Rating: 
Summary: Slim Book That Packs a Punch
Review: "The Good Soldier" is the memoirs of Austrian WWII soldier Fred Novotny. The book's introduction starts off with the proverbial Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times!" Novotny certainly had his share of "interesting times" and it is a tribute to his resilience and fundamental goodness of character that he manages to come out all right in the end with his dignity, humanity and sense of humor intact. This is a story of overcoming great adversary with a happy ending. Unlike most WWII memoirs, which begin suddenly in 1939 and end abruptly in 1945, "The Good Soldier" spans practically Novotny's entire lifetime. It begins with his childhood in Socialist Vienna, and continues without respite through the Anschluss, his service in the German Labor Service (RAD) and as a machine gunner with the elite
"GrossDeutschland" armored infantry division, his postwar years in a Soviet prison camp, his return to freedom and eventual emigration to the USA, where he ultimately finds peace and personal success. The book isn't full of "combat erotica" but there are enough anecdotes to get a good sense of what life in the Third Reich was like and how terrible war and the postwar peace could be. The RAD experiences in particular are very interesting, since there is little information published in English about this German paramilitary organization.
Novotny's descriptions of life as a "GrossDeutschland" soldier and the Soviet penal system are fascinating as well. The reader will doubtless be amazed at Novotny's good fortune through some pretty grim situations - as he was himself!
Although only 150-odd pages, "The Good Soldier" is packed with photos, drawings and editor's notes that help the reader get a real sense of Novotny's experiences in the context of the general sweep of WWII history. It's a fast but satisfying read. I quite enjoyed "The Good Soldier" and would recommend it to anyone interested in personal accounts of the Second World War.
Rating:
Summary: Slim Book That Packs a Punch
Review: "The Good Soldier" is the memoirs of Austrian WWII soldier Fred Novotny. The book's introduction starts off with the proverbial Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times!" Novotny certainly had his share of "interesting times" and it is a tribute to his resilience and fundamental goodness of character that he manages to come out all right in the end with his dignity, humanity and sense of humor intact. This is a story of overcoming great adversary with a happy ending. Unlike most WWII memoirs, which begin suddenly in 1939 and end abruptly in 1945, "The Good Soldier" spans practically Novotny's entire lifetime. It begins with his childhood in Socialist Vienna, and continues without respite through the Anschluss, his service in the German Labor Service (RAD) and as a machine gunner with the elite
"GrossDeutschland" armored infantry division, his postwar years in a Soviet prison camp, his return to freedom and eventual emigration to the USA, where he ultimately finds peace and personal success. The book isn't full of "combat erotica" but there are enough anecdotes to get a good sense of what life in the Third Reich was like and how terrible war and the postwar peace could be. The RAD experiences in particular are very interesting, since there is little information published in English about this German paramilitary organization.
Novotny's descriptions of life as a "GrossDeutschland" soldier and the Soviet penal system are fascinating as well. The reader will doubtless be amazed at Novotny's good fortune through some pretty grim situations - as he was himself!
Although only 150-odd pages, "The Good Soldier" is packed with photos, drawings and editor's notes that help the reader get a real sense of Novotny's experiences in the context of the general sweep of WWII history. It's a fast but satisfying read. I quite enjoyed "The Good Soldier" and would recommend it to anyone interested in personal accounts of the Second World War.
Rating: 
Summary: Terrific
Review: A very brief bio, but some amazing insights, and even a rare photo or two of a Knight's Cross winner whom the author served with. Does much to flesh out the divisional history with a "real" face. Better than Guy Sajer. Leaves the reader wanting more.
It is amazing how many good biographies of all the WW II armies have come out so long after the war; what a shame it was not possible to write books like this immediately after the war.
Rating: 
Summary: Brief Encounter
Review: Alfred Novotny has led a truly extraordinary life, one well worth putting to print. His life before the war, during the war, and after the war could easily have been broken up into three interesting volumes, or made into one very long book. What the reader gets, however, is a long magazine article disguised as a book. Filled with large print and pictures this undersized book falls short because of what it should have been and is not. His battle with a Russian tank is just one of many examples. The encounter is told in a sentence or two, leaving the reader wanting and disappointed. It is not an exaggeration to say that most readers could finish this "book" while waiting at the doctor's or dentist's office. That makes the price a little too high.
Rating:
Summary: Life and Death in an Elite German Division
Review: Besides upgrading my knowledge of the WWII German "Landser" (the German equiv. of a GI) "The Good Soldier" gave me a better grasp of the pre-war life of Austrians and how simple it was for the Nazi regime to manipulate minds in the primitive media situation of the 1930's. Alfred Novotny ably describes his, and presumably many German soldiers' relationship to the enemy, to leadership and courage. There are some fantastic scenes like the one where the author enters a Ukranian hut with mud floor to find a gramophone with one of his favorite records: "Stormy Weather"! The details on equipment should be of particular interest to anyone into militaria and reenacting. Like the author I am amazed by his incredibly good fortune. One must be deeply affected when a bullet penetrates one's steel helmet, tearing off the helmet's rim but doesn't cause even a scratch on your scalp and later brand-new replacements are literally blown apart in front of you, again leaving you completely unscathed...at least physically... Although this book is basically on the platoon-level the author makes it clear in which ways his division, "Grossdeutschland", differed from others. I found Novotny's recollections of the effect of Soviet front-line propagaganda units particularly valuable. Novotny is equally convincing when he recounts his years as a slave-miner in Soviet Georgia. What does surprise me is that he is not turned into a hateful person by this experience. It is nice to find not only photographs of the author and mentioned equipment but also well-reproduced documents like the author's badge certificates.
