along with Das Boot.

Sven Hassel's novel "SS General" exposes the hideous brutality that was the Second World War. In this book, as in most of his other novels, he writes history as fiction. He is the protagonist of his own works. He sees friends and enemies die in the cauldrons of Stalingrad, Normandy, and Monte Cassino. In SS General, Hassel and his companions are led out of Stalingrad by a renegade SS general, who succeeds in doing exactly that and is executed by a firing squad for having 'abandoned' his post. Hassel also spends considerable time in portraying the murderous antics of a true-life Nazi, Theodore Eicke, who graduated from the ranks of being a concentration camp commandant to that of a SS field general who was given carte blanche by the Fuhrer to execute anyone he pleased. Hassel somehow survives the frozen snows of Stalingrad and the itchy palms of the German field police who executed nearly as many front line soldiers as were killed by the Russians. "SS General" is probably the best in the series of nightmares that Sven Hassel nightly relives. As you read his books, you learn that suffering has a purpose--to prepare for further outrages on your soul. No one tells this message as well as he does.