Rating:
Summary: Read it...you'll thank me later
Review: For those of us fortunate or unfortunate enough to miss the big WWII, the shelves are crowded with thousands of books designed to teach, to enterain, or to describe that great conflict. Usually these books are successful in one or the other, but Mr. Novotny's book manages to combine all three elements into one book that I litterally couldn't put down. This book grabs you and doesn't let go. You'll have so much fun reading this book you won't even notice your learning something. Great book! Get it and see for yourself.
Rating:
Summary: Read it...you'll thank me later
Review: For those of us fortunate or unfortunate enough to miss the big WWII, the shelves are crowded with thousands of books designed to teach, to enterain, or to describe that great conflict. Usually these books are successful in one or the other, but Mr. Novotny's book manages to combine all three elements into one book that I litterally couldn't put down. This book grabs you and doesn't let go. You'll have so much fun reading this book you won't even notice your learning something. Great book! Get it and see for yourself.
Rating:
Summary: The Good Soldier
Review: I am fortunate to know Fred...or so I thought. His soft Austrian accent adds so much to his saga. His ever present awkward gait that has been with him like so many memories I now understand. Always sincere, pensive and with an instrospective intensity he writes as he speaks.
It's not history retold from the 'other side's' perspective that redefines ones attitude. It's that one is reading what amounts to the diary of an Austrian German boy soldier in Hitler's army whose purpose was the exact opposite of every Allied soldier who told their story. Thousands of 'good soldiers' spent horrible periods of time in battle, in hospitals, as prisoners in war camps, or sadly prisoners of their own minds and memories. Novotny's only bitterness is aimed not at his military foes and blended with purposeful stealth into the late stage of his book.
The unabashed honesty of Fred's story is compelling and civilian as well as military. As a young waiter before being drafted he describes how he and several coworkers essentially steal some famous salami. They get found out, each slapped in the face and Novotny gets three weeks in the potato cellar. Like the rest of his story there is no faux remorse. He relates the salami saga because it says something about him; what that means he leaves to the reader.
In a 'dacha' in Russia they find an American Gramophone and one 78rpm record. Schockingly it happens to be one of his favorites, "Stormy Weather". This eventual American Austrian loved Harry James and Louis Armstrong.
Describing how that left leg was wounded he mentions that there were 8 other bullets hitting his equipment including his helmet he didn't get far enough into the hole he was digging. Many a 'hero'have conjured up details of great bravery. Fred says, "Someone was looking out after me." Honesty and heroism make strange bedfellows.
Speaking of strange bedfellows perhaps the most revealing tale in the book is Novotny's remembrance of his encounter with a young woman which he pleads as "another incident of love in war". It cannot be retold with any more seriousness or hilariousness than what you read in the book. This example of sheer determination in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles may be the best description of Fred's will and he did it almost all by himself.
Toward post war Germany he levels this paraphraed pointed observation: to those who fought your war you gave two free street car tickets to take us to officials, two 15 cent cigarette packages, find your own job, help yourself, and your mental problems are your own. A troubling and revealing view. What Fred says is crystal clear and what he means is craftily expressed. It would be difficult for any reader to close this book with the same mindset with which it was opened.
Rating:
Summary: Bravo...Dramatic, sad, cautionary...overall Outstanding
Review: I bought this book and thought "okay, I'll probably go through it quick". Boy was I wrong. Almost immediately this book grabbed me and held me until I found myself dreading it coming to an end. This isn't another "war stories" book, but a book that tells the tale of one man's struggles as he tries to make his way through his "interesting times". Mr. Novotny tells his experiences in such a way that the fear, anger, sadness, heartache, confusion, and all the other raw emotions are palpable. I recommend this book to anyone who want's to understand that "interesting time" not from a soldiers perspective...but from an ordinary man's.
Rating:
Summary: Bravo...Dramatic, sad, cautionary...overall Outstanding
Review: I bought this book and thought "okay, I'll probably go through it quick". Boy was I wrong. Almost immediately this book grabbed me and held me until I found myself dreading it coming to an end. This isn't another "war stories" book, but a book that tells the tale of one man's struggles as he tries to make his way through his "interesting times". Mr. Novotny tells his experiences in such a way that the fear, anger, sadness, heartache, confusion, and all the other raw emotions are palpable. I recommend this book to anyone who want's to understand that "interesting time" not from a soldiers perspective...but from an ordinary man's.
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